About Newcastle
Newcastle - a small, tidy city (fondly, a large country town) resting in a serene backwater of this busy, crowded globe.
To its natives ("Novocastrians") the most desirable, convenient address on the planet. And, they delight, a well-kept (yet readily-shared!) secret. 
This particular Newcastle, one of dozens in the world, is a retired steel city on the east coast of Australia and as enjoyable a place as our photos suggest.
The city centre is isolated from the blind destructive growth consuming the outer precincts, and hopefully will remain a pleasantly-large country town basking in sun-drenched delight. Or not, as greedy investment money is starting to overheat the centre with perhaps a little too much elite high-rise crowding the beach space.
Two coal loaders, and a planned third, send more ship-borne coal past that tiny Nobbys lighthouse than any other port in the world - 80 million tonnes, or A$6 billion last year. Hard to believe, ay?
When the Pasha Bulker prematurely departed the fleet of coal carriers it reminded Novocastrians the price they pay, or might yet, for for such intense ocean traffic.
Newcastle is a coastal city of 150,000 people, central to the semi-circular Hunter Valley whose population is half a million.
All sitting on far too much coal.
Founded 200 years ago by Sydney escapees, nothing much has changed. That mob of crims still escape northward at every opportunity, deserting that hell-hole at weekends and holidays, clogging highways and local resorts, because their own suburban sprawl has become an intolerable nightmare.
So here we are, enjoying the infancy of millennium three.
Friendly, relaxed, bathing in the sweetest climate, caressed by the greatest of oceans - this glorious green and sandy haven on the world’s largest, most beautifully ancient island.
Sadly, somewhat blind to it all are the busy citizens of Newcastle today, digging like the blazes all the coal they can manage like there’s no tomorrow.
Oh, that’s right, there isn’t.