On the Nelson Bay motorbike ride we visited a place called Stockton Beach. In case you missed the (oh so) important information on that web page, Stockton beach is 32 kilometres long. Its not the beach that attracts people though, it�s the sand dunes behind it. There are over 2500 hectares of sandy playground, to race around in a four wheel drive, and its over a mile wide in places. When I first saw it I thought to myself this would be a great place for the four wheel drive club to have a day out in. I got back to work and it was a few days before I saw the guy that organises the four wheel drive days. I asked him if he had organised the next one yet, and was told he had, and its going to be Stockton beach.
"How amazing" I said "I was just going to suggest that."
I went with Chezzy (guy from work) again and had his movie camera to take footage of people getting stuck and stuff. We all met at a garage just before Newcastle, and then travelled in convoy to another garage, where you have to buy a permit to race around on the sand. The permit cost a paltry $5.00 per vehicle, which is an absolute bargain for a day of fun. Just before one of the entrances to the dunes we all stopped and let down our tyres to give them more grip. There were a real mix of about 10 vehicles (one broke down). Some were just standard off the shelf 4x4�s others had big fat tyres or snorkels to cross rivers etc.
Not much else to say about the day really. We all just drove all over the place like absolute idiots, testing the metal of the vehicles and drivers until we got stuck. Which most of us did fairly often.
The sand was loose because of the lack of real rain, though there was the odd puddle around to splash through.
The pictures of Tin City, is an actual village... town... whatever you want to call it, in the dunes of Stockton beach. I was told that the houses (if you can call them that), were built by fishermen and the council found them and tried to throw them off. They complained and now the council allows them to stay for a minor rent. I couldn�t for the life of me see how these people could live there and make a living fishing. For a start there were no boats. On looking it up on the internet though it appears that they are squatters, and the council tolerates them. The huts are all built out of corrugated tin, with solar panels for light etc.
What with the sand dunes and the tin city, it all looked a bit like something out of Mad Max to me. Mad max was filmed in South Australia though.
See below for some Information links, but briefly....
1) It�s the largest continuous mobile sand mass in New South Wales
2) The Sygna was wrecked on the 26th May 1974
3) Regan�s been there!!
The Zip.
P.S. Want to know about the name and the photo dates?? See the next web page |
