Episode 70 Newcastle to Lake Macquarie

 

For Episode 69, our last blog post, we spent 6 weeks in the Port Stephens/Nelson Bay area.

The weather wasn’t perfect but much better than the terrible weather we had during Episode 68 at Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

In Port Stephens we kayaked, SUP’d, walked, hiked, explored, did long tender trips around the bay and to Myall Lakes and went out to Broughton Island to fish and explore.

Next we sailed south down to Newcastle on a Thursday and pulled into our first marina berth for over 6 months.

Once we were in the marina, we set about cleaning Lorelei. It took 2 full days to wash, clean, scrub and de-stain.

It was lovely weather and Paul was able to fly the drone over the marina at sunset on Friday night. 

We celebrated on the Saturday Night by walking up to Beumont St in Hamilton, to the Hawker Street Markets and the food stalls. 

We arrived early and decided to walk the entire length of the restaurant district looking for food options.

There were a lot of bars with Happy Hour drinks, and we stopped at a few that had craft Ginger Beer on tap.

Despite having loads of international food options, we ended up eating at an awesome traditional Indian Restaurant called Raj’s Corner.

After dark, we revisited the Hawkers Markets for another look, but it was really busy and the live music was very psychedelic and crazy loud.

The next day we packed down Lorelei and headed off to Bundaberg to pick up our car and camper trailer.

Instead of flying, we decided to do something different and catch the XPT train.

Flights were very expensive and it was still a long way to the airport from the marina. 

The upside of the train option was the station was only 250m from Lorelei’s marina berth. 

We booked into First Class on the XPT Train for more comfort and it was great.

We surprisingly slept well overnight and arrived at Roma St Station in the Brisbane CBD at 4:50am.

Right next to the station is an amazing Parkland Gardens.
We walked up and enjoyed the colourful lighting just before dawn.

Once the sun came up, we were able to walk right around the park and view the beautiful manicured gardens.

At 10am we boarded the QLD Tilt Train to Bundaberg.

It was more modern than the XPT and had USB charging and better tables, etc. but wasn’t as comfortable. The seating felt hard on our bums after a few hours.

It was still a great experience, and we arrived at Bundaberg at 4pm, perfectly timed to book into a motel only 300m from the train station.

Fortunately, there was a great Thai Restaurant across the road, and we were able to eat Dinner at 5pm before crashing into bed by 7pm. 

The next morning we caught a bus out to the Marina where our car was stored.

It was a 25km journey but only cost 50c each. Bargain!!! 

Gary the local marine mechanic who worked on Lorelei was kind enough to service our car the week before as he and his son are Nissan enthusiasts and had owned the same model as our car previously. 

As they were out working on boats in the shipyard, we were able to park our camper trailer in their workshop and do a quick wheel bearing grease and service.

For this we were very grateful.

We then took it to the car wash for a much needed scrub.

We went back into the city and had Ricky from CLR Fabrication (who made Lorelei's hardtop), make some new fiddle rails for our cooktop to hold pots and pans in place during rough weather.

He also modified our new diesel heater exhaust outlet so it was waterproof.

It was late by the time we had finished, so we found a free camp spot on the river just 500m from the city and stayed overnight.

We were able to see the tilt train go over the train bridge right next to the free camp both during the afternoon and again as it returned later after dark.

After a late start, due to everything being soaking wet with dew, we were able to motor 3 hours south to Lisa’s brother Len's property in Pomona on the QLD Sunshine Coast.

It was also wet with a lot of rain over the last few weeks, but the cheeky birds were still out and about and stealing our food from the back deck.
 

We watched the 2^nd state of origin football game that night and Paul fell asleep before the half time siren. 

The next day we went through Brisbane in the middle of the day to escape the horrible peak hour traffic that is a major problem in the area.

We arrived at the Gold Coast mid afternoon and were able to go to a SUP store that was clearing out their summer stock of SUP covers to make way for the winter Snowboard stock.

