From coal loaders to windmills Port Stephens has always been a place of bold ideas

Who remembers when not one, but two, giant offshore coal loaders were proposed near Stockton and at Port Stephens decades ago?

How soon we forget, you might say, although such projects raised the hackles of residents at the time. It might partly explain why there's still no railway servicing the Port region.

Only time will tell whether the latest wind project succeeds, but the southern end of the proposed zone near the Central Coast has already been lopped off after the federal government received about 1900 submissions.

Concerns raised include the impact of offshore wind farm turbines on whale migration and fears of disrupting east coast currents.

The project's present planned size is 1800 square kilometres stretching to Port Stephens with fears of dire effects on that area's tourism and fishing-based economy.

Here, I hear the echo of words from then-NSW public works minister, Davis Hughes, spoken at a Nelson Bay dinner in 1968. Audience members were left with the clear impression Port Stephens could not ultimately "deny its destiny" of having its great potential for development realised, especially by becoming a deep-sea port.

The sprawling waterway there was described as being the only port in NSW that offered the promise of being able to handle the future super ships loading coal cargoes.

All of this was based on the hope that harbour sand could be dredged as much as 60ft (18m), or a third more than Newcastle's likely ever maximum depth (in 1968).

Of course, such port dredging never occurred.

Beside the huge cost involved, there were big navigational problems.

One key factor was heavy seas in bad, south-easterly weather, meaning colliers would be unable to enter of leave Port Stephens during these times.

All of this, however, didn't deter Clutha Development for undertaking a feasibility study on a nearby Port Stephens site. By November 1969, the company proposed a major offshore coal loader at Fly Roads, near Fingal Bay.

A public meeting was soon called. It attracted a group of 400 irate residents.

The now, probably forgotten, plan would have totally changed Fingal Bay forever. I know the concept was more than 50 years ago now, but imagine the following.

On the basis of a feasibility study, Clutha proposed to build a $45 million coal loader and rail complex for the state government.

Today's familiar Outer Light island would have been used to stack coal to be loaded into waiting bulk carriers.

A wall was also promised to be built around the enormous coal dump so it couldn't be seen from Fingal Bay beach.

Fingal Island would also protect coal ships from southerlies while loading continued day and night from the Fly Roads jetty.

Trains delivering coal might run onto the island, opposite Fingal Bay Surf Club, either along a rail link on a rebuilt Fingal Spit or via a conveyor belt system

An alternative plan was that the coal-loader could be built at Salamander Bay once dredging in Port Stephens harbour was completed.

But the state government refused to release full details of the joint venture as inquiries continued.

In the end, however, it didn't matter.

The project publicly lapsed in July 1970 after Clutha withdrew its application to build an ocean coal-loader at Fly Roads.

Then, lo and behold, about August 1970, the state government said it was considering a plan to build a deep-sea port costing $100 million about four miles (6.8km) north of Stockton.

The man-made port (pictured) was planned to cover more than 5000 acres of land and sandhills opposite the Williamtown Air Base. The plan provided an offshore coal loader into Stockton Bight.

The Bight was to be dredged to 80ft (24m) and the harbour itself to 60ft (18m). The ambitious plan was believed to envisage a T-shaped harbour - two miles (3.4km) inland from the beach and five miles (8.5km) across the top of the T.

The planned steel coal loader jetty itself would have been more than a mile long (1.7km) into the ocean with six coal stacks on land beside Fullerton Cove and serviced by a rail loop line.

Coal would be moved first on a conveyor belt over a proposed four-lane highway just north of the Newcastle golf links then enclosed in steel tubes across the sand dunes.

The NSW premier, Robert Askin, said the government had set aside plans to establish a deep-sea port at Port Stephens for environmental reasons.

Williamtown's artificial harbour, deep sandhills channel and offshore loader idea was finally abandoned in 1974 because of drawbacks including poor weather in the bight. Newcastle harbour was deepened instead.

So, what other grand schemes might have been for the north? The two obvious plans were for not one, but two, new cities on the northern shores of Port Stephens.

The first was Port Stephens City, billed as the "future New York of Australia" and unveiled in 1918 with 200 house blocks subdivided.

But the plan ultimately faltered because the military wanted the port instead for a naval base, which didn't eventuate.

The second idea nearby was creating Pindimar City in 1920, but it too, including its proposal for a cathedral, never got off the ground.

There was once also talk back in 1969 of Port Stephens being considered as the site for a steel plant (with American finance) to complement Newcastle BHP Steelworks, but that dream died as well.

Many multimillion-dollar resort plans up there have also come and gone, as did a plan for a dolphin interpretive centre in Nelson Bay.

So, returning now to wind farms, was there ever a big windmill near Nelson Bay?

Well, yes, it was a tall replica of a Dutch windmill used to grind corn, but it was a fake. The novelty windmill ingeniously disguised the water tank at the popular Halifax Park holiday camp.

The camp was set up after 1946 and named after an ageing World War II bomber. Pioneer aviator Captain Geoff Wikner had flown this 30-ton Halifax bomber, along with 21 passengers, to Australia from England.

He later sold the aircraft, then set up his successful holiday camp at Little Beach.

The resourceful Wikner (1904-1990) was also an aircraft designer, even once building a helicopter, and is credited with building (in 1922) what is now Australia's oldest surviving race car.

He also had a (unrealised) cable car project for Nelson Bay. Ever-inventive, Wikner wrote to Port Stephens Council in early 1980 seeking its approval for his idea, although he wanted some far-sighted person to actually finance it.

Wikner proposed erecting a cable-operated rail car to Crown Land at the top of Big Hill, Nelson Bay. (The land is behind the Nelson Bay Bowling Club).

Here, Wikner proposed that a lookout and restaurant be set up as a tourist attraction to promote Port Stephens. It was a bold idea, befitting a man with bold ideas.

If he'd been any younger in 1980, he probably would have tackled the project himself, turning his dream into a big success.