Just over 10 weeks ago, a city caught your attention.

Incredibly large seas… a carrier washed ashore… flooding… lives lost…Cars abandoned… homes and businesses destroyed… stories of heroism…tales of generosity… monster crowds to visit the Pasha Bulker…And then… we faded from view again.

You probably think everything’s “back to normal” in Newcastle.

Let’s have a look.

We start our tour, in the main thoroughfare, Hunter Street.

In one area, we have dozens of shops still closed or temporarily relocated. The pub, the day/night chemist, the GP Access service. There’s Harvey Norman, who got the double whammy… of high water, and opportunistic looting.

Let’s go South now, and head towards Marketown shopping centre. Here Newcastle’s main RTA office is located directly above a huge drain…that flows into the harbour. Ten weeks on, the RTA is still closed.

Now we head South-East, down Union Street. This is the area where hundreds of cars were abandoned in the dismal, drenching peak hour of June 8. Some of the enormous fig trees that once lined Union Street still lay… where they fell that night.

Heading South-West, we hit the ocean at Bar Beach. We pass piles of bricks, from garden fences pushed over by water. The occasional roof with a blue tarp, and piles of junk outside homes. Then we arrive at Merewether baths. Note: You’d better “change” at home. The changeroom’s still missing its roof.

Elsewhere across town, more piles of rotting carpet outside homes. A local tree removalist firm has imported 30 metre trucks from the US, and worked 12 hours a day, every day since the storm.

Wallsend’s shopping area still has around twenty shops closed.

The bridge to Cardiff South: gone… Hamilton North Public School: still closed.

The most recent insurance claim total – over $750 million.

But it’s not all bad news. Remember those three girls I told you about?

Forced to abandon their 1987 Ford Laser in rising floodwaters, they returned the next morning, to find someone had stolen two of the wheels!

Well, despite the water reaching the top of the seats, the car was not a write-off.

They’ve replaced every liquid in the engine, and… it’s on the road again.

It’s a fitting metaphor, for a rather resilient city.