Tag Archives: new south wales

Holiday

A Weekend in Newcastle – Part 2

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One of the things I loved about Newcastle is that it’s become a real walking city. There are K’s of walking/cycle paths around the city – down the river foreshore and winding around to the various beaches and rock pools/baths. Here are some sights from our Saturday stroll on the said paths.

The locals have really taken to these walkways. You can find joggers, strollers, cyclists and dog-walkers on them anywhere and at any day of the week.

That’s all from our weekend in Newcastle. We’ll be returning to Newcastle sometime in the future.

Holiday

A Weekend in Newcastle, NSW – Part 1

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The year following our visit to Medlow Bath, we decided to spend our anniversary weekend in the city of Newcastle, NSW. Newcastle is a pretty common town name in Commonwealth countries. In the UK, Newcastle is a port city in the north-east of England. In New South Wales, it is a port city some 160km north-east of Sydney.

It began life as a penal colony in 1804, and like its UK namesake, became an industrial city, with a steel works and other heavy industries being established at the turn of the 20th Century. The steel works were shut down at the end of the century, but its port remains a busy place, with ships docking day and night to export Hunter Valley coal to the world.

The city has a long history, hence it has a good variety of heritage buildings.

There’s currently a lot of urban renewal projects in the CBD, but I’m happy that quite a few of the old buildings have been preserved and repurposed.

blue mountains

Weekend at Medlow Bath – Part 2

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To be honest, it wasn’t the chance to be in an open Agatha Christie ‘museum’ that excited me the most about staying at the Hydro, it was actually the chance to see the Megalong Valley views at all times of the day.

The chance to live through a few days with that view was really worth the effort.

That’s the end of our short stay at Medlow Bath. I’ll be back with another series about another town in New South Wales.

blue mountains

Weekend at Medlow Bath – Part 1

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Awhile ago, we spent a luxurious anniversary weekend at the Hydro Majestic in Medlow Bath, in the Upper Blue Mountains. The Hydro is a heritage hotel with a very illustrious history, and walking in felt like walking on to the set of Downton Abbey/Agatha Christie. To a Sydney-sider who has driven west on the Great Western Highway numerous times over the years, it felt like the hotel had been in renovation forever (well, it did take decades to complete). Well, it’s finished now.

But more than being on a live film set, I was more interested in seeing the awesome views of the Megalong Valley. It did not disappoint.

More views in the next post.

Holiday, Outback NSW

Mungo National Park – Part 4

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Next to the visitor’s centre at Lake Mungo National Park is the old wool shed. It was built in 1869 from local wood and was part of Gol Gol sheep station. The station had indigenous as well as Chinese labourers, many who came to Australia during the gold rush that had taken place across NSW and Victoria. By 1869, the gold fever had abated, so these former miners sought other work, frequently on pastoral properties across the country.

When these Chinese workers looked across the dry lake bed at the sand dunes on the other side, many were reminded of their homeland, and the wall that ran across it. Hence, the dune formations were called the ‘Wall of China’.

Next, we’ll take a walk amongst those dunes.

Holiday, Outback NSW

Outback NSW – Lightning Ridge – Part 2

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Lightning Ridge is a mining town. It is remote. It has a harsh climate. It is in ‘woop woop’ by the standards of most East Coasters. What does the land look like? A bit like this.

The mining that occurs around the town is usually done by individuals or small groups as opals can’t successfully be mined on an industrial scale. Hence there are no really enormous holes in the ground, just thousands of little ones.

Mining is usually people’s winter ‘job’, as the high summer temperatures mean that it’s too difficult to stay year-round. In summer, they run back to the coast!

Many miners live on or near their mine ‘lease’, and council regulations appear non-existent, so they are free to build what they like. Some are so imaginative that they’re now tourist attractions.

central nsw, Holiday, Outback NSW

Outback NSW – Gilgandra

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Let’s start our study of Outback NSW towns with Gilgandra. By definition it is a Central West town (it’s less than 70km north of Dubbo, a genuine Central West NSW town), but since it is on the road to the Outback, we’ll classify it is an outback town for this post.

Being so close to the metropolis of Dubbo (whose population is nearing 45,000) means that Gilgandra is virtually a suburb of Dubbo. It also means that any facilities it once had had been taken away, as it’s just as ‘convenient’ to go down the road an hour (which is the country equivalent of 10 minutes by city standards). It’s left many of its shop-fronts vacant – they’re relics of a by-gone era. On the plus-side, it’s close to facilities, with real estate prices that haven’t yet gone through the roof.

The town was certainly on the sleepy side when we dropped by, but was a pleasant change after the controlled chaos of Dubbo (those roundabouts are worse than Canberra’s – big call, I know, but have you ever shared a roundabout with a road-train?). 

I like the murals that were dotted around the town. They are now a feature of a lot of country towns, I noticed, and I wholly approve. The more art the better, I say! 

Holiday

Southern Highlands – Joadja – Part 1

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My last few posts were about the seaside, but we’re going to gradually make our way deeper in-land for awhile.

In this little series, we’re on a farm-stay in the Southern Highlands region of Joadja. These photos were taken back in May, 2022. The property we stayed at is on the Wingecarribee River, which threads itself through the region. It is a good 30-45 minutes from the nearest town (Berrima), so it’s certainly a place to getaway from it all. The stay took place over 3 days, so I got to know the many moods of the landscape. The weather does change how a place looks quite dramatically. I’m obviously using my photographers/landscape painter’s eye now…

On a sunny afternoon…

On a rainy morning…

There were lots of walks on farm roads to be had. I’ll post more rural scenes from Joadja in my next post.

Holiday

By the Seaside – Gerroa

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We’ll explore the neighbouring village of Gerroa. Historically, Gerroa has been the much smaller sibling to Gerringong, but in the last 10 years, estate developments in between the two towns mean that they’re really now joined at the hip.

Gerroa is located on the north end of Seven Mile Beach – which stretches all the way down to Shoalhaven Heads. It’s another stretch of coast that I’m very familiar with.

It is a collection of beach-side caravan parks and houses that are perched up on Black Head. Black Head itself consists of dark basalt produced by a volcano that was active in the area about 30 million years ago.

Gerroa is perfect if you just like a paddle in the surf or a really long walk along the beach.

central nsw, Holiday

Hill End – Part 1

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At the end of 2021, after nearly 2 years of Covid-19, we took a car holiday in NSW. Not wanting to travel too far from our home in Sydney, in case the state borders, or the city borders, locked down once again (as it had done multiple times in the preceding months), we set our sights rather close to home to Central NSW. It’s a region that we were familiar with, having visited different places at various times, however there was still plenty of pockets left to explore.

Our first stop was the historical village of Hill End. This is a former gold rush town, which hit the area during the 1850s and inflated its local population to 8,000. When the easy gold (originally alluvial, found in local water-ways) ran dry, the population declined. By 1945, the population was 700. In 2016, it was 80. I’m not really sure of the population post-Covid as at 2023. I would think there might be a few people who would want to move to such an historic and scenic spot.

This is the northern approach to the town. It’s not the most accessible town in the Central West, accessible by sealed but quiet and twisting, country roads from either Bathurst or Mudgee. But once you’re there you can visit a heritage town. A shout out to the brave people north of Hill End, who valiantly fought a bushfire a fortnight ago. The fire thankfully did not reach the village.