Welcome to Our Lake

Take your boat to Lake Macquarie and never look back — this place has it all.

You hear all sorts of estimates on the size of Lake Macquarie, that large body of water between the Central Coast and Newcastle in New South Wales.

But take it from someone who lives next to it, the damn thing is big. It’s said there is no point on the coast from which you can see all of it. That’s true. 

For a complete view you have to drive to a lookout in the Watagan Mountains, about 45 minutes away, and look down. 

Fact gatherers say the lake covers about 120sqkm, or four times the size of Sydney Harbour, and the shoreline is 174km long. 

There is even an estimate of how many Olympic-size swimming pools that equates to — for some reason Australians like to compare everything to pools — but I’ll spare you the exact number in trillions. 

Besides, Lake Macquarie is not four times the size of Sydney Harbour, it’s twice the size. 

I actually tried sorting through all the mistaken estimates about this impressive lake, some highly improbable, then spat the dummy and went to maritimemanagement.transport.nsw.gov.org and started again. 

Here’s the deal. The lake is 22km running north-south, roughly speaking from Speers Point to Chain Valley Bay. 

At its widest, spanning the stretch of water from Dora Creek to Swansea, it’s 8km across. 

It’s also not ‘9.7m deep at its deepest point’ either, but has a maximum depth of about 16m and a mean depth of 5.3m. 

It’s deep enough for pelagic fish, which is to say, sharks, and it’s also deep enough for big boats to anchor safely. 

The largest boat I’ve seen on the lake was moored within casual swimming distance of the beach at Myuna Bay. 

There’s little tidal movement either so you don’t have to worry about that.

The deepest point is between where I live, in Wangi Wangi, and Pulbah Island. 

I know a lot of people motor over there to fish; I can see them when I’m hanging about on my roof. There are six artificial reefs over that way, too, providing a safe space for juvenile fish in an otherwise open ocean environment. 

But what is certain, is this giant slab of water is undeniably the largest coastal saltwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Some of the estimators tell us it meets the Tasman Sea after surging through the narrow and rollicking tidal race at Swansea Channel on the eastern side of the lake, but the government says that’s actually the Pacific Ocean and, since the government should know what an ocean is, I’m going with that. 

BOATS EVERYWHERE

Whatever you want to call the adjoining ocean, Swansea Channel itself is popular among fishermen in boats of all sizes. 

Bobbing tinnies, kayaks and expensive-looking fibreglass fishing boats dot the channel and the lake from sunrise to sunset, all year round.

Those without a boat fish from wharves, jetties, abandoned coal-loading structures, big rocks, submarines — anything that will keep their thongs dry. 

Swansea Channel is how boats get from the ocean to the lake. As with almost any channel or bar, it’s best avoided at low tide or during big swells and high wind. Sand bars have to be negotiated in the channel (there’s also a coal seam under there somewhere), so it’s important you follow navigational markers all the way. 

According to fpdc-scuba.com, high tide in the channel occurs two and a half to three hours after the advertised ocean tide times. 

Boats negotiate the channel, then enter the lake by passing under a twin opening bridge, similar to the Spit Bridge in the Sydney suburb of Mosman, but without holding up three million cars in both directions.  

Bookings are necessary on weekdays — the bridge will not open if there are no bookings. 

One hour’s notice is required for weekday openings between 6am and 7pm. 

If you intend to enter the lake before 6am or after 7pm six hours notice is required. On weekends and public holidays, the bridge opens automatically hourly at 6–8am, and 4–7pm. 

During the week, the man inside the glass cubicle atop the bridge refuses to open it during peak traffic times around 8am, when thousands of residents leave the area at breakneck speed along the M1 motorway, and 4pm, when they all come back. 

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU

‘Lake Mac’ has its own feeling, an atmosphere that at times is almost surreal. 

It can get choppy during a screaming southerly, but from many vantage points, it looks so tranquil you could fall asleep contemplating the beauty of it. 

Lucky boaties can park anywhere they like — in the lee of Pulbah Island during one of those screaming southerlies — or on a nice day, hook up with friends and enjoy the show as cumulus clouds pile up on the western horizon and another incendiary sunset starts a slow burn. 

No wonder the area has been a prime go-to destination with holiday makers, anglers, skiers and boaters for decades. 

In the old days, parts of the lake were turned into tent cities as miners from the Cessnock coalfields arrived during December and January when mines closed for the holiday season. Miners still come here, but usually with something more substantial than tents. 

Coal still plays a vital part in the local economy too, and longwall mining continues under the water. 

They say there are 92 towns and villages around the lake and for once the estimators might be right. 

The City of Lake Macquarie has 95 suburbs, many more than Newcastle itself, so nibbling and sipping opportunities abound. 

The northern end is the posh end if you like, where you can haul up at one of the many eateries in Warners Bay, or park the boat near a club: the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club in Belmont or, in a more westerly direction, the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Toronto. 

