[11] John Oxley failed to realise the potential of this river in 1820 as he did not navigate far enough up-river to see the magnificent stands of timber and the fertile land.

In 1826 Captain Wright travelled overland from Port Macquarie and explored to the head of navigation at Belgrave Falls, a series of rapids to the west of the present town of Kempsey.

Major Archibald Clunes Innes, Commandant of Port Macquarie Penal Settlement, sent the first government gang of Australian red cedar (Toona ciliata) cutters to work there in 1827.

When Europeans arrived in the area around the 1820s the river mouth was just south of Grassy Head, and almost a mile wide with a sand spit in the middle.

[12] The coastal strip extending from South West Rocks to Grassy Head is a wide delta with various channels connected to the river.

In 1893 a flood enlarged an opening near South West Rocks and the department elected to improve that, called the New Entrance, though Coode had thought it not enough to drain all the waters of the district.