We bought 4 new matching covers for our boards as the old ones were fading and the cheap zippers were seizing.

It was back to the on the freeway for the afternoon and a great run south to a free camp called New Italy which was halfway between Ballina and Grafton.

The next day was a long run, as we pushed south all the way to Paul’s parents' house on the NSW Central Coast. It was a long day offset by a great Thai lunch and fuel stop at Kempsey.

For the next 2 days we aired out the camper trailer, washed the linen, stripped out the things we needed to either send back to home in Western Australia, keep in the camper, sell or load onto Lorelei.

We were able to pack the camper away in the garage and leave it until we are able to pick it up and bring it to Tasmania when we have Lorelei safely berthed there.

On the way back to Newcastle, we also caught up with Lisa’s sister Sue and husband Ken.

Upon returning to Lorelei, we had a really busy week.

We replaced the old SUP and Mal covers with the new ones. The size and colour were perfect and they blended in nicely.

Now we had all the parts ready to go, Paul worked on installing the diesel heater.

It took ages as he had to custom make multiple ducting outlets and bend a custom exhaust set-up. It required lagging and painting.

Paul snuck around the quiet back streets of the industrial area and managed to find a tree and a fence where he was able to rig up a line and hang the items that needed spray painting and the lagging that needed painting with a brush.

Once dry and assembled, Paul mounted them onto the wall.

We sold our old wetsuits (and the ones that didn’t fit anymore), all of the old SUP and Mal covers and the factory alloy SUP paddles.

Paul sourced a great second-hand flatwater kiteboard (as he only had wave boards on Lorelei) and a new bar and lines as well.

After a wash and polish, the board came up like new.

Paul touched up the paint on the bow from the dramas we had on the Gold Coast with the horrible wind against tide conditions, that caused scratches from the anchor chain. It didn’t all come out, but the major scratches and dents were sealed until we could slip Lorelei again next year.

One day Paul drove 1 hour to Stroud to pick up a box of scuba compressor parts from Simon at Dive Tek.

The next day lifted the 2 new Suzuki Outboards off Lorelei and took them down to Belmont to the local Suzuki dealer for their 20 hour service.

It turned into a mission to get them off Lorelei, onto a trolley on the dock, pushed up to the car and loaded into the back of the 4WD.

Thankfully the marina staff helped get them into the car and our next-door neighbours at the marina helped us get them back onboard.

Lisa resigned from her job with 4 weeks’ notice to work which would allow her to complete the financial year accounting before leaving.

She was so looking forward to retiring and enjoying full-time cruising.

In between work, we would take a few hours out and explore Newcastle.

We took a great walk from Nobby’s Headland out along the break wall.

The swell was up and we wanted to see what it was like in a heavy swell.

At the end there were some great carvings in the blocks that make up the break wall.

The question about whether waves actually break over the wall was confirmed when a large set hit and soaked a family that were walking nearby.

On the way back we saw Dolphins in the harbour entrance and a cheeky Sealion swimming along the rock wall right below where we were standing. 

It was quite shy and didn’t like us taking photos…..  😊 

On the way back we did see the sign warning of the waves breaking over the wall.
It was a bit late…!!!

On the way back to the car, we could see back to the city foreshore and we stopped to watch a large bulk carrier exiting the port.

Another day we explored Fort Scratchley which is at Newcastle East and just near Nobby’s Head.

 

 

It was built in 1882 to defend Newcastle against a possible Russian attack and was used also during WW2 to defend the city.

The Fort’s guns were not fired in anger until the 8th June 1942 during the shelling of Newcastle.

The Australian Army left the site in 1972 and has since been owned by the city and run by volunteers as a historical museum.

The views from the fort are terrific and Paul was able to fly the drone from there as well.

It was also a great location to watch the large ships coming and going through the entrance channel.

On the weekend we headed back down to the Central Coast for a special 40th Birthday Party at Norah Head for friend Alex.

