Trip Report: Central Coast Branch – The Old Cliff Road
On Saturday, 10 May, Erika led a lovely 13km walk, in beautiful weather, from Umina to Patonga return.
This included a rough walk along the original Pearl Beach Road – often referred to as the Old Cliff Road, below Mt Ettalong. Remants of the original road can still occasionally be spotted along what is now a rough, boulder-strewn track that has frequently been subject to rock falls and occasional closures for safety reasons.
This road was designed and built in 1925 and remained the only road access into Pearl Beach until 1935. It was built by local real estate agent and developer Charles Raymond Staples to provide access for showcasing land for sale within Pearl Beach.
This C.R. Staples was part of the well-known Staples family that did much to pioneer roads – and therefore development – in this southern part of the Central Coast. He was father to Charles Jefferis Staples whose momument can be seen at Staples Lookout on the Kariong Road.
C.R. Staples & Co also financed and had built the Pearl Beach Ocean Rock Baths between 1926–28 to attract visitors (and potential buyers) into the area. These baths are one of only two privately built ocean baths of the 100+ along the NSW Coast. The baths have been under Council control since 1933 when the Staples Company went into liquidation.
This article first appeared in the Central Coast Branch Winter newsletter.
Hunter Branch News – Hunter Transmission Project
The Hunter Transmission Project is a proposal to establish a new 500 kV high capacity power line from Bayswater (near Muswellbrook) to the vicinity of Cooranbong. Its purpose is to deliver power from renewable energy zones in New England and the Central West, to link with the existing grid serving the Hunter, Sydney and Illawarra regions. The general route passes through Pokolbin, Corrabare and Olney State Forests, as well as highly disturbed areas of the Hunter Valley floor between Bayswater and Broke.
Project proponent Energy Co (a NSW Government agency) yesterday provided a presentation to environmental groups outlining early findings from the project’s Biodiversity Development Assessment Report (BDAR). This will feed into the EIS, which is expected to be released mid year.
It was advised that approximately 770 ha of native vegetation is proposed to be cleared, of which about 40% is disturbed. The proposed clearing affects 231 ha of threatened ecological communities listed under the NSW legislation, and 168 ha of threatened ecological communities listed under Commonwealth legislation. Clearing will affect the habitat of 35 threatened flora and 30 threatened fauna species. Most of these threatened habitat and species impacts are in the valley floor section of the route northwest of Broke.
Habitats in the southern forested section of the route are generally well represented in conservation reserves. Surveys however highlighted that Rhodamnia rubescens (scrub turpentine), which was once common in regrowth, is now extensively affected by myrtle rust.
Various adjustments have been made to the proposed alignment to optimise use of existing access trails (reducing trail construction) and over-topping of deep gullies (reducing amount of clearing), while also avoiding rock wallaby and microbat habitats.
The assessed impacts under the ‘BAM’ framework are expected to be in the order of 15,000 ‘ecosystem credits’ and 100,000 ‘species credits’. This suggests that the total extent of offsets will be in the order of several thousand hectares (a rough ‘rule of thumb’ is 5 x the disturbance area). However, in response to questions, no information was able to be provided as to the approach being adopted for the proposed offset strategy. The strategy, which is being prepared in conjunction with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, is likely to be the focus of our response to the EIS once it is exhibited later this year.
This article first appeared in the Hunter Branch Newsletter issue 2025 No. 2