Hey everyone

Today was Newcastle exploration day!

We were up and out by half 10, as we had decided to go on a free walking tour of Newcastle. We weren't quite sure what to expect, and it turned out to be just one uni student who ran the tours in his spare time. It also turned out that we were his only customers that day, so we had quite a personal tour.

The tour was great. We learnt lots about the history of Newcastle, and were taken round to lots of lovely places and told little anecdotes about each. We saw the 'bogie hole', which was once the public bathing place of a famous figure in Newcastle's history.

We saw a cathedral that took over 200 years to build, a park where they have outdoor movies, and the very busy port. Newcastle happens to be the biggest exporter of coal in the world, so there were always huge ships just off the coast, waiting for their turn to come in and get filled up with coal. The tour ended with a story about a coal tanker getting 'stuck' (beached?) on Newcastle beach a few years ago, and it took several tugboats a few days to pull the ship back out to sea. The first attempt failed when the ropes snapped, so specially made steel ropes had to be made and flown in from Perth.

We loved the tour but unfortunately had very little cash on us, so felt bad giving him just $5 for all his hard work. He was really excited that we had read about the tour on TripAdvisor though, so that went some way to making up for our lack of money.

After the tour, we walked Coles, the supermarket. The walk took about 20 minutes but we bought lots of supplies (including marinaded lamb steaks that were reduced). To get back to the hostel we decided to get the free bus, but ended up waiting 45 minutes for the bus... Oh well.

Back at the YHA we had an amazing dinner of lamb steak, potatoes and vegetables - tasty stuff. It had been a nice first full day in Newcastle, and we were looking forward to another day of seeing the sights it had to offer... Xxx