We have known Alex and his parents for over 30 years and used to holiday with them when Alex was a child and played Basketball with them too.

It was a great night at the home of the Norah Head Hammerhead’s Spearfishing Club.

The spearfishing trophies that were made by Brett (who is one of the founding members of the club) are awesome.

We caught up with lots of friends and met lots of really nice people – many of whom were local spearo’s that we had lots in common with.

On the Sunday night, Lisa’s friend Natasha came to visit.

Lisa and Tash have been friends for decades and played State League Basketball together for many years.

On top of that, Tash and husband Luke are keen divers and we used to dive together back in the 1990’s.

It was so awesome to catch up, particularly as Tash was heading to Canada two days later.

The following week was much like the last – more work, more servicing and more exploring.

We visited the local Newcastle Museum and were which gave us a great insight into how the city was built around the BHP steelworks.

There was also a special limited time display on the fashion magazine industry in Newcastle.

Paul's favourite display was a history of surfing in the area.

It featured a section on the local Surfest competitions of the 80’s and 90’s that attracted the world’s best surfers.

Paul used to attend the events and there was a photo of the event.

He is pointing to where he was sitting on the day.

He was stoked to see a Mark Richards Surfboard on display.

Mark is a local surfer and 2-time world champion.

It is exactly the same as Paul’s first board he owned – a MR 5'11" twin fin with a swallow tail and single flyers.

There was even a section about one of Paul’s favourite bands back in the day – Silverchair.

One night, Paul’s niece Claire and nephew Dean came up to visit and stay overnight for Claire’s 21st Birthday.

We took them out to a restaurant overlooking the harbour.

On the walk home we just had to stop into the ice creamery for dessert.

Now that Paul had the parts for the scuba compressor, he was finally able to get the tools out and start to overhaul it.

It started out fine, but once he started to look at the Honda motor, issues arose.

The fuel lines were gummed up and the fuel tank had a lot of built-up residues.

So, he went to buy a service kit only to find that they don’t make those units anymore and kits were scarce.

We decided to repower it with an electric engine, but after a lot of research, we worked out that the more water resistant Teco models were out of stock in Australia and our new generator was questionable as to whether it would be able to run it with the hi amperage loads to start.

After more procrastinating, it was back to the Honda dealer to get a new engine – only to find they were out of stock and couldn’t supply for weeks...

Arrrggghhh!!!!!

Paul was getting frustrated and felt like he was going in circles.

So, he rang Simon at Divetek and asked for help and guidance.

Fortunately, Simon had a larger Honda engine in stock and was happy to come down to Newcastle sometime during the next week and install it onboard.

One day we decided to do a small road trip along the coastline starting at Nobbys Head and headed south.

We went around the base of Fort Scratchley to have a look at the Newcastle Ocean Baths and Canoe Pool.

The surf was big and the local surfers were having a blast off the rocky point breaks.

It was cool to see Newcastle Beach after seeing the Surfest Photo in the Museum.

The area had changed a lot in 40 years!!

After exploring around the headlands and the Bogey Hole, we walked along the Anzac Memorial Bridge which opened in 2015.

The elevated 450m long walkway has incredible views and is adorned with plaques and storyboards dedicated to honouring the memory of soldiers who fell during the First World War.

It also makes for fantastic whale watching during the season.

Looking back towards the city also offered amazing views.

It was pretty cool to see a White Bellied Sea Eagle soaring below the boardwalk.

It’s not often you get to look down on them flying along.

Down at Bar Beach, we stopped for Paul to look at the Bar Beach Skate Park.

The bowl is huge with the deep section having about an 11-foot radius and 2 feet of Paul vowed to return later when it was dry – with a helmet & lots of padding.

At least the local birds were enjoying the puddles of water from the recent rain.

The last stop was the Mereweather Surf Club and Ocean Baths where Paul was able to fly his drone from the lookout above.

One the way home, we stopped in at our favourite restaurant in Hamilton, Raj’s Corner.

