Port Macquarie - The Flying-boat Era

Back in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, a flying-boat service operated between Port Macquarie and Sydney (Rose Bay).
My mother travelled at least once on this service to Sydney, which departed from the stretch of the Hastings River just south of where the vehicular-ferry service joined the Pacific Highway on each side of the river.
At that time the section of the Pacific Highway between Newcastle and the Queensland border followed a different route to that used today.
The road (Buckett's Way) north of Newcastle was dirt and went inland from Raymond Terrace, passing through Stroud and Krambach before reaching Taree.

So the thought of doing a weekend drive from Sydney to the mid-north coast was out of the question and vice-versa. Thus the reason behind Dulhunty's introduction of the twice daily flights between the two locations.

The stretch of river on which the flying-boats alighted and took-off is shown as it is today in the two photos below - which bear little resemblance to the area sixty years ago! There were very few, if any homes located here and the man-made canals were un-thought of back then.

The first photo looks towards Hibbard and the location of the vehicular ferry over the Hastings, near the Whalebone Wharf  restaurant. The terminal for the flying-boat service was located just a short way along this section, on the left-hand side, past where the pleasure craft are seen.

 

 

The second photo, below, swings 180 degrees to the right and takes in the rest of the alighting area used by the 'boats.

 

The overall length of the stretch used is about 1.5 kilometres and is orientated south-west to north-east.

 

I can remember very clearly watching the flying boat take off when my mother flew to Sydney in the early 1950s.
In fact, I think most of Port Macquarie would come down and take in the spectacle of the large four-engine aircraft roaring along the river, spray flying and then gently lifting into the air and turning southward.