Town of Tin

I recently took a trip to Stockton Beach, beyond Newcastle, to see this historic cluster of corrugated sheet dwellings isolated on miles of beach and sand dunes. I was taken in by the total lack of visual clutter. The visual white-noise we have become accustomed to in our city lives is replaced by two dimensions of sand and sky.

Stockton Beach

The weather stayed heavily overcast which only heightened feeling of desolation of this surreal moonscape. The sands of NSW's largest mobile sand mass were deposited here over 6000 years ago (must have been a helluva storm), forming dunes 30m high and constantly sculpted by the wind. Reminders of its WW2 history of barbed wire and tank traps are still uncovered as the sands shift. The shore is unforgiving, and many vessels have beached in the ferocious windstorms that cane the coast.

Sport fishermen roam about, and their 4x4's turn the beach into an extension of the M1, but a breed of blokes stay here permanently in tin dwellings. Full time fishermen, men of the sea, for whom a shower is a water tank with a spout, and a dunny is, well, a hole in the sand. Drink, sleep, fish, no other crap to get in the way. They welcomed us into their home and offered a place to spend the weekend.

I'm grateful to them, esp Dave Chapman, for the experience.