Bombo Quarry Headland

Bombo Quarry Headland is one of the most recognised landmarks in and around Kiama; the unusual headland shape is a result of many years of basalt quarrying.

In 1838, farmer James Holt bought 320 hectares of land at Kiama, before selling it to the Railways Commission of NSW 50 years later. Columns of rock were discovered on the site, basalt mining began, and the Bombo Headland Quarry was established.

In 1880, quarrying commenced at the Bombo Headland. The basalt here was abundant and easy to access as there was little to no overburden of other materials. The process of cutting cubes of basalt was developed at the Bombo Point quarry. This cubed basalt was used to fill the roadways between the tracks on tram and train lines. In the early years, 70-80 men were employed in the quarry to ‘hand dress’ the stone ready for transport.

By 1887, steam crushing machines and equipment were introduced to crush the stone, which at that time was mainly used in road base in the Sydney area. Hundreds of tonnes of blue metal was transported to Sydney each week as Kiama became the main provider of blue metal for the colony.

In 1883, a large jetty was built on the northern side of the headland, now known as the Boneyard, to move the mined basalt up to Sydney. The jetty was quite exposed, so it was not always a reliable port for loading the ships. The jetty operated into the 1890s.

The railway was extended from Sydney to Bombo (then known as North Kiama) in 1887, and a side-track was constructed that led to the Bombo Quarry. This meant that more basalt started to be transported by train rather than shipping. The Bombo jetty subsequently fell into disrepair and eventually disappeared.

The Railways Commissioners eventually bought the Bombo Quarry in 1890 and continued to work the quarry until the mid-1920s. Any of the headland that was not needed for quarrying was transferred in ownership to Captain Samuel Charles (the owner of Eureka estate in Kiama Downs).

The Bombo Quarry was closed during the Depression years, but was re-opened in 1937. It stayed open until 1941, then closed again until 1944, when it re-opened for a short period one last time.

Today we are left with some beautiful and iconic rock formations, now recognised as a natural phenomenon offering geologists insights into the Earth's core mantle. The distinct hexagonal columns formed 270 million years ago when hot lava erupted onto the Earth's surface at a temperature of about 1,200 degrees Celsius, and then cooled, contracting and fracturing in columns in a formation up to 20 or 30 metres thick. When magma fills a fracture in older rocks (known as an igneous dyke) it brings xenoliths (fragments of foreign rock) to the surface from hundreds of kilometres down, revealing glimpses into the composition of the Earth's core.