Newcastle and Tamworth

I decided I wanted to see Newcastle, simply so that I could put a face to a name. So we turned back towards the coast, stopping briefly in the little town of Kuri Kuri to see the murals and big kookaburra.

I got a really positive impression of Newcastle in the short time we spent looking around. We started with lunch at a playground in King Edward Park then had a great visit to the Bogey Hole; an ocean pool cut into the rock shelf. It was a bit morbid at the lookout reading the many plaques remembering people who had died too young, presumably at the bottom of the cliffs. The pool itself was awesome with the rolling swell making a great spectacle of exploding water as it crashed against the pool edge.

The kids and I explored the Newcastle Museum while Matthias searched unsuccessfully for nearby trailer parking. The BHP's "Fire and Earth" exhibition was a sensory journey through Newcastle's industrial past, evoking fear, wonder and respect. A walk along Queens Wharf revealed the modern Newcastle, embracing a recreational boating and fishing lifestyle, while over the channel a fossil fuel based industry still churned.

Our caravan park, the only one in Newcastle, wasn't even in Newcastle rather across the Hunter River in Stockton. But it did the trick. It gave us a base to sort out our disfunctional fridge, which was luckily just a matter of changing a fuse.

We woke early to a red sky and awesome cumulonimbus clouds erupting to the north. This reinforced our decision to flee inland towards Tamworth, where the forecast looked slightly more promising. We also wanted to escape the busyness of the coast.

Despite having finally settled on a compass bearing, frustration was running high. The threat of bad weather was getting us down, choosing what to see and what miss was tricky, I wasn't inspired by any particular destination and simply the difficulty of dragging and living out of a trailer was wearing. We stopped in Gloucester for supplies, an unhappy town with not a bar of Telstra mobile. It was about 30°C and just as we came out of the supermarket the first drops of rain started to fall. We drove to the kids' limit, through beef country and forestry, past a lot of chicken sheds and a worrying number of burnt out cars.

Finally we arrived at Sheba Dam Reserve, our camp for the next couple of nights. I couldn’t say that there is any reason why a family from Adelaide should travel to Sheba Dam Reserve, unless of course they were escaping the wet weather and crowds on the east coast and en route to Tamworth. It was a pretty spot, but we might have been in Blackwood Hill or Morialta in Adelaide. It was a popular spot for possums. At least a dozen sets of eyes reflected back in the trees around our camp. The rain hit in earnest overnight dropping about 20mm in the space of 30mins.

During the day we were lucky to stay dry and enjoyed pottering around the dam. We fixed our slide-out pantry (at least for now) and we drove into the small town of Nundle, home to a traditional working woollen mill. The arrival of an unabashed NRL and country music loving neighbour, who set up camp right next to us, reminded us that we were indeed in NSW and not the Adelaide Hills.

I rose before the sun and was lucky to see a pair of sugar gliders in a dead tree behind our camp. One flew off with his limbs spreadeagle, looking like a big flying handkerchief.

Keen to be out before the rain hit again we breakfasted and we’re on the road by a record 7:45am. By the time we reached Tamworth it was raining and we were ready for a second breakfast. Téamo Teahouse served up a great cooked brekkie and with colouring-in and picture books for the kids we passed one rainy hour. The wide verandahs of the high street kept us dry while we took in the vibe of the rural hub and the Tamworth Regional Gallery and the Library provided comfortable indoor refuge. Finally at 3pm we were able to venture out under clearer skies. We fitted in a brief but soggy play at what would have been an excellent playground under finer conditions. We did a drive by past the golden guitar and made a dash for the Marsupial Park before it closed at 5pm. It was interesting to see one of NSW’s bigger regional hubs and it most certainly oozed "country", even without the Country Music Festival in town. In every respect it felt a far cry from the coast.

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Patricia Bech is a travel writer. She is the creator of the Patricia Bech Travel Notes, which is hosted on her website and features a collection of travel notes and inspiration. She also writes for…