ozzie impressions.: newcastle

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas.
Situated 162 kilometres (101 mi) NNE of Sydney, at the mouth of the Hunter River, it is the predominant city within the Hunter Region. Famous for its coal, Newcastle is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, exporting over 97 Mt of coal in 2009–10 with plans to expand annual capacity to 180 Mt by 2013.
Beyond the city, the Hunter Region possesses large coal deposits. Geologically, the area is located in the central-eastern part of the Sydney basin.

A very interesting city in the sense that it has a lot of history compared to other Australian cities, I liked the busy harbor, the nice terrace houses, and that unlike the Sydney harbor, it was able to defend itself in WWII. And in fact, I like every city which has a beach. The funny thing was, that when they started to build the city, they did not care about the view the inhabitants may have, so they built the railway line right next to the harbor where they could put the goods (coal) straight into the ships to be brought away, mostly to Sydney or even further South, but nowadays, as the aesthetics of the inhabitants have become more important, they had to move away all the ugly buildings and stuff and create a lovely park and promenade to enjoy yourself in. Thats where I took the pictures showing the harbor and ferry.