Sydney By Ferry - Stockton and beyond

Stockton and beyond

OK, this page is cheating a bit. Newcastle (two hours north) is not part of Sydney. But Newcastle does have many connections with Sydney, and it's here that most of the Sydney ferries were built.

Newcastle itself has just one ferry - the Stockton ferry, crossing the Hunter from the city to the village of Stockton. This is mainly residential, a place where Newcastle people once caught the ferry to go to the beach.

It's a nice quiet trip to go across to Stockton and have a meal at Stockton RSL, a short walk up from the wharf. You can get to the ferry wharf on the Newcastle side by train, the wharf is a short walk from Newcastle Station. Whichever direction you travel, pay your fare at the wharf on the Newcastle side. The ferry trip takes five minutes (unless a bulk carrier is passing through), and runs roughly half hourly. Due to how bureaucracy works, the ferry is run by Newcastle's bus service.

If you're really good at planning travel, it should be possible to get to Fighter World (the only place where you can sit in a real jet fighter cockpit) on the 136 bus from Stockton. The Stockton Ferry plus the 136 bus appears to be its only public transport access.

If the Stockton ferries Shortland and Hunter look somehow familiar to Sydney people, that's because they should. They were built at the same time and place as Sydney's First Fleet ferries, and are a smaller version of the same design.

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