A morning walk in Newcastle NSW

[Peter FitnessParticipant @peterfitness34857]

Unlike Dave Wooley, who regularly takes afternoon walks in a location where he can take photos of ships, my walks are usually nowhere near water. However, on a recent caravan trip through outback Queensland and down through the northern tablelands of NSW to Sydney, then home via the east coast of NSW, we visited my wife's home town of Newcastle NSW. Newcastle is at the mouth of the Hunter River, and boasts the largest coal loading facility in the world. It is massive, and is capable of handling many large bulk carriers at the same time. It is served by four rail lines bringing coal in extremely long trains from the mines in the upper Hunter Valley, and operates 24 hours a day. It really is something to see.

We stayed in a caravan park at Stockton, right on the river, on the north side directly opposite the Newcastle CBD, which can be accessed by a small passenger ferry. The ferry operates about every 30 minutes in each direction, and the trip takes only about 6 or 7 minutes.

Unfortunately, the weather was not very good for our stay, and included a terrifying night when winds gusted up to 135 kmh. We were lucky that our van did not suffer any structural damage, although it did leak a little. Much of the greater Newcastle area was blacked out for days, and thousands of trees were literally shredded, creating a huge mess for local councils and residents to clean up.

On the day of our departure the weather cleared, and I took the opportunity to go for a walk along the northern breakwall where I took some photos of some maritime activity at the mouth of the river. The lighthouse is on Nobbys Head, on the southern side of the river mouth, and can be seen in some of the photos. The dirty water, the result of torrential rain in the catchment area, can be clearly seen, as can the delineation between the dirty and clean water.

The first photo is of the Port of Newcastle dredge, David Allan,

Peter.

Edited By Peter Fitness on 13/05/2015 08:15:45

[Peter FitnessParticipant @peterfitness34857]

[David WooleyParticipant @davidwooley82563]

Hi Peter nice pictures and like the tug shots .

keep walking and keep shooting

Dave Wooley

[Tony HadleyParticipant @tonyhadley]

Peter,

Just wondering if you have heard anything about the restoration of the paddle steamer, William IV. Haven't heard anything of late about this restoration which was being undertaken in Newcastle NSW. William IV was featured in the Australian TV series, The Liners (was also sold on DVD).

As Dave says, nice photographs.

[Author]

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