A boat trip is always good … So we headed off on one today. We decided to take the ferry from Nelson Bay across into the Myall River to a small town called Tea Gardens. A slightly bizarre name, but there is little information as to how it got its name. It might be because the Australian Agricultural Company (which owned the rights to 500,000 acres in the area in 1826) attempted to grow tea. However, given this was fairly unsuccessful, this may not be the case, so alternatively it may be that it got its name simply because of tea-trees growing along the Myall River. Hawks Nest opposite apparently got its name from a large prominent Hawks Nest which used to be used as a navigational aid, though this doesn’t sound a stunningly reliabel tool for navigation.
Anyway, the ferry we took is called the MV Tea Gardens and is in herself quite a historical boat. She was built in 1943 and originally commissioned as a bomb scow. This was a precarious existence as their job was to ferry the ammunition to Catalina flying boats. She was built on the Parramatta river and served for two years in the RAAF Marines Division. When the war ended in 1945, she was converted into a ferry and from 1948 was used on the Hawkesbury River and Pittwater. In 1970 she was sold to Palm Beach Ferries, before returning to the Manly Steamship Company in mid 1974. She was then sold on to Port Stephens Ferry Service in the late 1990s, and since then has been operating a service between Nelson Bay and Tea Gardens.
The ferry company advertise that they see dolphins on 95% of their trips and, just for once, we were on the right side of these odds with various sightings along with a couple of them even coming to play around the bow wave of the boat. These dolphins are apparently Indo Pacific bottlenose dolphins and there are over 100 of them living permanently in the Port Stephens bay. Their diet is a wide range of fish, but they are particularly keen on squid.
The route to Tea Gardens along the Myall River is bounded by mangroves on both sides, but also by extensive oyster beds. The story goes that in the past, when ships had no cargo they would use stone as ballast to ensure they were stable. Once they arrived to load, they had no further use for the stone and so would dump it. Large amounts were dumped in the Myall River. Fishermen noticed that oysters started growing on these rocks and so they then deliberately laid more to farm them. Gradually they changed to suspended baskets between posts and these are now evident right along the river.
Tea Gardens is also home to a large community of pelicans. They are apparently what is known as gregarious birds – keeping together in groups and even hunting collaboratively. They catch fish using their long beak and the use a large throat pouch to draining water from the scooped-up contents before swallowing. A neat trick ….
We preferred to find our food ashore and found a lovely French restaurant with an excellent set menu including stuffed zucchini flowers. The journey back went quickly …..