View across Lake Macquarie

Lake Macquarie
Large Central Coast lake surrounded by pleasant holiday towns
Lake Macquarie is a large and pleasant lake characterised by a great diversity of towns on its edges. It is located approximately 110 km from Sydney via Highway 1 and the freeway conditions beyond Hornsby (at the northern end of Sydney) ensure that it is easily accessible from the city. At the northern end there are flotillas of bobbing boats and white, flapping sails which crowd the lake and fishing and swimming are also popular. At the southern end small towns nestle into the wilderness. Most of the destinations are designed to take full advantage of the views across the lake.

The lake itself is the largest coastal saltwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere, covering 109 square kilometres (four times the size of Sydney Harbour). It is 24 km long, 3.2 km across at its widest point and 9.7 m at its deepest. There is no appreciable tidal range within the lake although the tidal race at Swansea Channel can be strong. There are 92 towns and villages, 29 public boat ramps, 28 public jetties and wharves and 7 marina berth around the lake. The Swansea channel has six boat ramps and a public wharf by the southern side of the bridge. Despite being overfished in the past the lake still has good supplies of whiting, bream and flathead for the angler.

Lake Macquarie is linked to the ocean by a narrow channel. It was, at one time, a bay, but it was almost enclosed by the development of sandbars caused by wind, waves and tides.

The lake's foreshore consists of 174 km of bays, beaches and headlands. The eastern side of the lake is well-developed and tourist oriented. The western side is quieter and more rural with scrubby woodland fringing the shores and the Watagan Mountains in the background. The southern shore is characterised by bushland and wetlands while the northern shore is part of the Newcastle sprawl, complete with heavy, industry, including a major sulphide factory. The area around the lake has old ties with coalmining which is still the backbone of the local economy. There are about a dozen mines around the lake, a few dating back to the start of the century.

View from Marks Point across Lake Macquarie

In 1800 Captain William Reid became the first European to make his way into the lake. Sent from Sydney to collect coal from the mouth of the Hunter River he mistook the channel for the river estuary, ventured inside and encountered some members of the Awabakal tribe, who then occupied the area from the bank of the Lower Hunter to the southern and western shores of Lake Macquarie. After he inquired about coal the Aborigines directed him to some embedded in the headland. It was only upon his return to Sydney that he realised his error. The lake was thus known as Reid's Mistake until 1826 when it was renamed in honour of Governor Lachlan Macquarie.

Reid's discovery excited no initial interest as Newcastle was, at the time, a penal settlement which the government wished to keep isolated from Sydney. Eventually pressure from settlers wishing to move into the Hunter Valley caused the penal settlement to be removed to Port Macquarie.

Lieutenant Percy Simpson was probably the first European settler in the whole Lake Macquarie area. He received a 2000-acre grant in 1826, was assigned six convicts who cleared the land, grazed cattle, and built a homestead and stockyards near a ford over Dora Creek. He left after two years but one of his convicts, Moses Carroll, stayed on as a stockman and was made constable of the area in 1834. Although settlers were thin on the ground, convict escapees, cattle thieves, timber-getters and the indigenous inhabitants caused him some difficulties.

By far the most important of the early settlers was a missionary, the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld, an ex-actor and businessman who, in 1826, established a 1000-acre reserve for an Aboriginal mission which occupied the whole northern peninsula, from Pelican north-west to Redhead and north-east to Croudace Bay.

Threlkeld chose the land after noting it was a gathering point for Aborigines, drawn by the living conditions and food around the lake. He held his Aboriginal friends in high regard and learned their language so as to communicate and to translate scripture (this work being an early landmark in Aboriginal studies). The mission house, called 'Bahtahbah', was located on a rise overlooking Belmont Bay. It was connected to Newcastle by a rough dray track. Threlkeld started the first coal mine around the lake at Coal Point, c.1840, and subsequently bought ten acres at Swansea Heads for coal-loading and storage around 1842.

Thomas Williamson, of the Shetland Isles, bought 100 acres of land around present-day Belmont in 1863. He built two cottages, established a farm and grew grapes and bananas. Fellow Shetlander John Anderson bought 40 acres of adjacent land and began farming and dairying. There was soon a small contingent of fishermen in the district and a steam-driven sawmill was built at Cardiff Point, at the north-western tip of the bay.

Things to see:  

Houses on the shore of Lake Macquarie

For More Information
There are a number of towns which edge the shores of Lake Macquarie. For more detailed information you should check out Belmont, Catherine Hill Bay, Cooranbong, Morisset, Swansea, Toronto and Wangi Wangi

	Motels
	Rafferty's Resort , Lake Macquarie 1 Wild Duck Dr Cams Wharf Lake Macquarie NSW 2281 Telephone: (02) 4972 5555, 1800 811 712 Facsimile: (02) 4972 5253 Rating: ****1/2
	Hotels
	Squid's Ink Hotel, Restaurant & Cafe 690 Pacific Hwy Lake Macquarie NSW 2280 Telephone: (02) 4947 7223 Facsimile: (02) 4947 7276 Rating: ****
	Resorts
	Rafferty's Resort Lake Macquarie 1 Wild Duck Dr Cams Wharf Lake Macquarie NSW 2281 Telephone: (02) 4972 5555, 1800 811 712 Facsimile: (02) 4972 5253 Rating: ****1/2
	Restaurants
	Rafferty's Resort, Lake Macquarie 1 Wild Duck Dr Cams Wharf Lake Macquarie NSW 2281 Telephone: (02) 4972 5555, 1800 811 712 Facsimile: (02) 4972 5253
	Squid's Ink Motel Restaurant & Cafe 690 Pacific Hwy Lake Macquarie NSW 2280 Telephone: (02) 4947 7223 Facsimile: (02) 4947 7276