Waves

Waves run in along the long beach below Tin City, the lines of swell breaking on the sand bar and rolling up the slope of the foreshore. The water is the pale green of shallow coastal surf. The sand at the wave line is a wet darker grey; up the beach it lightens to the bone-pale colour of the dunes behind. There are no breaks in the surf line for as far as the frame holds. The Stockton Bight runs from Newcastle in the south to Anna Bay in the north, around 32 km of continuous beach. From this stretch of it, in this direction, there is nothing built on the shore.

The shacks of Tin City sit on the dune line behind the beach, accessible only across the sand. The shipwreck history of this coast is the original reason there is anything human on the dunes at all: 59 ships were eventually lost on Newcastle shores, and in the late 19th century two tin sheds were put up here to hold provisions for the crews who washed up. The wrecks are mostly gone now. The wave line is the same wave line that took them. The shacks above the dune are the descendants of the sheds those wrecks made necessary.