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Newcastle Harbour

Read more about the article Newcastle’s harbour punts and the Trial Bay disaster
Newcastle car ferry Kooroongabah, photo by Ron Jones

Newcastle’s harbour punts and the Trial Bay disaster

Crossing Newcastle Harbour has for many years been both a challenge for travellers and commuters and an opportunity for the operators of ferries and punts. A great variety of ferries came and went from Newcastle over the decades, with some used chiefly as industrial transport and others available for general passengers. A car awaits a ride across Newcastle Harbour on April 14, 1910. Photo by Ernest Brougham Docker. Vehicular ferries (always known in Newcastle as punts) filled a vital role, and until the advent of Stockton Bridge in 1971, they often had their work cut out…

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Read more about the article Of sharks and musical ladies
Verona (Ronnie) Ayerst, Pat Charker and Iris Hayes.

Of sharks and musical ladies

Verona “Ronnie” Ayerst grew up in Wickham, in a house with a yard full of sun-bleached shark jaws. Killing sharks was a family business, and her father Jim was good at the job - as well as being an accomplished jazz trumpeter. Jim had boatsheds at Wickham, like his father Joseph before him, who had been a providore on Newcastle Harbour. When I spoke to Ronnie a few years ago she remembered her father’s “fetish” against shoelaces, which he held responsible for drownings when people fell overboard from boats and couldn’t get their shoes off. Ronnie…

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Read more about the article Boambee, an unlucky steamer
Boambee, sunk in Newcastle Harbour, NSW, May 1947.

Boambee, an unlucky steamer

Boambee was an unlucky vessel. The 236-tonne wooden steamer was built in 1908 on the Bellinger River by E.D. Pike and Co for the Manning River Limestone and Steam Ship Company to replace its wrecked ship Kincumber. By the time it ran aground and was dismantled 40 years later (under the name Illalong) it had sunk three times, including once at the wharf in Newcastle. Boambee at Harrington, near the wreck of the Burrawong. Photo from the book The Good Old Days, Volume 2, by Jim Revitt. Contributed to that book by H. Emerton, of Jones…

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