Tank Traps at Stockton Beach.

That would explain why we had a little difficulty finding them yesterday. The sand certainly moves around a lot, especially after a week of Westerlies or winter storms.

After a bit of wind you can also make out the old barbed wire entanglement fence lines that used to zigzag up the beach. It would have been a big job fencing that little lot.

Thanks Wayne
very interesting , i love our wartime history and stories.

!MPG:8!

I am a little confused and have missed something here, how did they last 50 years and then get covered up in around 1 year from the 1st to last picture. Were they a lot bigger originally and have been getting covered for 50 years and have finally been topped??

Wayne, it's a while before Aug 05 since I was last there and they were pretty well covered then. So, since I last saw them, they've been uncovered to reveal as much as your Aug 05 pic. I think there's a maintenance crew that bulldoze the stuff around, have you seen the maintenance "village"? Like a little shanty town. Don't know if that's the reason or mother nature.

From what I have been told the tank traps were laid along a section of beach along with barb wire. The tank traps that we can see today are only a small section. There are more in the bush directly west of where they are now. There would have been a lot bigger line of the traps but the sand has burred them.

The sand at Stockton moves about one metre west a year and sand dunes that we used last year are no longer there. Wheel tracks that were there on Sunday are gone by Monday so the impact of vehicles on the dunes is minimal.

We will not be running a trip up there again until April 23rd so it will be interesting to see what they look like then.

Wayne

Hello Wayne,
My long deceased grandfather used to tell me the traps extended south almost to Stockton itself.
This would pretty much fit with my experience of fishing on the beach for about 28 years.
Occasionaly after particularly heavy storms a piece of concrete will apear in the shore break. The only thing it really can be is a tank trap.
Intersting structure the tank trap, it has 4 equal triangular sides. Even if you tip it over you're faced with exactly the same obstacle.
Another piece of Novocastrian trivia, I've lived here 46 years and still maintain the wildest night I've ever experienced is the night the Sygna went aground. That wreck is a monument to Newcastle's militant industrial past.
The ship broke its back when it went aground.
The bow was dragged off first and moved to Corlette in Nelson Bay. A few days later the stern was dragged off the beach and anchored in Stockton Bight. The maritime unions bunged on a blue and the stern got blown back up during a subsequent storm a week or so later. (The current resting place of the Sygna is not where it originally went aground)
One of the Sygna's anchors and chain is still on the ocean bottom just to the south east of the isolated danger marker at North Rock.
I've dived on it a few times and you can follow the figure eights within figure eights to the anchor.

Trust I haven't bored you,
Geoff.

Wayne,

May I use the images & Desc for the Tank Traps in the places system?