Overnight, we had the daddy of all thunderstorms – continuous lightning and cracking peals of thunder for hours. The rain came down in buckets and I had visions of the lake overflowing and we’d have to paddle out in the morning, but, no, it was ok and had dried up almost completely before we set off.
We followed the Elizabeth Bay coast road up past Lake Munmorah and rejoined Highway 111 towards Newcastle. To get there, you have to pass through Swansea and Charlestown, and bypass Cardiff and Wallsend. One of the suburbs of Newcastle is Gateshead, so it was almost like being in the northeast – except the roads were worse! We’re not too impressed with the roads north of Sydney so far. Main highways are not too bad but side roads are full of lumps and bumps.
We found a pay and display car park near the tourist information but stopped in to an antiques centre and café for the usual ritual of coffee and sticky
(I hasten to add that we don’t both always have a sticky and sometimes we share, so for those of you tut tutting about my sugar intake, don’t worry – I’m not overloading on bad things – not all the time anyway!) The antiques centre was huge, a bit like the Gloucester harbour antiques place only all on one level, but it was very pricey, so no purchases. Then off we went to the tourist office.
When we told the tourist man where we were parked, he told us there was free parking all over the town after 1.00pm on Saturdays and we’d chosen one of the only pay parks around! Sounds just like us! Not to worry, we’d only paid for 2 hours so we used up that time in having a wander up Darby Street where there are loads of cafes and smaller shops. We also paid a visit to the Art Gallery, which is meant to have one of the largest collections of art outside of Sydney – I think we may have found the wrong gallery as there wasn’t a lot there, and some of it was closed off anyway as there had been a party the night before and at 2.00pm the next day they were still putting lights back up and rearranging pictures – is this Aussie laidbackness in action?
Back to the car, we moved it along the sea front to one of the now free car parks and set off on the Newcastle Heritage trail. As with Napier in NZ, the authorities are making an effort to retain as many of the old properties still in existence to preserve the heritage, but many have already fallen into disrepair and look fairly sorry for themselves. However, it was a very interesting walk, and we went past Nobby’s beach
and Fort Scratchley to name but a few oddly named places. There are some lovely buildings in the town centre,
but as with most towns, street level frontages are modern and similar to any other towns. It’s only when you look above that you see original workmanship. As we were wending our way back to the car, the normal traffic sounds were drowned out by the roar of hundreds of motorbikes making their way to the sea front. We don’t think the local police knew they were going to be there, as one police car turned up after the last bike arrived with the driver looking very perplexed!
We had booked into a Motel in Karuah, about 35km north of Newcastle, the Comfort Inn. There are no AA accommodation guides here as there were in NZ. Jason’s guides are hard to find, but each Tourist office has lists of places to stay if you tell them your budget. We’ve found the best guide for our price range is the Budget Motel Chain. They seem to have 1 or 2 motels in most of the largest towns or nearby and the two that we’ve had so far have been very good. Having been caught out in NZ and scrabbling around last minute to find a room for the night, we’re booking 1 or 2 nights in advance, gauging the stops on how far we’re likely to get or want to get in a day, depending on how many sight-seeing stops we make on the way. There is also a law in Oz regarding cooking in motel rooms – unless the motel has a special licence and fulfils strict health and safety regulations, NO cooking is allowed, so you may get a microwave, toaster and kettle but that’s it.
The Comfort Inn has 12 rooms and is just off the main road, but still very quiet and very clean. We took a wander down the main street and found the tourist office still open. Although we already had most of the booklets about the area, the lady told us that there was a wood chopping competition in the RSL (Retired Servicemens League) club that evening and as we were going there anyway, Tom went back to our room to pick up his video – we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch local life in the raw!
The club was busy and the family room was all set up for the competition, which was actually for cross cut sawing, not chopping. Well, the excitement was overwhelming! Lots of sturdy young(ish) - and not so young too - men showing off their muscles. As we’re learning, a 6.30pm start means some time after that, when they’ve all chatted and met their neighbours, etc, the do might get going. There were to be 2 heats with 2 pairs of sawers, then a final with the winners of each heat.
After all the build up, the actual sawing took about 30 seconds!! And even then, one pair on each heat had a few seconds advantage. The talking took longer then the sawing! It was quite amazing how these huge saws made very short work of getting through logs about 24” across.
When the competition was over, the organisers opened it up to any of the ladies present who might want to have a go – NO, NO I did NOT volunteer, and Tom would have been dead if he’d tried to volunteer me. But 4 ladies did and were paired off with some of the men. They were given some training first then got more applause that the competitors when they got going.
After that, it was the turn of the celebrities………we retired to the dining room for our dinner at that point – too much excitement in one evening is bad for us!!
One of the ladies selling raffle tickets told us that the whole weekend was their Oyster and Woodchopping Festival, held on the banks of the bay so we decided we’d pay it a visit before setting off on Sunday. It’s all part of the new adventures we’re experiencing during our holiday. I have to admit I didn’t have any problems getting to sleep after my exciting evening nor with the anticipation of the next day’s events.
