Newcastle, Australia 3/9/24

Newcastle Australia



Next stop, Newcastle, Australia where beautiful golden sand beaches abound. Situated on Australia's east coast, Newcastle is surrounded by golden sand beaches and a breathtaking coastline, and has beautiful working harbor lined with cafes, retaurants, and bars.   Only 160 kms north of Sydney and is the heart of the Hunter Valley region, home to the wine making industry.   It’s also close to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest coastal sand dunes, Stockton Beach in Port Stephens. 

Today, we had no major excursions planned, so I booked a cheese tasting paired with wines.  Lesson learned for bookings, make sure location is easily accessible...we found it was 1 to 1.5 hours away and a $124 Uber cost one way...needless to say we bagged the tour - thankfully it was only a $45 total cost...and we were outside the cancellation window. We ended up doing a walkabout of the city and got our steps in.  Walked to the Cathedral at the top of the hill which gave us lovely views of the city.  As we toured the inside of the cathedral, there was even a welcome sign for the World Cruisers.  I think they were happy to have us visit, and the people could not have been nicer.  From there we headed to Mickey's favorite place, Newcastle Beach - and it was stunning.  The beaches were absolutely pristine - Mick dipped his toes and said the water was perfect temperature.  The weather was lovely as we started but started to get quite a bit warmer, so we stopped for lunch and a drink.  Went to the Grain Store which says it has the best beer selection in Newcastle - since we don't drink beer, we were happy to see they had a full bar available to us.  Ran into some of our fellow cruisers there and they declared the beer were terrific.  as we head Headed back to the ship and enjoyed seeing the architecture and the street art that was quite prevalent throughout the city.  All in all, a great day...Tomorrow we will be at sea as we head for Australia’s Gold Coast and Brisbane.









Location: Newcastle NSW, Australia

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