Newcastle, but not as you know it

Leaving Canton Beach behind (yet to find the actual beach mind you) we continued north, and started to wonder if the pioneers had begun to run out of town names. There’s a definite feel of a northerner missing home with towns such as Newcastle, Hexham, Gateshead and Stockton (almost laid out correctly too), and also the lets call a spade-a-spade with “the hill”. Also in that category was our lunch stop – Redhead, a red sandstone cliff/head with sandy beach stretching off into the distance. Made for a good beach walk, and also gave us the chance to help a beached fish (all 3 inches of it!) back into the water – must be the opposite of a swimmer getting caught in a rip current! Mel, I hope you’re proud of us!
This also marks a special day as we’re leaving the Sydney section of the guidebook that has been keeping us busy for the past 4 months, and moving on to the crisp clean pages of the New South Wales section (thanks to Fee and K – the guidebook has been serving us well!)
Campsite for the night is Stockton, across the river (Hunter, not Tyne) from Newcastle, and right next to the beach. It’s not really a beach for boarding on (although I did try!), but the breakwater nearby has a nice wreck attached, and pelicans sitting on lampposts waiting for the fishermen below to just turn their backs for a few minutes. As we’ve been in the van every night so far, we treated ourselves to the night life of Newcastle, New South Wales’ second city – hardly bustling but then it is only Tuesday!
Hot tourist fact for the day: Newcastle NSW, like the original is a prolific coal mining area, helping it shifting the most tonnage of any port in Australia. At any given time there’s a multitude of ships just off the coast waiting to be filled. (We thought it was a mass exodus from Sydney, but there you go)