Jackie's kind of trip: Newcastle

I dedicate this post to the one and only Jackie Dolan. The past trips I have been on required airplane travel, my favorite. However, to get to Newcastle I got to spent 2 hours on the train traveling through Australia. Although the train tracks have not been Jackie's friend, she LOVES trains. So, this one's for you Jackie.

The weekend after getting back from Townsville I went to Newcastle with Ean, Jeff, and Chris (all from UMD). Saturday had somewhat of a rocky start because the guys almost left without me. Although we discussed this the night before, Ean thought I had said I wasn't coming. I guess it probably wasn't the best idea discussing it after a night at the Golden Sheaf... But I caught up with them at the train and the day went on as planned.

Surprisingly I totally relinquished the reigns on this trip--I planned nothing. Jeff did most of the "planning" which was "lets just go where the wind takes us." At least we had a place to stay. We got to the YHA hostel and it was BEAUTIFUL. I was so surprised. It looked like an old Victorian house. We checked into our room and not only were the rooms just as nice (compared to other hostels that is) but the bathrooms were really nice too. After settling in we decided to just walk around the beach and the city. We climbed up some of the cliffs at the beach and got a great view of Newcastle. We didn't really go onto the beach or into the water because the guys all wore sneakers. Not so much the sandal type I guess. So we roamed into the suburbs of Newcastle and they were incredible. The houses were so cute, with stained glass windows and beautiful flowers all over. Some had amazing wrought iron gates and balconies that just gave them this old charm. Definitely a type of place I would love to live. The suburbs were surprisingly hilly so the walk was kind of tiring but it was definitely worth it. I wanted to keep going but Newcastle isn't that big; I don't think there was that much more to see. When we were roaming through the city we passed an antique store and saw some awesome stuff. Jeff really wanted to get this Tooheys cooler, like the Gatorade coolers with the tap. It was really sweet but definitely would be pretty difficult to get home. There was a bunch of Aussie beer paraphernalia that was really cool but I decided to pass up on that. We found this little pub for dinner that I think was called Frog in a Sock but I don't remember now (a side effect of waiting so long to post) and I can't find it online anywhere. We had a few drinks and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.

Greg and Pat (UMD and Cornell, they live with the rest of the guys) came to Newcastle the day before and were staying at the same hostel so they came over to our room to pregame with some goon (boxed wine) and talk about our plans for the night. There were a bunch of clubs that Jeff's brother told us about (he studied here in college) so we decided to check them out. The line for one of the bars was insane, one of them didn't exist anymore, but the last one we went to was pretty fun until the very end. Cliff notes version: Chris got yelled at for being American and because some random Aussie thought that Obama sucked. This almost ended in a big fight but luckily the guys I was with are rational enough to know that fights = being deported. So to say the least we went back to the hostel and called it a night.

The next day we got up and met up with Greg and Pat and went to the beach again. Everyone was going to leave in the late afternoon but I decided to stay an extra night by myself. There were a bunch of stores and apparently good shopping so I wanted to spend some time walking around there. But anyway, we all walked down to the beach and did some of the same trails that we did the day before. We walked over to the lighthouse and it was not as exciting as we thought it was going to be. There were a ton of dogs in the area though which was pretty cool. Also, I was a pretty big nerd a saw a bunch of beach mitigation efforts in the area that made me happy. I won't go on any further because I will bore people. We also decided to walk down to Bogie Hole, this ocean water pool. Getting down there was pretty interesting because the steps were really slippery and there wasn't much to grab on to. Ean ended up wiping out and luckily I did not go through with my first reaction to try to catch him because that would have ended in me falling as well. We went out onto the rocks and pretty much as soon as we were talking about how high the waves could get on the rocks I got hit with a lot of water. It felt pretty amazing though because it was hot. After that we walked up to Fort Scratchly. It was interesting to see how Newcastle was important during WWII. One guy at the fort offered to take us on a tour but it was about an hour long and we weren't too into that. So, we just walked around on our own for a little bit and mainly just sat at the top of the fort looking out on the beach and the harbor. We headed back down and Ean, Jeff, and Chris decided to catch the train and head back to Sydney. I stuck around with Pat, Greg, and their friend Katie from England. She had come along with us throughout the day's adventures. We spent the rest of the day laying out on the beach but I forgot both a towel and a bathing suit so it wasn't as fun as I would have liked. The water was beautiful and I would have loved to go in. But I just napped on the sand, probably my new favorite pastime. A few hours later we all headed back to the hostel and Pat and Greg picked up their bags and left for Sydney. Katie and I made plans to meet up later that night to go to the free dinner at the hostel. So I got ready and a few hours later headed down to the lobby to meet up with the big group going to dinner.

