Revelation at Nobbys

I have always believed in going to something, not going from something. Life has to be about arriving somewhere new, not just leaving the past. For me to move on all the conditions have to be right, the ‘where’ I am going to has to be in place – or there is no moving of any kind, emotional or physical.

Sometimes I blame the stars. The oft-described Libran need to weigh up every option, get all the information possible and make sure everything has been thoroughly considered before any decision can be made is something those of us born under the sign of the scales are renowned for. It’s been like that with my planned move to the country - a few steps forward, some regression and a lot, a lot, a lot of deep questioning - do I really want to go?

The whole move has been framed in my head as ‘leaving Sydney’ and this mindset has determined the questions I’ve asked. Can I emotionally leave my home town? Why do I have to leave a job I love for the man I love – why can’t I have both? Can I leave the glitz, the glamour, the cultural richness of a cosmopolitan city?  Leaving, leaving, leaving. As long as I thought that all I was doing was leaving I was never going to go.

To my surprise this all changed suddenly, emotionally and unexpectedly on Friday 25 February. I was ‘up country’ in the Hunter Valley, having a rare couple of mid-week days off. I was looking longingly at the much publicised open days for Nobbys Headland organised by Renew Newcastle, L!vesites and the NSW Government Land and Property Management Authority and cursing that I was going to miss it.

I am absolutely fascinated by the magnificent Nobbys Headland, which lies like a sandstone beast guarding the entrance to Newcastle Harbour. I was dismayed when the Country Mouse explained that ‘no’ we couldn’t go up there to have a look around because it was closed to the public. You had to have official grounds to be there, something wonderful like...you were a lighthouse keeper, or some other insanely romantic reason. Nobbys Headland – look, but don’t touch. Novacastrians hadn’t walked on the headland for generations, something like 150 years. What a tragedy.

And now this was changing. On a designated six days, in late February and early March, Nobbys Headland was going to be open to the public. This is part of an ongoing program whereby Nobbys Headland and the surrounding areas are being returned to Crown Lands from the Newcastle Port Corporation. Go Port Corp!

Regular blog readers will remember my excitement at proclaiming that Nobbys had now officially become my Newcastle beach, with Caves Beach nipping at its heels a close second. Although a drive past Newcastle city beach the other day reminded me that I do really love that beach too; and for lots of reasons the quirky Catherine Hill Bay will always hold a very special place in my heart.

On an early date the Country Mouse and I walked to the end of Nobbys breakwater (officially Macquarie Pier, but only to the officials, the locals all know it as the breakwater) and he told me about the history of Nobbys and how it used to be an island. It was late in the afternoon at the end of a particularly romantic weekend.

As we stood watching a coal ship being pulled ocean ward by a series of cute-as-a-button tugboats, I remember leaning against him and feeling deeply at peace. Apart from the beauty and significance of the headland, and that moment between us, I always remember this as one of the earliest occasions he talked about us making a home together.

Now Nobbys Headland was having open days – perfect. Not. The open days either coincided with days I was working in Sydney, or, on the days I was free the tickets were sold out. Tickets were necessary as the numbers on the headland at any one time had to be limited for safety, there was to be no sneaking in under the fence to get up to Nobbys Headland. I was troubled. I had to go to Nobbys Headland. I had to. 

Friday 25 February had already been going well; I had had lunch with my dear friend DJ at a Hunter Street pub which had now become our lunchtime regular. I love having a regular haunt. I especially love having a regular haunt with a particular friend, so that that a place then becomes stamped as ‘ours’.

After DJ left to return to the rigours of her workday world I was basking in the gloriousness of a rostered day off and indulging in one of my favourite leisure activities – sitting at an outdoor café, drinking too much coffee and reading too many newspapers. Heaven; but it was about to get better.

Deep in The Guardian I was startled when the phone rang and it was the Country Mouse with exciting news. He had been listening to the ABC and they had announced that there were some Nobbys Headland tickets left for today, but advised to get down to the beach quickly before they were gone. Go Country Mouse!

I was actually secretly thrilled that the order to ‘go quickly’ came from no less an authority than the ABC, thus giving me complete licence to do something I had so far managed to restrain from doing i.e. to subject Newcastle motorists to my worst Sydney driving habits. Decades of attempting to criss-cross the city and arrive somewhere (anywhere!) on time means that Sydney drivers have skills honed to murderous precision. Seriously - The Stig learnt to drive that way on Sydney’s roads.

Zooming across Newcastle I had one particularly hairy moment when I realised too late that I was speeding the wrong way down a one way lane. The Newcastle Council garbage truck and its growling driver I just missed seemed unimpressed (to put it mildly) but I figured I was justified. Had not the national broadcaster itself exhorted me to ‘go quickly’? In less than five minutes I was holding a ticket for Nobbys Headland and on my way.

Walking up the steep road to the headland I saw a delighted group pointing to something in the outer harbour. It was a seal, rolling, turning in circles and repeatedly pounding a flipper against the surface of the water. Wow, thanks for the welcome. It was a portent; it had to be, the whole thing was too incongruous – a cavorting seal where no seal should be. I was already smiling before I reached the top of the peninsula.

Now I’m stuck. How can I describe the view from the headland which isn’t just a sad cliché? I’m struggling. It was beautiful, breathtaking, sweeping, panoramic...there was Newcastle revealed in all her glory. And not just the city. To the south down, down, down the coast and the other way up, up, up the Hunter River. I was even looking eye-to-eye with Fort Scratchley, not looking up at the Fort from below, and I vowed that one day I would work there (I entertain a fantasy of being Fort Scratchley’s historian you see).

I felt so privileged to see what had been denied to Novacastrians for so long. How on earth must the locals feel up here?  

A coal ship attended by its tugs came into view travelling up the harbour on its passage to the sea. Instead of looking up at that bulky structure from the breakwater now for the first time I looked down on it from Nobbys Headland.

As the tug ropes were pulled away, the ship was free. It and the crew didn’t look back at the group of us on the headland mesmerised by its journey. It wasn’t leaving Newcastle it was travelling to its next port. I was no longer at sea. I was free. I wasn’t leaving Sydney; I was going to my new home in the Hunter.

As the city shone before me in that particular brazen gold light of early sunset I finally got it. I could see how everything in my life had led me here; to this city, to the Hunter Valley, to this moment on the headland. And I cried. I was home.