The Hunter Valley

The Hunter Valley

After Newcastle, we made our way over to the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, famous for its fine wines. We stayed for one night in a free campsite and managed to build a large fire from gathering dropped wood. It was camping at it's best!

During the day, we explored the vineyards and went to multiple tasting sessions. Tasting sessions were free and I had quite a few wine samples (which eventually led to Charlotte taking over driving duties). We also went around a few cheesemakers shops and some chocolatiers. The chocolate was excetional; we spent quite a bit of money on chocolate and fudge! Charlotte also bought some premium cheese (that was later stolen from a campsite fridge!). I didn't buy any wine; after all the tasting I was a bit wine-d out. The area itself is beautiful. It is settled below the mountains and is much like the Somerset Levels, if the levels were covered in vineyards. The whole area was dotted with breweries, vineyards and cheese and chocolate shops and you could drive from one to the other all day (which we did).

We didn't take many photos at all of the Hunter Valley - so here are a couple!

 The fire (which we were extremely proud of)

The hunter valley in the background, its produce in the fore.

Blackbutt Reserve

Blackbutt Reserve

On our way down to the Central Coast, we stopped off at Blackbutt nature reserve, which was a free reserve just below Newcastle. Here are a few photos!

The Central Coast

The Central Coast

On our drive down from Newcastle, I stopped off and had a surf at Catherine Hill Bay, before continuing down to the Central Coast proper.

The central coast is an area of Australia below Newcastle and above Sydney. We spent 3 days on the Central Coast at a campsite at Canton Beach, and, during one of them, we visited Charlotte's grandmother's cousin, Betty!

 This is Copacabana Beach; we stopped and had lunch here!

 Terrigal Rock Pools

 Charlotte at Terrigal Beach

 This is Frazer park. I went surfing here; bit scary and sketchy as it's notoriously sharky. Absolutely beautiful bay though!

 This is a cave and inlet at Snapper Point. Snapper point is notorious for being a place where many rock fishermen have been swept to their deaths from rogue waves and the exposed blowholes.

 This is Charlotte, having fun on the jumping mat at the campsite

 When we visited Betty, we were taken to the Pelican feed at The Entrance. It was great seeing the pelicans all together; but the people putting on the show were extremely rude and pushy.

 Charlotte and Betty eating ice cream

 The Entrance

 This is Tuggerah lake; Betty drove us around here. She also took us for lunch at a cafe in the valley, which was a beautiful spot.

 This is a view from a bay called Crackneck. I didn't surf here - the name says it all.

 (Above and below) A couple more photos of the Pelican feed - including Charlotte and Betty trying to peer around the crowd.

After the Pelican feed, we went back to Betty's house for a coupe of hours and chatted for a while. After that, we were taken to Betty's son's (Jamie) house and met his family, who were fantastic and very friendly and accommodating. We had dinner with them and were shown around and introduced to the family and we all got on very well. They were great to meet and we stayed until quite late in the evening.

Quad Biking at Stockton Beach

Stockton Beach

Stockton Beach, between Port Stephens and Newcastle, is 32 km (20 mi) long and has been the site of numerous shipwrecks and aircraft crash sites. It is also dotted with Aboriginal Middens - shell piles that are the remnants of feasts from throughout Aboriginal history. The dunes are enormous - and were where the original Mad Max movie was filmed. We took the opportunity to go on a quad bike tour of the dunes!

 Charlotte and I in front of the wreck of the NV Sygna - a 53,000 ton Norwegian bulk carrier that was wrecked in a storm in 1974. They tried to tow it out but just snapped it in half - this is half of it remaining!

Charlotte doing her Maverick impression in aviators and helmet

The great thing about this tour was that, as we were young, they didn't hold back on the speed. We were full-throttle up and down and around the sand dunes, charging up and down steep sand hills and around the vegetation. It was awesome and it took almost 2 hours. 

Newcastle

Newcastle

After Port Stephens, we went down to Newcastle. We had been in Newcastle 3 years before and we stayed at the same place, the YHA Youth Hostel. The difference this time is that we stayed in the van and just paid $11 each to use the hostel facilities, which was great as we had use of the kitchen, bathrooms and common room!

The weather during our time in Newcastle was extremely wet - which was a shame as it was wet last time as well. It prevented us from visiting some of the key areas.

 Walking over to the lighthouse - we didn't make it as the rain became torrential and we had to go back to the van. It was so bad we had to go to a laundrette to dry our clothes as there was no way they would have dried otherwise!

 Rainbow over Newcastle

 Newcastle Skatepark - I skated for an hour or so just before the rain came!

 Selfie over Newcastle from King Edward Park.

 Charlotte at King Edward Park - you can see the sea is extremely rough and the clouds were gathering

 I climbed up onto the old gun emplacement in the photo below and took a photo of Charlotte (The picture above)

Port Stephens!

Port Stephens

After Seal Rocks, we drove our way down to a peninsula known as Port Stephens, located just above Newcastle.

We stayed in a campsite at One Mile (as shown on the map) and it was a great site - full of wildlife! Within the campsite we found a wild koala and an extremely friendly possum, as well as a large beach and imposing weather:

While in Port Stephens we visited a few places; mostly the local beaches and nearby towns and villages. 

 This is Charlotte at Fingal Bay. In the background is Fingal Spit - a peninsula/island that is covered at high tide but has a sandbar connecting it to the mainland in low tide. It is extremely dangerous to cross the sandbar; 15 people have died there recently. It was very strong surf when we went, and we didn't even think about crossing.

 Fingal Spit

 At Nelson Bay we found loads of cockatoos!

One Mile Beach

In the evening we went to Soldier's Point to watch the sunset.