We are still here and will be for a further two
nights at least, having extended our booking this morning in full confidence
that there is enough to fill the extra days and maybe even more. The day
started less impressive than yesterday, the sky overcast and the breeze adding
to the cool temperatures.
A fisherman risking his life on Newcastle's Pacific coast |
The sky had not fallen on Whyalla and wiped it off
the face of South Australia as the opposition had predicted if the Carbon Tax
Bill was passed and enacted on this very day; Australians are not happy
with their lying prime minister.
Our next port of call was the new Newcastle Museum
which is not where our Tomtom directed us, but down nearer the foreshore close
to the Information Centre. The volunteer at the Centre directed us to the free Sunday
parking in Hunter Street. He started to mutter about the cost of parking in Newcastle,
a matter which we could have contributed to, but bit his tongue. We nodded
sagely and indicated that we supported his view entirely however would also
keep mum on the subject for now.
The museum is now located in three of the
heritage-listed Honeysuckle Railway Workshops, which played such an important role
of the city. Perhaps the curator was he or she who set Wellington’s Te Papa Museum
up? We first visited the museum in New Zealand’s capital city about ten years
ago, maybe earlier and were not at all impressed. It is as if the old museum
was crammed with memorabilia, too much to work with and so the curator flung his
hands in the air, plucked a few items from the pile and set the resulting
exhibitions up in the most minimalistic way possible.
The first of the three buildings is occupied by A Newcastle Story, a concept that initially
excited me. However the displays are very minimal and set in huge walls with inadequate
explanation. This particular exhibition is more suited to locals who know the
city geographically and can recognise each location and enjoy the brief resume
of the local history of that particular spot. Somehow it did not meet my
expectations or needs, but then I am only one of many. Chris was not impressed
either.
Another building houses a wonderful exhibition
titled Supernova and Mininova, a
collection of interactive exhibits to challenge and instruct in science, maths
and engineering; very modern, very popular with families and an absolute
treasure for young minds. Unfortunately many of the exhibits were faulty and obviously
resources are not such to cater for an in-house fixit womble. For me
personally, a physics dunce, most of the educational aspect went straight over
my head.
The third building is dedicated to celebrating Newcastle’s
two major industries, coal mining and BHP steel, an exhibition titled Fire and Earth. There is a light and
sound show on the hour where a hologram or the like spoke to us about life in
the steelworks. BHP Steel started production in 1915 and operated right through
to 1999, at its peak through the 1960s. This exhibition was very good but still
left gaps in the story. Probably 8/10.
It was lunchtime when we emerged. We decided to drive
on to Ash Island to the Koorangang Wetlands. The promotional city map we had
was so out of scale (as it explained in the very small print) that it was
nearly afternoon tea time by the time we crossed the south arm of the Hunter
River on to the island and parked at the entrance. Well, perhaps that is a
slight exaggeration, however Chris did remark that he would not have wanted to
come here today had he realised the distance from the centre of Newcastle.
After lunch we set off on the boardwalk across the
mangrove swamps. Ash Island covers 1,590 hectares when it is not under water.
In pre-European days, Aboriginals hunted and gathered food on and around the
twenty or so islands and mudflats of the Hunter River estuary. The natural
tidal flow, both marine and flood, ensured the abundance of wildlife and fauna.
Within twenty years of European settlement timber had been removed from the
estuary. In the 1860s Ash Island was subdivided, cleared and drained, then
settled by fifty five families operating seventeen dairies. The island flooded
regularly however the inhabitants were obviously stauncher than my great great
grandmother Jane who was not prepared to put up with the floods further
upstream at Maitland. It took until the great floods of 1955 when the
government took the land back and leased it for grazing. Finally in 1993, the
Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project was launched and Ash Island, the
Tomago Wetlands covering 800 hectares and 10 hectares of the Stockton Sandspit were
taken in hand. Today the area is used for recreation, education, tourism and
research.
We drove to the northern edge of the island and
walked along the boundary of the eighty eight hectares put aside for cattle grazing. By
the time we returned to the cruiser, others had decided that the Kooragang
Wetlands was a good Sunday destination as we had. Up until then we had seemed
the only ones on the island. I imagine it is quite popular in the summer time,
however today remained dull and swamps just don’t seem to do it for most
people.
The road back to Belmont just happened to run close
to Blackbutt Reserve and I had read the name of this place in conjunction with
koalas. Now you know me; I have a thing about koalas even if I have never actually
touched one. And so we detoured and parked in the more elevated section of this
one hundred and eighty seven hectare reserve. The bush all about was quite lovely, an oasis in the
middle of the suburbs of New Lambton, Kotara and Adamstown Heights. A dozen or
so kookaburras watched our progress as we set off on down the hill following
the signs “wildlife”. At the bottom of the hill, better accessed from the lower
road, we found many picnicking and enjoying the “zoo” free to the public.
There is a small area dedicated to exhibits all
housed in relatively new enclosures. Here we saw a couple of koalas, a couple
of wombats, a couple of spotted quolls, Brush-tailed Rock wallabies, a very large and beautiful diamond
python, a lace monitor lying as flat as it could in its cave, drab wet frogs, lorikeets,
parrots, finches, ducks, herons and much more. While nothing beats wildlife in
the wilderness, this was very good and is an excellent freebie attraction to
the traveller with a budget.
By now the sky had brightened but the later
afternoon air was already cooling. We headed home via Charlestown in search of
the official magazine to accompany the 2012
Tour de France which started last night; three weeks of excitement ahead
and very late nights for my husband. Just as well his health is improving each
day.
No comments:
Post a Comment