Wisemans Ferry
cable ferry in NSW, Australia
Wisemans Ferry is a cable ferry across the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales, Australia. The ferry operates from the eponymous community of Wisemans Ferry on the south bank, to a point on the north bank downstream of the Hawkesbury River's confluence with the Macdonald River, connecting with the old Great North Road. The crossing has remained in use on its current site since 1829, making it the oldest ferry crossing still in operation in New South Wales, and possibly in Australia.
Operation
The ferry is operated by a private sector operator under contract to Transport for NSW and is free of tolls. The crossing is 366 metres (1,201 ft) in length and takes approximately 4 minutes. The ferry operates on demand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no regular maintenance closure. Two ferry boats are available at this crossing, operating on separate sets of cables, and when traffic demands it both may be in use. The larger of the two boats carries up to 24 cars, while the smaller one carries 18 cars.
The ferry is one of two cable ferry crossings in the community of Wisemans Ferry, the other being Webbs Creek Ferry, which crosses the Hawkesbury River to a point upstream of the confluence with the Macdonald River. Two other such ferries cross the Hawkesbury River proper, these being the Sackville Ferry and the Lower Portland Ferry, while a fifth ferry, the Berowra Waters Ferry, crosses a side-arm of the river.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q8027502. Authority coordinates are -33.379, 150.989. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1829.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wisemans Ferry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.