For our last weekend in Newcastle, we did a major reprovision of long-term food stores and loaded almost a tonne of diesel and unleaded fuel onboard.

It was great timing as 48 hours later, the government reduced the fuel excise and fuel stations immediately put the prices up.

On the Saturday night, Paul was able to catch up with school friend Anita.

Anita’s dad is a well-known yacht designer who made the molds for the local Northshore range of yachts.

Later in life he also built a one-off sleek 41ft racing yacht called Seraya in QLD.

Anita was able to take ownership of Seraya and sailed it down from QLD to Newcastle the same day we left Brisbane and we kept in touch each day as we sailed south.

We were able to go and have a look at Seraya as she was only 50m from Lorelei.

The timber work both inside and out is incredible and she is in immaculate condition.

Anita then came over to Lorelei, and we had a great night of catching up over nibbles, drinks and dinner.

The next morning, we logged into our blog stats and were amazed to see we had 11750 views on our blog in just 3 weeks.

We were stunned! That’s over 500 per day on average and still climbing.

WOW!

The final week of our time at the Newcastle Cruising yacht Club Marina was full on.

Monday we had the car booked into the local tyre and suspension place in Mayfield to have new suspension fitted.

We’d been wanting to get it done for ages as it was sagging with the new canopy's weight, but they wanted to charge a fortune in both WA and QLD.

Paul was lucky enough to see a Fulcrum Suspension EOFY package on the web so he ordered one with a 2” lift and had it fitted.

On Tuesday Paul finally managed to get the newly installed diesel heater plumbed into the main diesel tank.

It took a while to prime the fuel and get it started, but it worked. Yay!!

Sadly, it rained most of the afternoon and was forecast to rain the next 2 days as well.

The issue was Simon from Dive Tek was coming to change the engine on the scuba compressor and it was outdoors.

Instead, we decided to unbolt the unit and take it to him in Stroud – 1hr’s drive away.

It took 2.5 hours to get it unbolted and off Lorelei, as we had to do it between rain squalls one bolt at a time, before we had to put the cover back over and the rain came down again.

Fortunately, it stopped raining long enough to get it off Lorelei, onto a trolley and up into the back of the car.

Despite the rain, there wasn't much wind and the marina still looked great at sunset.

It rained most of the way to Stroud on Wednesday morning, so Paul and Simon set about breaking down the unit and rebuilding it inside in Simon’s workshop.

After 5 hours they were able to put it out on the front porch, run it, test it and do a few tank fills.

Simon very kindly did and air quality test just to double check the breathing quality of the compressed air was suitable at depths.

Thursday involved a trip back to the tyre place to have the suspension checked and an additional part added, a run around town sourcing servicing parts for the new Honda scuba engine and multiple trips to the bolt place to get the right mounting equipment.

In the afternoon Paul stripped all the beds and washed all the linen, towels and clothes.

Lorelei’s cockpit looked like a Chinese laundry.
Fortunately, we were able to put a heater inside the cockpit overnight and dry them as it rained outside.

Friday was manic!

Make beds, pack away clean clothes, wash all the settee, seat and cockpit cushions (and dry them), vacuum, charge anything and everything that needed 240v power (as it was free and endless), fill the water tanks, finished bolting in the scuba compressor and heading up to the shops for a final reprovision of food.

And in between all that, we could hear a plane very low overhead.

Turns out it was local stunt plane pilot Matt Hall (who is the Red Bull aerobatics world champion) flying his Red Bull plane over Newcastle.

The stunts he was doing were just nuts!

Loops, flips, stalls, dive and climbs that left him only meters off the water in Newcastle Harbour.

There were heaps of people watching from balconies and along the water's edge.

It was definitely the best aerobatics display we’ve ever seen – and everybody was saying the same.

We finished at 9pm and crashed into bed stuffed. 

Saturday, we woke to a nice day and westerly winds that were a bit stronger than expected, which was perfect.
With Lorelei ready to go, Lisa reversed us out and we were on our way.

