It wasn't all that long ago that the wharves, instead of diners, had cargo and labourers unloading 

 

the ships which had dark holds and cranes and stuff everywhere. The storage buildings of which two remain have been adapted.  Honeysuckle Hotel is in one and a Marine museum in the other.

Quite a crowd were relaxing along the foreshore 'path' this Fathers Day.  Honeysuckle Hotel was choker block and the food was worth waiting for.

 Less than an hour after the previous ship sailed another is sailing to Asia.  It is low in the water as it is full of coal.  At the same time the next ship is moving into the harbour, it is high out of the water as it is empty. Doh. Several tug boats gather nearby to see it into the port.

A helicopter is barely visible landing on the deck to pick up the pilot who took the ship out of the harbour.  Another pilot is already aboard the incoming ship.

In no time, the latest ship and tugs are in the harbour and almost in the channel to the coal loading docks where a whole line of ships are filling up with loads of black fossil fuel.

Beaut day on the water or in the air to view a city spread out before you. Climate change and  fossil fuel is implicated when we read that July was the warmest July on record.  In photo a coal ship is leaving the port followed by what is believed to be a small dredge.  The dredge makes a lot of round trips each day.
Once free of the port the ships seem to go south towards us before they soon turn north to flee to the wider world with their dark cargo of fossil fuel. Farewell. Somewhere at that point a chopper retrieves the pilot.  The port has been leased to Chinese interests.  Hard to believe.
In the foreground amid the constructions is a hairy bend on the new temporary race circuit. 

Eco blog

As if beached marine life. Female and male life savers lined up to sprint to their rubber duckie, jumped aboard to join the crew, full throttle out to a set-up off-shore where they enacted a rescue, I'm guessing, then raced back to the shore.  The photo does not convey the fast pace.

  Looming on the horizon are two of the coal ships that queue for coal from the Port of Newcastle, the fossil fuel city.
 The post-coal era will come but not soon enough. Progress. Westpac Bank announced it will not finance coal developments which is greeted both with applause and with outrage.
  Current tales in Newcastle are about upheavals in preparation for the super-car races of note,   meaning certain roads works have closed the roads and residential areas are very cross at finding themselves on a speed way. The east precinct is vintage style, where high rise or modernisation is probably banned - apart from super-car events!
  A new light rail to serve the long lean main street is about to start installation.  Apartments are spring up in the western precinct and change is accelerating in inner city Newcastle.      

Newcastle was a BHP industrial town, nowdays we ponce around after cruise ships. In the photo, by chance, this ship acquired a label and almost brings a Wes Anderson scene to mind overall.
 
 Trivia.  The company, Broken Hill Proprietary is named after an arid hill in the far west of the state where a town became famous for mineral deposits over hundred years ago.
  BHP merged with a Dutch mining company Billiton. 2001.
 The Indonesian island of Belitung ( or Billiton ) lies in the warm waters of the Java sea and is into tourism but not always. It was mined in early times by the Dutch company Billiton who went on to have global success and a tie up with Shell and other complexities. Then BHP.

Mining has after effects. How is Belitung? The city, Broken Hill, has its share of lead pollution. As it happens, it is currently very short of water. The lengthy Darling River has problems. 
 Not forgetting that Priscilla Queen of the desert paused in Broken Hill.
Anyway, the activity of the domestic market, coastal shipping and the big steel works have largely ceased operations tho Blue Scope Steel has emerged while the Port Kembla steel works possibly falter. 

 Yesterday BHPBilliton shed a lot of jobs in the valley.  Prices have declined for high grade coal.  Coal comes in various grades  - metalurgical, steaming, thermal, coking - and has degrees of pollution.
The record of BHPBilliton is marked by several shameful environmental disasters. 
   
     

Coal loaders are multiplying in the port of Newcastle.
The port has been leased lock stock and barrel to Chinese interests a deal that received some attention at the time.
Seems that the port of Darwin has been leased to a Chinese company provoking some concern as well.   The locals may receive a bonus if they are luck.  It would be crook if a sort of approval from Obama had to be sought.
Photos are at a disadvantage when you are on the move - I wasn't diving!

Islander warrior drama in pre-protest in Port of Newcastle NSW today.
Pacific Climate Warriors using traditional canoes are going to paddle into the path of coal ships in an effort to shut down the world's biggest coal port for a day and degrade the fossil fuel industry.
Pacific Island communities will be inundated by rising sea levels.
350.org is building a global climate movement.
Newcastle activists joined the action.
 

Deck hand multitasking on board Hunter, the Stockton ferry.

Recently, the annual catch of the day was mullet near the fish markets on the Port.
One down in Eurovision on SBS.
Azerbaijan approached magical heights, trad instruments plus song in native tongue.  Liszt like piano was part of a noteworthy item from Hungary.
Portuguese, Latvian and Icelandic acts were in the real spirit of Eurovision. An offering with Celtic like pipes, ice skater and non-English (I think) had something going for it as did the treadmill duet or the see saw act.
English language, seriousness and drama of all the rest were so so. The song about mother takes the cake. The dramatic build ups are over exhausted. Actions and dance over explicit, exaggerated, each contestant forced to outdo the other in histrionics.  So often, nuanced performance is unknown. That's the spell of Eurovision and all the rest.

A pause during the race allowed the dredge to sail.  Its work in non-stop. The port has just gone to the highest bidder and Newcastle will received some share of the funds for 'revitalisation'!  Read change to the inner city rail line.  How ever could that be the ultimate priority?
And out with any local identity, old and daggy as it is, and in with a city of universal uniformity which could be redeemed by an inventive plan of certain flair.  Vintage 2014 in regular safe mode high rise will be plonked beside Hunter Street. We equate any big building with progress.

Racing on the Harbour. 
The events are probably something to do with privatisation of the Port!
Long term locals will lamely sit back while Gladdis et al  make all the real decisions about the Hunter.

Watching the boat races, Sunday, Port of Newcastle.

Visit of U S submarine Archerfish in 1964.  The wharf would be high above the sub. State Dockyard Newcastle is opposite.

Port of Newcastle once upon a time when people drove around the wharves to have a look. 
Usually, in these particular photos, the pet dog and a few people feature without revealing much at all about the surroundings unfortunately. Who knows what was there just out of view.

Horseshoe Beach within Newcastle harbour.

What's the technical difference about the Port of Newcastle and Newcastle Harbour. Whatever. The name port is in more recent usage.