Hawks Nest, New South Wales

Hawks Nest is a village in the Great Lakes Council in New South Wales in Australia. It lies on the Tasman Sea and is connected by the Singing Bridge with the neighboring Tea Gardens.

Geography

Location

Hawks Nest is bordered to the west by the Myall River, on the south by the large natural harbor of Port Stephens, on the east by the Tasman Sea and to the north by the Myall Lakes National Park. The village is located about 220 kilometers north of Sydney and is connected via the Singing Bridge and a 12 km long road to the Pacific Highway.

Hawks Nest is an elongated village with a total length of 16.5 km and an average width of 1.7 km. It comprises the south the uninhabited Yacaaba Peninsula ( whose highest point is at least 210 meters above sea level ) and the populated Winda Woppa Peninsula. On the Tasman Sea are the two beaches Jimmy 's Beach and Bennett 's Beach.

Climate

Hawks Nest is located on the northern edge of the temperate climate zone of Australia and is already showing a tendency to sub-tropical climates. The average monthly temperatures range between 8.4 ° C ( July) and 27.3 ° C ( January). The village lies on the edge of a vast wetland ( Myall Lakes ) and has a relatively high for Australia annual rainfall of 1351.2 mm, which is spread evenly over the seasons.

History

Hawks Nest was first settled in 1865. The place name derives from a large tree, which was a popular nesting site of hawks ( Hawks ) and was used as a navigation point.

The early settlers used the river and lake system of the Myall Lakes as a shipping timber. Later fields of activity were added as woodworking, boat building, farming, fishing and mining. With the decline of the timber industry in the late 1880s, then, the population fell sharply.

In 1921, the first settlement areas in Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens were publicly reported. A ferry service between the two places took 1928 on the operation. However, only with the start of commercial sand mining in the area in the 1960s began, the two places has been gaining importance. There tourist roads were built in 1974 and replaced the Singing Bridge ferry operations.

Tourism

Today, Hawks Nest has some 1,000 inhabitants. The now most important source of income is tourism. Here, the beaches, a golf course, proximity to the Myall Lakes National Park and the good fishing opportunities play a central role.

Furthermore, a small colony of koalas living in the place. Near the Singing Bridge is the Jean Shaw Koala Reserve, a Koala sanctuary which is part of this network, with the Myall Lakes. The koala population is listed as endangered under the Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 the country New South Wales and now includes only eleven or twelve individuals.

Hawks Nest was for twenty years the summer home of former Australian Prime Minister John Howard family, until he gave him due to Medienbedrängnis in 1998.