Tulkaba Creek, Teralba

This creek flows from bushland, passes under Railway Street and through an early, round brick-lined tunnel built for this purpose under the railway embankment. The more adventurous school children, used to walk through this tunnel before the undergrowth eventually obscured the openings. It then passes under William Street, alongside the school yard, under York Street, and beside Tulkabah Park into Cockle Creek at the Five Island bridges. Tulkabah is an Awabakal word meaning ‘a place of soft ti-trees’. This name was suggest by Teralba Public School students in 2005. By 2007, the bottom bricks inside the tunnel were showing signs of wear caused by 110 years of flowing water. A few cracks were also found. Although this was not considered dangerous, a concrete pipe liner was installed with cement in between the liner and the old tunnel.The portal has been rendered over but unfortunately the old brickwork is no longer visible.

Reference

Threlkeld, L. E. (Lancelot Edward) & Gunson, Walter Neil 1974, Australian reminiscences and papers of L. E. Threlkeld : missionary to the Aborigines, 1824-1859, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra

1954 'DISTRICT PLACE NAMES MAKE FASCINATING STUDY', Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), 11 December, p. 5. , viewed 15 Apr 2019, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article134093649

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License