Take Swansea on our brilliantly beautiful Lake Macquarie, for example.

Swansea is not even its original name. The Aboriginal name for Swansea was Galgabba.

And the first European name for the once tiny township was ... Pelican Flat. Before that, the end on the peninsula was referred to by the skippers of small coastal trading vessels as "Pelican Point" after huge flocks of birds nesting there.

The spot was a handy, if obvious navigational feature for sailors either entering or leaving the lake.

Pioneering store keeper and hotel operator Robert F Talbot then chaired a public meeting in which it was decided to unanimously change the growing district's name to Swansea. That was in October 1887 and it's often suggested the new name came from Swansea, in Wales in the UK.

Talbot is said to have noticed a resemblance between his soon-to-be Swansea (NSW) and the coal port of Glamorganshire, in Wales.

By then, shipping coal had long been a flourishing industry. From the earliest days, the missionary, the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld, who operated a small mine at Coal Point, used a 10-acre dump at Swansea Heads before transhipping coal via barges to ships waiting offshore.

The entrance to Swansea Channel wasn't always as it is now, flanked by two breakwaters with a broad entry channel into the lake. The old channel entrance was once almost choked by sand, a lagoon with seas breaking over the bar and (before dredging) a narrow entry passage at low water.

This helps explain what happened in colonial times with the 'Jewboy Gang', an infamous gang of bushrangers. They escaped capture by swimming with their horses across the watery gap to avoid mounted police pursuing them on the southern side, at Swansea Heads.

No one knows for sure how long the Aboriginal inhabitants of Swansea district have lived there, according to the East Lake Macquarie Historical Society. The local tribe named the area 'Nik-keen-ba', or as the place of black stone which burns (coal). Swansea Heads was also a sacred place and the site of an ancient burial ground.

An archaeological excavation there in 1972 revealed an old Awabakal campsite indicating the tribesmen, attracted by the abundance of seafood, had inhabited the region for 7800 years, according to carbon-dating tests.

It was coal that first lured Europeans. In 1800, Captain William Reid, arrived by mistake in his small vessel the 'Martha' to load coal. He had inadvertently sailed his ship to the entry of Lake Macquarie believing he had arrived at the Hunter River after mistaking Moon Island for Nobbys headland. He only discovered his error upon returning to Sydney.

Reid's Mistake is now the official title given to the southern headland at the entrance of Swansea Channel and Lake Macquarie. A large foreshore stone marks the site, commemorating its importance in European history.

But just as interesting is the Aboriginal legend about this very same spot told by the respected Awabakal elder Biraban to Reverend Threlkeld in the 1830s. Named Malangbula, two 2.7metre tall rocks here graced the lake's entry. They were said to be sisters who had been turned to stone as punishment for bringing a stranger back to the native camp.

It's believed the two sisters protected the people of Awaba who feared sea monsters would move through Swansea Channel and into the lake.

The sisters kept watch and on spotting any danger, they would return to human form and warn their people. The sisters were also regarded as guardians of the nearby burial sites of their ancestors. And it seems two upright petrified rocks were still visible in the 1840s.

Moving right along to today, things have certainly changed. Swansea itself has grown although there's no longer the prominent 'swinging swaggy' (tin-man sculpture) in Talbot Park beside the Pacific Highway.

Neither, it seems, are the sea of swans once visible behind the Black Swan Motel in front of Black Neds Bay. And no trace now of the three once extremely busy Swansea shipyards.

But at least Swansea got another bridge spanning the channel back in 1989. Over time, there have been four bridges connecting Swansea and Blacksmiths. The first one, mostly timber, was erected in 1881 for breakwater construction to help tame the ocean surge coming down the Swansea Channel. This bridge only opened to public traffic in 1895. The second and most interesting bridge, which opened in 1909, was an elaborate drawbridge made of timber beams and a steel girder.

A third bridge opened in 1955 and the fourth in 1989 providing twin opening spans on the busy highway.

Then there's the secret, World War II RAAF Radar Station 208 once above Catherine Hill Bay just south of Swansea. Here, two neglected and empty concrete igloos remain in bushland. The twin 40-metre radar towers made of hardwood were dismantled ages ago and recycled into houses, such as in Parbury Road, Swansea.

But one of the latest 'secrets' of Swansea is something completely unexpected. It's the sight of a single-engine light aircraft. Now without wings, it's tucked inside the eclectic 'Shake n Bean' Café in central Swansea.

Seeing it is one of those 'you have to see it to believe it' moments. Now wingless, the plane is tucked inside the café among tables and chairs, milkshake booths and retro garage décor that includes oil drums, motorbikes, a jukebox and a jet-ski and the shiny rear of a ute serving as a coffee pickup.

It's a cosy atmosphere, a nice vibe. It seems like in better times to be the perfect place for a 'Happy Days', rock'n'roll event.

According to locals, the recycled aircraft is the same one which crash-landed in a paddock near Warnervale Airport in January 2016. A power failure caused the aircraft's emergency landing, missing powerlines and travelling 200 metres across the paddock before hitting a tree stump which ripped a wing off. The pilot was reported uninjured. I expect the aircraft was a write-off and as they say, 'waste not, want not'.