I had been to the coast near Post Kembla a few times – and visited one particular spot a lookout called Hill 60. Its a great vantage point for the coastline nearby. So I had seen this coast but never walked along it. Brian Everingham had a trip to see this coastline on the walks program of the National Parks Association of NSW and I fortunate to be able to join him. This was to be one of the last walks before the Coronavirus lockdown.
As per social distancing, people travelled down separately in small groups and met up on the foreshore near the Port Kembla Heritage Park. I had travelled down in pretty empty trains to Port Kembla Station, and it was a 15 minute walk to the meeting place. In the party were Brian, Faye, Jim, Peter, Lindsay, Gavin, Elide, Sophie, Judith and myself.
We first walked north into the Heritage Park. There are some interesting things to see here – anti-tank obstacles, an old battery and crane, gun emplacements etc.
We then made our way south along the coast – long an area of volcanic rocks than along a long sandy beach.
We saw quite a few birds, including some Sooty Oystercatchers.
Then along more rocks and another long beach. A few more birds too.
One of the party, Faye, spotted a bird flying high above. It was an Eastern Osprey.
We then walked around as rocky headland. This was the one place on the walk that you would need a fairly low tide.
This took us to another beach.
Behind the beach is Hill 60, the lookout I mentioned earlier. To reach it we walked to the far end of the beach and took a track up past a treatment works to an access road. Then a steep climb up the road to a short overgrown track that took us to the lookout.
This was a good place for morning tea. We had fine view to the north – towards Tom Thumb Harbour and the steelworks. To the east, we could see the five islands that make up the Five Islands Nature Reserve, and to the south we could see all of Lake Illawarra and distant Bass Point.
Hill 60 has some interesting military history. It was a major defence installation during World War 2.
On previous visits, I had seen a Nankeen Kestrel here. Despite looking we could not spot one. But we did see two distant Sae Eagles.
We then descended on a track through a field of weeds.
This took us to the road that led back to the start – and we just followed the footpath back. On our way – we sis spot a Nankeen Kestrel. It was flying south towards Hill 60.
