Yet turn back time and that was the reality for Hunter Valley people for up to 120 years, and maybe longer.

Today, getting to Sydney by sea in a large ocean-going vessel, is not impossible but it's not to be compared with the once flourishing passenger/cargo ocean trade.

It was a real adventure, right to near the very end, just after World War II (1939-45) when there was still the threat of deadly leftover enemy mines still bobbing around the sea lanes between Newcastle Harbour and Sydney's Port Jackson.

The popular coastal traders, both big and small, plied the sea route from 1831 to about 1950. The sea route was pioneered by the colonial paddle steamer Sophia Jane, and many competitors swiftly followed.

It was how European farmers first got a foothold on the rich alluvial flood plains around Maitland and beyond, allowing settlement to expand right up the valley.

From 1831 to the late 1880s, the initial focus was on the regular trade to and from the inland Hunter River port of Morpeth. In that period Morpeth was really the gateway to the Hunter. Roads were virtually non-existent and there was a seemingly impossible task of fording the deep Hawkesbury River.

Around 1900, most memories of the glory days of coastal trading involve the giant paddle steamers PS Newcastle (1884-1933) and PS Namoi (1883-1933) which finally reached the end of their economic life and were broken up, then scuttled off Sydney.

Today, I'd like to concentrate instead on the overnight intercity passenger service which existed between Newcastle and Sydney while lingering memories of it still exist.

I remember first learning of this unusual 'express' service because my grandmother used to travel on it regularly overnight after coming down from the Coalfields by horse and wagon in the 1920s.

Of course, sea travel was initially billed as the cheapest way to get to Sydney (before the first Hawkesbury River rail bridge opened in 1889).

The overnight sea journey normally took about six hours to reach Sydney with steamers sailing from Newcastle at 11.30pm every night except Sunday. A similar service from Sydney also sailed north late every night except Saturday.

Fares varied, from a 5/- (five shillings or 50 cents) single trip in a second-class saloon berth to 12/6d ($1.25) return for a first-class saloon passenger. For a berth in a deck cabin, there was an extra charge of 3/- (30 cents) each way.

The passenger and cargo ships of the Newcastle and Hunter River Steam Ship Company are best remembered from memories of the last decades of the coastal trade.

Two of the most prominent ships carrying both passengers and freight (including beer barrels for Newcastle city pubs) which advertised sea travel with 'comfort and courtesy' were the twin screw (propeller) steamers T.S.S Gwydir (of 1919 tons) and the T.S.S Hunter (of 1840 tons)

Besides bulk cargoes, both big steamers could carry 135 first-class passengers, plus second-class passengers.

I remember retired Newcastle optometrist John Miner once talking fondly about his regular overnight sea voyages from Sydney to Newcastle around 1946. He would attend lectures in Sydney then catch a steamer home overnight to Newcastle to work.

Miner said the trip could be rough and he was occasionally seasick, but each night voyage was magical, arriving in Newcastle Harbour maybe around 7am.

Former long-serving Newcastle lord mayor, John McNaughton, also surprised me back in 2011 by recalling youthful memories of travelling to Sydney by sea.

"When I was young, up to 15 years, the best way to go to Sydney was to go down to King's Wharf (today's Queens Wharf) and get a ship down overnight to Sydney," he said. When Dad took my sister and I down there we'd go down at 8pm and he'd put us to bed on the ship.

"We'd be asleep, but Dad used to wake me up in the middle of the night to watch the lights as we went down the coast.

"Then at 6am you'd be steaming up Sydney Harbour.

"The ship steward would come and shake you and give you a cup of tea and a piece of toast," McNaughton recalled.

The authority on the era is maritime author Wayne Patfield, who in 2023 wrote Morpeth Steam Ships 1831-1946.

His highly informative and liberally illustrated book gives flesh and bones to the saga of the now lost steamships.

While passenger steamers like the Hunter and Kindur are also still remembered, what about unknown (but versatile) vessels like S.S. Archer (1882-1946)?

Patfield wrote that this iron-hulled passenger/cargo steamer originally carried up to 26 passengers.

Measuring almost 61 metres long, it carried lucerne hay, corn and animals, plus passengers, from Morpeth to Sydney. However, it could only negotiate the Hunter River during a flood tide, although it did manage to sail to Raymond Terrace in 1920.

Towards the end, in 1938, it then assumed an unusual role, being used as a factory ship for the boiling down and disposal of shark carcases before being dismantled and scuttled in 1946.

Patfield said the vessel reminded him, rightly or wrongly, of a tale related to him by a Broadmeadow woman about an overnight trip she made on a coastal steamer to Sydney in the 1940s.

"It was in WWII and was a really slow voyage to get down there. At Sydney Heads, the ship's master was told to stand by and not enter port. It was all very secretive," Patfield said.

The woman claimed she then witnessed two "queens', the ocean liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, converted to troopships, glide past each other at Sydney Heads.

"One was arriving, one was leaving. They were really quick vessels at sea. They had to be because of the danger of enemy submarines being around." Patfield said.