SIMON Davis saw the writing on the wall early.
A mechanic by trade, the career miner took a redundancy in 2016 after Drayton South failed to win approval following a major stoush with the Upper Hunter's thoroughbred horse breeding industry.
Beholden to no one, he tried working as a courtesy bus driver, lifeguard, cellar door attendant and settled on opening his own cafe.
Mr Davis sunk everything he had into Muswellbrook's Double Picc, which has grown in almost six years to become one of the Upper Hunter's most popular cafes.
In part, his is an old story - and not one unique to the Hunter or mining.
"I figured it was time to reinvent myself before everyone else started trying to do the same thing," Mr Davis says.
"A lot of the guys laughed at me and thought I was a dill when I was leaving, but I took the punt, gambled my redundancy and I've never been happier."
Gone are the days when workers can look at coal mining and be sure they will be there until retirement.
Mr Davis' career came to a crossroads, along with hundreds of other miners, when the NSW Planning Assessment Commission refused consent to the Drayton South Coal Project, saying it considers it "not in the public interest".
In a major win for the Upper Hunter thoroughbred industry, a Legislative ban on open-cut mining of the Drayton South lease was eventually signed into NSW law in December 2017.
The amendments to state planning and mining policies made the ban permanent, no matter who holds the mining lease.
In the lead-up to the final decision it was "chaos" with workers "scrambling to keep jobs".
"Things got really toxic there for a while,' he says.
"The whole thing about people climbing over each other, it was pretty horrible.'
While it was a tough decision to get out of mining, the 43-year-old says he hasn't looked back.
"It's a completely new focus for me obviously, but I've really enjoyed the challenge," he says.
"Stepping outside your comfort zone can be intimidating, but it can also be liberating."
The Upper Hunter has been booming off the back of mining.
Unskilled young workers can get a job driving a dump truck for $80 an hour.
Mr Davis says there are a lot of people "living the dream off a dump truck's back" that are now "shit scared" about their futures.
Many, relying on their mining wages, are heavily in debt with large mortgages, which adds to the stress.
Fears that the economy will stall as coal slowly winds down and miners will be forced to look to other industries that don't pay as well are real.
Even Mr Davis is worried.
Double Picc relies heavily on trade from mine workers and their families and does catering for coal companies.
Mr Davis says he is "extremely grateful" for the coal industry, and fears for his business when it starts to wind down.
"I think we've all been pretty ignorant believing it won't happen, but Muswellbrook Coal is closing soon and that will be our first introduction to what lies ahead," he says.
"It does worry me, but I've now got other skills and I know I can do other things.
"I know we all rely so much on mining, but there are other things out there and there is time to adjust.
"This isn't happening overnight, so we need to pull our heads out of the sand and look ahead."
Experts warn that future-proofing your career is the best way forward.
Options include training or studying in a different field, taking on part-time jobs, starting your own business or vertically integrating into a similar position in another industry.
While it comes as a blow, for many in the Upper Hunter there is little surprise that mining won't go on to support future generations.
People know, says Mr Davis. "I think the thing is if you are young and want to keep the same lifestyle, you have to look at retraining now," he says.
"There is time and there are opportunities, you have to be open to them. If I have to I'll reinvent myself again too, but for now I'm stupidly busy and making the most of it."