The restaurant was quite interesting. There was an open mic going on and the first guy was TERRIBLE. It was legitimately painful. Unfortunately there were only a few better than he was. But it was still a lot of fun talking to other people who were staying in the hostel. I learned that Katie had been traveling around Australia for the past year and she was going back to England a few days after we met. I met a Kiwi, Mark, who told me some stuff to do when I go to New Zealand (trip is finally booked!) I talked to a few Germans, although the language barrier was a little rough, and a few Swedish girls who were my new roommates in the hostel. Katie and I shared a few jugs (pitchers) and then went over to the beach with a few other people in the hostel who were from England. One of them was hysterical because I could not understand a word he was saying. But some of the other English guys told me they don't even understand him sometimes, so I didn't feel as bad. Conversation was amusing because there are so many different words that just can't translate, even though we speak the same language. One guy was telling a story and he called a guy something that I had never heard before and I asked him what that was and he tried to describe it using a bunch of other words that I had never heard before. Finally one of the English guys said it's like the same as calling someone a "hick" and clearly that I understand. So we just sat on the beach and drank some goon and chatted about traveling, school, and so many other things. Throughout our trip Jeff kept pointing out the barges that just sat out in the harbor. None of them were moving and we were all joking around that they were cardboard cutouts in the scenery of the water. I discovered through talking to the English guys that those were coal barges. I should have known that because Newcastle is the biggest coal exporter in Australia and apparently those bargest can queue in the harbor for months waiting for a shipment. It was pretty interesting. Later in the night some little teenagers egged us putting a total damper on the night so after the English guys confronted them we decided to just call it a night and head back to the hostel. We tried to watch a movie but most of the ones they had were on VHS. We tried to watch Hook but the VHS player ended up not really working, buzzkill number 2. But we stayed up talking for a while after that. I love talking to people from other places, other cultures, other backgrounds. It's starting to give me a greater perspective on things, definitely something I hoped would happen from traveling but I wasn't sure if I would be successful. I'm definitely getting there...

So on Monday I got up early, checked out and started to roam around Newcastle. I started by walking down Hunter St, an outdoor mall a few minutes walk from the hostel. It reminded me of the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. I got breakky at this little cafe with an amazing cup of coffee. I was people watching for a little while and then I decided to go shopping a little. Since my birthday was coming up, I wanted to get a cute new dress or outfit or something. On Hunter St I found a few things but nothing that I loved. So I walked up to Darby St which is the main shopping area in Newcastle. I looked through a few stores and discovered that it was slightly out of my price range but it was still fun roaming around. There is such different fashion here that honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start with shopping. I figured I would wait to get back to Sydney to find something for the big 2-1. I stopped at a little cafe on Darby St and got a piece of amazing chocolate cake and another cup of coffee and continued to people watch. It was really nice and really relaxing. A little while later I decided I didn't have anything else to do and I decided to head back to the train station and then back to Sydney. But of course, my luck, right as I got to the train station the train pulled out. So, I had another hour to wait for the next one. Pretty boring but maybe I should start looking at schedules before I travel places...

Overall it was a really successful trip. I'm very happy I stayed in Newcastle an extra day. It's a beautiful city that I really enjoyed.

Two updates in one day, I'm spoiling my readers! And, check out my pictures on Snapfish. The link is posted in the sidebar. All this got updated because, well, it was not sunny in Australia today...