We departed the marina area and slowly motored down past the city skyline.

The circus was in town and had set up for the school holidays in the park near Nobby's Beach.

We had a lovely sail in 10knots of westerly (offshore) wind and cruised along at a very sedate 5 knots.

We sailed past Newcastle Beach and saw the whale watching cruises looking for whales.

We saw a few whale up close, but most were travelling north as we sailed south.

Coming into Swansea was really flat and the bar only has a slight roll on it – which was fortunate, but to be expected in westerly winds.

Turns out the VMR HQ at Swansea headland had been using Lorelei as a training exercise for new staff as they had been able to track us since we left Newcastle with our new MMSI tracking number and powerful AIS transponder that we had only recently got up and running.

They laughed when we called then up and they said “we’ve been tracking you for hours!” 

We were lucky that there was one mooring bouy left at the Swansea Bridge and we were able to tie up to that for the afternoon and night.

Paul was able to fly his drone straight away.

Despite there being a bridge opening that afternoon, the tide was too low for us to transit through the dangerously shallow channel past the bridge that led into Lake Macquarie.

Additionally, the water was flowing in very fast which would make it difficult to steer Lorelei right through the dead centre of the bridge opening with so much water coming up behind and threatening to skew us around or push as sideways – which may risk our mast spreaders touching the bridge as it doesn’t open all the way up to vertical.

When we spoke to the VMR, we booked a 9am bridge opening (right on the slack water and high tide) and they also offered us an escort to get us down through the centre of the channel as we were right on the limit for our vessel size and draft to get into the lake.

The escort is not an unusual request for cruising yachts as they are trying to encourage more cruisers to come into Lake Macquarie and enjoy all it has to offer.

For the 4pm bridge opening that afternoon, Paul was able to fly the drone again and have a look and what it looked like in the open position.

The sunset was nice over the bridge and being a Saturday Night, the Swansea RSL club was in full swing.

We woke to an ominous morning with strong winds and a very red sky.

The red sky was replaced by a very low black cloud that brought rain and more wind.

Fortunately, it passed at around 8:30am and just in time for our 9am bridge opening.

Lisa’s sister Sue & hubby Ken came to watch from the shore and took some photos as we went through.

The staff on the Marine Rescue boat was waiting for us on the other side of the bridge and they also took photos of us – which was really nice of them - but they were very low res...

Paul got his own ones too as Lisa drove through.

That was the easy bit….

The hard thing was the super shallow channel leading into the lake.

Looking down the super shallow channel between the bridge and the lake.

We had around 1m depth for the most part which was fine, but we did have a few shallow parts, and we did actually touch the bottom pretty hard once.

Fortunately, Lisa had us going pretty quickly and we bounced over the shallow sand bar and into deeper water.

We followed the escort pretty closely, so we were right in the middle of the channel and the deepest part.

We did have another few sections around 0.3m depth but for the most part, it was fine.
The deep channel went pretty close to the rocky edge a few times.

We also went right past the Marine Rescue HQ.

 
Towards the end of the channel, there were a lot of smaller sand islands on both sides. 

 Right at the end there were a lot of channel markers and two 90-degree dog-legs before we went into the deeper water.

 To say we were thankful for the escort was an understatement, and we now had a definitive tide height which we were able to go back out on, on our own.

As soon as we were in the deep water, the rescue boat took off to another call at the southern end of the lake.

We had loads of options for anchorages, but with both strong west, then NW then SW later in the week, we decided to sail south to Wangi and park in a beautiful little bay that had no moored boats in it.

So that's it for this episode.

Not a lot of sailing for this one but that's coming soon...

Lisa has only 2 weeks left of work and then we can concentrate on full-time cruising and exploring.

We will spend at least 3 weeks in the lake before heading south to Pittwater, The Hawkesbury River system and then Sydney Harbour.

Stay tuned - there's a lot more action coming.....

Paul and Lisa

Yacht Lorelei.