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Published: March 31st 2012
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Newcastle, on the ferry to the island, the main town is seen in the distance The central coast in my term consisted of Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Bryon bay... Newcastle is 5 hours by Grey Hound bus from Sydney, it is an important coal mining and port city. We arrived there at 10pm and booked ourselves into Cambridge hostel. Some times backpackers hostel do provide a bus service to pick you up from the Grey Hound stop, but if your bus arrives late, such as 10pm, then you are responsible to get there yourself... We walked 3km from the bus stop to the backpackers, eventually got there around midnight, check in reception had closed long time ago, so we had to call the mobile number of secruity guy to let us in...
Rooms were pretty cheap at $26 each in shared dorm... The town itself is pretty quiet from our experience, only on Friday and saturday nights the pubs and bars go off... Cambridge hotel is the place to be during these nights, as locals and backpackers drink into the early morning, we had to catch the grey hound bus, so did the grandpa/grandma thing by going to bed at 11pm, but the bar was still pumping till 3am... Our room was above the dance
floor, so we didn't get any sleep...
In New Castle, if you are looking for a place to relax by the beach, then probably worthwhile to go the island across the river, the ferry runs every 10 minutes and takes 5 minutes to get across on the island, costing only $2 per trip, then a 10 minute walk and you are at the beach. The beach on the island stretches for many km, but even the section close to the ferry terminal is really nice, offering good sand and decent and consistent 1 meter waves for a surf or paddle... Back onto the main part of Newcastle, the foreshore marina area, also where the information center is located has some really nice cafes and restaurant, you can take a walk along the marine promenade, see the huge container ships been tugged into the harbor through the mouth of the bay.
All in all, Newcastle is a laid back town with a strong maritime history, pretty good to spend a day or two relaxing, enjoying the beach and surf before you make your way up the East coast, take a few walks along the promenade and go across to
the island on the ferry boat, but if you stay there for longer, you might be bored... Though people there are really friendly...
Initially we were going to skip Port Macquarie and head from New Castle straight to Coffs Harbour, however because of the Grey Hound bus related issues, we ended up in Port Macquarie... The town itself is really nice, stayed a backpacker hostel, where they were good enough to come and pick us up from the Grey Hound bus stop... And the dorms were only $24. There, we met an awesome swede Karin and a Swiss Robin... Karin had to drive down to Sydney, shame didn't hang out with her for long, but Robin stayed in Port Macquarie for few days, so was great doing a bicycle ride town with us. You can hire a bicycle from the backpackers for the day for $10, obviously the bikes were vintage with few minor faults, but it still gave us a great time exploring Port Macquarie. We rode the bikes to the main beach, which offered some consistent waves and then tracked up the coast, some really steep climbs, which I struggled alot with, because I have never ridden
a bike until that day! So thank you Tanja and Robin for being patient and teaching me how to ride a bike! The view along the Port Macquarie coast once we rode past the main surfing beach was amazing, steep cliff faces and powerful waves beneath. We stayed in Port Macquarie for 2 days, mainly doing exploring with bicycles, chilling out on the beaches and having drinks with people in our hostel... Our Grey Hound bus leaving Port Macquarie was 2am in the morning, hence was a long wait, luckily Robin and Tasha both Swiss stayed and drank beer and goon with us until our bus arrived... Great people... I really enjoyed Port Macquarie for the people we met, the coast and just the laid back atmosphere of the place,certainly recommend this town to others, the surfs were pretty good as well.
Bryon bay is an awesome place, the town is only few streets wide, but it is full of backpackers, think usually the population is about 3000, of which 2500 are backpackers... Streets are lined up tour shops, surf shops, restaurant and cafes... The main beach is only 5 minutes walk from the city center and
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Port Macquarie the waves are absolute perfect for surfing... If you don't know how to surf, then take a lesson for $70, which will teach you the basics, should be able to stand up on a 7 ft soft board by the end of it... Then just a matter of getting a board to practice every day on the beach to get that feel and learn how to read waves... If you want to do some hikes, there is the light house hike you can do, think the round trip from the city takes around 3 hours, don't know the exact name of the track, but it is a coastal walk, if you go to the information center and ask for the light house hike, they will be able to give you some cool maps of the track. The track itself is along the coast, giving you some amazing scenery and along the way, it leads you to the most easterly point of Australia! After that, you will see the light house, from the car park of the light house you get a spectacular view of the coast, the light house served as a maritime museum and gift shop... The cafe next
to it does pretty good muffins and smoothies. Bryon bay was a lot of fun for us, at the backpackers, we met a canadian girl and an English guy, cool people, so we went drinking with them at a bar called cheeky monkey... Free entry before 11pm, drinks are pretty reasonably priced and some crazy partying in that place! Dancing on the tables! Probably by far, the most popular party place in Bryon Bay.
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