There is something for everyone in this part of the NSW Mid North Coast. A perfect place for a holiday. It’s a 2.5 hr drive from Sydney and you can add a day’s drive on top of that if you come from Melbourne like us!
We mainly concentrated on coastal/beach walks, relaxing on the beach and in the water, eating, afternoon naps, getting close to wildlife, snorkelling and dolphin watching (some tours you can swim with the dolphins). Plus a lot of time looking at and photographing the beautiful coastline.
But if you need more action: a little further south in Anna Bay you can go camel riding, quad biking and sand surfing. Also for the kids (and big kids) is the Toboggan Hill Park, the SPLASH Waterpark (in summer) and go-karting.
Also various wildlife encounters, for young and old, such as the Oakvale Wildlife Park (see more below), Irukandji Shark & Ray Encounters, and the Koala Sanctuary (this was much small than other similar type sanctuaries we have seen elsewhere). And golfers have an abundance of choice of where to go to improve their game.
For a more complete list of available activities, see the links at the bottom of this page.
Port Stephens is a sub-tropical area made up of several small towns including Port Stephens itself. We based ourselves in the tourist town of Nelson Bay and this is probably where most tourists choose to stay.
The weather over summer is, of course, somewhat tropical – warm to hot and humid. Sometimes sunny, but also some wet, overcast days, and stormy days are not unlikely. So a bit of everything. Coming from Melbourne where we normally enjoy a dry heat in the summer, I did find the humidity a bit hard to handle. Note to self: if going to sub-tropical locations in the summer, get accommodation with air-conditioning not just fans!
Walks and Views
We saw some spectacular views and the walks to get to those views were definitely a highlight of the trip.
Our first full day we headed out to the famous Tomaree Head Summit Walk. This track is steep with quite a few steps but not a big walk – but, yes, you will indeed be sweating when you get to the top. But the views are absolutely spectacular! Standing at the top, to the right you can see over the township and beach of Shoal Bay and the nearby lighthouse. On the other side you can see down towards Zenith Beach and the other beaches, bays and hills. This view actually reminded me of Stanwell Tops, south of Sydney.
If you want a view without the walk, Gan Gan Hill Lookout is the one for you. The views are nowhere near as good as those from Tomaree Head Summit but still worth a quick visit.
Another must is to walk along the Fingal Bay beach over to the sand spit at low tide so you can walk across to the small island and the lighthouse. We got up to the spit and were going to go back another day at low tide and go across to the island but never actually got back there. You do need to time it well! So look up the tides and plan your trip here.
Probably the second best view and the most enjoyable walk we had was on the other side of Nelson Bay in Hawks Nest. You can catch a water taxi or ferry over to this side of the bay but they don’t take you to quite where we wanted to go. So we drove the 1 hour around the bay to get to the start of the Yacaaba Headland walking track. From the carpark, walk towards the headland along the beautiful Great Mermaid beach as shown below. The track up the Yacaaba Headland starts at the end of this beach. Again, much like the walk up Tomaree Head, it is steep, sweaty but absolutely worth it. Views are just wonderful!
When you head down off the headland and get back to the beach, just pop over the sand dune to the beach on the other side of the very thin peninsula. Quite a different beach, with pelicans, and a great view over the bay and all the boats.
Beaches
Beaches galore around Port Stephens. If you want some smaller sheltered beaches, I would suggest Shoal Bay and Nelson Bay and all the little beaches between.
The very beautiful Zenith Beach is on the south side of Tomaree Mountain and has both mountain and ocean views but is more of a surf beach. South of Zenith beach is Wreck Beach and Box Beach. Wreck beach you can’t walk to at the moment because of some of the stairs and track being washed away. Note that these three beaches have no facilities and are not patrolled.
Fingal Beach, further south again is a big beautiful beach on a bay, with a café, park and toilets nearby. And it’s patrolled.
Snorkelling and Boating tours
There is a plethora of boating tours available. It can get a bit confusing as there is so much choice! So once you’ve had a bit of a look at what’s available, try to decide roughly what you actually want to do (e.g. do you want to get into the water or not) and how long you want to be doing it (half day, full day). Do you want to go on a big boat, a small catamaran or something in between?
We did a half day snorkelling and dolphin watching cruise with Imagine Cruises. Highly recommend it! The staff, cruise, boat were all really good. The snorkelling was done in an area with no current, lots of fish and kelp forests. Saw a few dolphins as well on our return trip. Plus the weather was perfect which always helps!
Wildlife
If you visit in the cooler months (May to November) you can go whale watching! Humpbacks and southern right whales migrate at this time of the year. A big tourist drawcard.
As we went in summer, we enjoyed seeing the dolphins. Little hint – if you walk out on the breakwater at the Nelson Bay marina before sunset you can see dolphins very close. Of course you can also go on a snorkelling and dolphin spotting tour as mentioned above.
One of our favourite afternoons was at the Oakvale Wildlife Park about half an hour south of Port Stephens. Lots of native animals – some free range. Also a small water park for cooling off in the warmer months.
And actually our favourite part was just after we arrived, there was a farmyard feeding demonstration where we visitors (young and old) got to feed the baby animals with a bottle. It was organised chaos and so much fun! Little piglets (going crazy in their pen – cos they know what’s coming!) And lambs and kids then let into the feeding area where we all had a bottle and got to feed the very greedy baby animals. Loved it!
Where to eat
Lots of good places to eat. Some highlights were:
- Shoal Bay Country Club – great food/staff and service and right on the beach. Perfect location, deck café restaurant and bar (great for sunset views). Different areas for breakfast, dinner or cocktails. Worth checking out. We very much enjoyed it.
- The Nelson Bay lighthouse café has great views over the bay. We only enjoyed coffee and scone but meals are available too. Try and book if you can here – its small and popular.
- Over on the other side of the bay near Hawks Nest is Tea Gardens Boatshed. Small indoor/outdoor café with nice views right on the river. Food good, service ok. The water taxis and some boat trips land here.
- Mavericks on the Bay at the Nelson Bay marina was the only restaurant we visited twice. Good food, nice staff, close to where we stayed and we got a table right on the open windows looking out on to the boats. Ideal location!
- One restaurant we didn’t get to was Little Beach Boathouse restaurant in Nelson Bay. More of an upmarket restaurant with water views, it was recommended to us a couple of times but we just never got there. So you may want to check this out.
https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/north-coast/port-stephens-area/nelson-bay
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Hope you’ve enjoyed this Travel Inspiration from an Empty Nester!
Hi Jenny – great piece. Lovely area!