I love the country around Bylong and Rylstone, and briefly re-visited there recently, catching up with a few battlers in the coal-impacted communities.
Unfortunately I cannot get there without passing through some of the Hunter horror sights along the way to the Golden Highway. And I don’t only mean the roadkill…
I thought I was familiar with the coal mines’ huge holes and spoil mountains on both sides of the road, but this one near Warkworth (on the Bulga side) seemed new. It had been a couple of years since I’d come that way; this one seemed in process, as a bit of the Nature it was destroying was still visible.
The pollution in the skies as one approaches Singleton is as sickeningly brownish-grey as ever, masking the hills to invisibility in places.
As here, the Hunter scenery transformation is as busily under way as ever. Even more sickening.
I am no longer sure which of the mighty coal mines can claim credit for this landscaping, as there are so many around Singleton… and they have changed hands … nor which coal company owns what.
They can all claim the cumulative pollution.