There’s a lot happening in and around Lake Macquarie. And if you enjoy leaving the boat to have a look around, there are so many things to do and places to go from Lake Macquarie that this would have to be a 5000-word feature to list them all in detail. 

But we’ll have a crack at a short list that might be useful: 

• Swim at beautiful beaches, or surf, or just lie on the sand and marvel at how lucky you are to be Australian.
• Hike or picnic in the nearby Watagan Mountains National Park.
• Chuck on a barbie at Pine Forest Park in the Olney State Forest.
• Taste liquid delicacies, only an hour away at one of the many Hunter Valley wineries.
• Have a beer on the bustling Newcastle foreshore and watch giant bulk carriers come into port.
• Check out the Museum of Art and Culture in Booragul.
• Cruise over giant sand dunes on a camel at Stockton Beach, or 4WD there.
• Pretend you’re Chuck Yeager at Fighter World near Newcastle Airport.
• Join a whale and dolphin spotting cruise at Port Stephens.

AND FISH EVERYWHERE

Did I mention the fishing? Oh my …

Lake Mac once had a thriving commercial fishing industry — thriving for humans that is, not so much for the fish. 

I read that ‘fishing dynasties’ did a roaring trade on the lake from the 1860s onward, passing their wealth to successive generations until the waters finally held too few fish to sustain such large-scale stock raiding. So in 1980, commercial fishing was banned and the lake went nuts. 

Today, even while walking the dog, you can see green sea turtles coming up for air, rays breaching for the fun of it and sharks chasing smaller fish that alternate between swimming and flying to avoid the chomp. 

And birds are everywhere. Cockatoos land on my deck and take slices of apple from the hand. Rainbow Lorikeets fight for space in the birdbath and make a godawful mess doing it. 

I once saw hundreds of swimming cormorants following a pelican. I don’t know why they were doing that. 

I’ve considered the idea that I was hallucinating but it’s a strange thing to hallucinate about, even for a rusty old hulk like me. 

Rare is the day we don’t see a pair of White-bellied Sea Eagles on patrol, or an osprey or the gloriously named Sacred Kingfisher. 

You can find weird places to throw in a line too, like Eraring Power Station’s warm water outfall, or where cooling water is sucked into the power-station from the lake at Dora Creek.   

LOCAL TIPS

But what fish are swimming around out there, and how do you catch ‘em?

I’m no fisherman so I turned to a friend of mine, Peter Messenger, who with his two sons has caught practically every species. 

“Thanks to the lake’s many bays, headlands and creeks, there’s a lot on offer,” says Pete. 

“These include Australian salmon, sand whiting, luderick, squid, dusky flathead, bream, Jewfish, and occasionally Yellowtail kingfish, although I reckon they’re harder to catch.

“Salmon are common now — there seems to be more and more of them — while sand whiting, luderick and blackfish are everywhere. The mullet run is getting bigger too, and in winter there are heaps of bream near the power-station outfall. We also catch giant herring, queenfish and big cobia over there, although it can be fluky from one day to the next.

“We get flathead all year round, but summer’s the time for kingfish, even the occasional dolphin fish — they’re rare but they are out here — plus Jewfish and whiting. In winter we look for blackfish, salmon, luderick and tailor.

“There are big numbers of squid out there too, really big numbers, especially where you find a drop-off and then weed beds, anywhere in a range of about one and a half to about nine metres deep. Murray’s Beach is a carpark for squid, and on a good day you’ll see 20 to 30 boats looking for squid at the drop-off where Swansea Channel runs into the lake,” he says.

“As for what rig to use, I guess you’re either a bait man or a lure man. Local tackle shops are a good source of info on all that, but I’m a lure man and if you ask me to recommend a good setup for beginners, I’d start with a 1/16oz jig head (about $10), with a Berkley Gulp Banana Prawn lure on a 10-12lb leader. That will catch bream, whiting and flathead. 

“If you’re bait fishing, I reckon it’s better to drift rather than anchor, because you cover more area like that and whiting and flathead are attracted to moving baits. Start with prawn but make sure it’s fresh; frozen prawns from a servo are doing it the hard way.”

 “Mud crabs and blue swimmers are eaten a lot around the lake, maybe more than fish, probably because they’re easy to catch with a ‘witches hat’ trap and fresh mullet as bait,” he contiues.

 “Catch and release is well established on this lake and most fishermen recognise its benefits, or I hope they do. A flathead up to about 55cm is male, but much longer than that and Mr Flathead turns into Mrs Flathead and she starts breeding. When you keep that fish you deprive the lake of good breeding stock and that doesn’t do anyone any good.” 

To find out more about fishing the lake, adds Pete, take a look at ‘Local Lake Mac Fishos’, a public Facebook page that all the locals use, and a reliable source of info about fish ID, boating, and lots of other things.