English: By the 1880s the harbour at Kiama had begun dispatching blue metal in small ketches and schooners for the Sydney road system. At the settlement of Bombo just north of the town, a jetty was completed in 1883 for the shipment of blue metal to Sydney, and steam powered crushing machines installed at the quarry.

Although Bombo was not as reliable a port as Kiama because of its exposed position, considerable quantities of blue metal were taken from there in the 1880s and 1890s. In the early days many of the quarry workers at Bombo lived in tents, and the whole area, with great clouds of dust blown across the camp, had the appearance of a frontier gold mining town.

In the early nineties the colony's railway department took over the Bombo quarry to provide for its own blue metal needs, and extended the railway from Port Kembla to the little settlement. From that time on, the jetty was rarely used, finally falling down some years later.