PORT HUNTER is situated fifty-nine miles North 22 degrees East (true) from the entrance of Port Jackson.  There is a lighthouse at its southern entrance, and pilots are established who come off to vessels that arrive.  The entrance is round the Nobby (latitude 32 degrees 56 minutes, longitude 151 degrees 43 1/4 minutes) an insulated rock:  and the passage is indicated by keeping two lights, that are placed at a distance from each other at the wharf, in a line:  the anchorage is about two hundred yards from the wharf in three fathoms.  The shoals on the west side are dangerous, and several vessels have been wrecked upon them in going in.  The above information is from a plan drawn by Lieutenant Jeffreys, in the Hydrographical Office at the Admiralty:  it was drawn in the year 1816; since which a portion of the labour of the convicts has been employed in building a breakwater, or pier, from the south entrance to the Nobby Rock, which will tend to direct the stream of tide through the channel, and also protect it from the surf and swell, which, during a south-east gale, must render the harbour of dangerous access.  The town was formerly called King’s Town, but it has since been changed to that of Newcastle, and the appellation of the Coal River has partly superseded the more legitimate name of Port Hunter.

PORT STEPHENS is easy to enter, but not to sail from, unless the wind is fair, on account of the shoals that are near its entrance.  Point Stephens is in latitude 32 degrees 46 1/2 minutes, longitude 152 degrees 9 minutes 45 seconds.

BLACK HEAD is an island, behind which there is very good anchorage; the head is in latitude 32 degrees 38 minutes 20 seconds.  Between Black Head, and the hills called the Brothers, are WALLIS’ Lake, in latitude 32 degrees 11 minutes 50 seconds, HARRINGTON’S Lake, in 32 degrees 0 minutes, and FARQUHAR’S Lake, in latitude 31 degrees 54 minutes; they were discovered by Lieutenant Oxley on his return from his land journey in 1819; they have all shoal entrances, and are merely the outlets of extensive lagoons, which receive the streams from the hills, and occupy a considerable space between the coast and the mountains.

In latitude 31 degrees 47 minutes 50 seconds, and at the distance of two miles and a quarter from the shore, is a dangerous reef, on which the sea constantly breaks; it was named by Lieutenant Oxley, who discovered it, the MERMAID’S REEF; it is about a quarter of a mile in extent, and bears South 85 degrees East from the South Brother; a small detached portion of the reef is separated from the principal rock, within which there appeared to be a narrow navigable channel.  A quarter of a mile without the latter we found sixteen fathoms water.  Round the point under the North Brother Hill, is CAMDEN HAVEN, the particulars respecting its entrance (in latitude 31 degrees 41 minutes, longitude 152 degrees) are not yet known, but it is supposed to be very shoal.