We followed the Elizabeth Bay coast road up past Lake Munmorah and rejoined Highway 111 towards Newcastle. To get there, you have to pass through Swansea and Charlestown, and bypass Cardiff and Wallsend. One of the suburbs of Newcastle is Gateshead, so it was almost like being in the northeast – except the roads were worse! We’re not too impressed with the roads north of Sydney so far. Main highways are not too bad but side roads are full of lumps and bumps.
We found a pay and display car park near the tourist information but stopped in to an antiques centre and café for the usual ritual of coffee and sticky
(I hasten to add that we don’t both always have a sticky and sometimes we share, so for those of you tut tutting about my sugar intake, don’t worry – I’m not overloading on bad things – not all the time anyway!) The antiques centre was huge, a bit like the Gloucester harbour antiques place only all on one level, but it was very pricey, so no purchases. Then off we went to the tourist office.When we told the tourist man where we were parked, he told us there was free parking all over the town after 1.00pm on Saturdays and we’d chosen one of the only pay parks around! Sounds just like us! Not to worry, we’d only paid for 2 hours so we used up that time in having a wander up Darby Street where there are loads of cafes and smaller shops. We also paid a visit to the Art Gallery, which is meant to have one of the largest collections of art outside of Sydney – I think we may have found the wrong gallery as there wasn’t a lot there, and some of it was closed off anyway as there had been a party the night before and at 2.00pm the next day they were still putting lights back up and rearranging pictures – is this Aussie laidbackness in action?
Back to the car, we moved it along the sea front to one of the now free car parks and set off on the Newcastle Heritage trail. As with Napier in NZ, the authorities are making an effort to retain as many of the old properties still in existence to preserve the heritage, but many have already fallen into disrepair and look fairly sorry for themselves. However, it was a very interesting walk, and we went past Nobby’s beach
and Fort Scratchley to name but a few oddly named places. There are some lovely buildings in the town centre, but as with most towns, street level frontages are modern and similar to any other towns. It’s only when you look above that you see original workmanship. As we were wending our way back to the car, the normal traffic sounds were drowned out by the roar of hundreds of motorbikes making their way to the sea front. We don’t think the local police knew they were going to be there, as one police car turned up after the last bike arrived with the driver looking very perplexed!We had booked into a Motel in Karuah, about 35km north of Newcastle, the Comfort Inn. There are no AA accommodation guides here as there were in NZ. Jason’s guides are hard to find, but each Tourist office has lists of places to stay if you tell them your budget. We’ve found the best guide for our price range is the Budget Motel Chain. They seem to have 1 or 2 motels in most of the largest towns or nearby and the two that we’ve had so far have been very good. Having been caught out in NZ and scrabbling around last minute to find a room for the night, we’re booking 1 or 2 nights in advance, gauging the stops on how far we’re likely to get or want to get in a day, depending on how many sight-seeing stops we make on the way. There is also a law in Oz regarding cooking in motel rooms – unless the motel has a special licence and fulfils strict health and safety regulations, NO cooking is allowed, so you may get a microwave, toaster and kettle but that’s it.
The Comfort Inn has 12 rooms and is just off the main road, but still very quiet and very clean. We took a wander down the main street and found the tourist office still open. Although we already had most of the booklets about the area, the lady told us that there was a wood chopping competition in the RSL (Retired Servicemens League) club that evening and as we were going there anyway, Tom went back to our room to pick up his video – we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch local life in the raw!
The club was busy and the family room was all set up for the competition, which was actually for cross cut sawing, not chopping. Well, the excitement was overwhelming! Lots of sturdy young(ish) - and not so young too - men showing off their muscles. As we’re learning, a 6.30pm start means some time after that, when they’ve all chatted and met their neighbours, etc, the do might get going. There were to be 2 heats with 2 pairs of sawers, then a final with the winners of each heat.
After all the build up, the actual sawing took about 30 seconds!! And even then, one pair on each heat had a few seconds advantage. The talking took longer then the sawing! It was quite amazing how these huge saws made very short work of getting through logs about 24” across.When the competition was over, the organisers opened it up to any of the ladies present who might want to have a go – NO, NO I did NOT volunteer, and Tom would have been dead if he’d tried to volunteer me. But 4 ladies did and were paired off with some of the men. They were given some training first then got more applause that the competitors when they got going.
After that, it was the turn of the celebrities………we retired to the dining room for our dinner at that point – too much excitement in one evening is bad for us!!One of the ladies selling raffle tickets told us that the whole weekend was their Oyster and Woodchopping Festival, held on the banks of the bay so we decided we’d pay it a visit before setting off on Sunday. It’s all part of the new adventures we’re experiencing during our holiday. I have to admit I didn’t have any problems getting to sleep after my exciting evening nor with the anticipation of the next day’s events.
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