Explorer Dream: Newcastle, New South Wales

First stop of our cruise trip with Explorer Dream is Newcastle in New South Wales. Australia government is very strict when it comes to food products. A lot of food such as dairy and fruits are not allowed. Once the ship docks, the cruise plays an announcement to remind passengers not to bring any food off board. During the off boarding process, they hand you a piece of paper with the emergency phone numbers, time of departure and the name of the port (in case anyone gets lost). For this trip, they have a shuttle that brought us to a church area. From there, we were free to roam around and go wherever we wanted. There are locals who volunteered to help passengers get around. They were all so kind and patient when answering all our questions.

Newcastle has a tram that goes all the way to the beach, which is great. Before going in, you need to tap your Opal card or credit card in one of their machines. You also tap once you get off. The thing is, we didn’t know about it so we weren’t able to tap before we rode the tram. When we got off, we saw a local police guarding the machine. I approached him and told him about our situation, asking how we should pay. He then told us not to worry and taught us how to use the machine so that we’d know what to do when we ride the tram back. I seriously thought we were going to get in trouble but we were lucky enough to meet a kind person.

It was very wavy when we got to the beach front. Aside from the beach, they have salt water pools for people who want to get away from the waves and do laps.

Of course, we opted to just play in the waves then sunbathe. There wasn’t a lot of people by the beach since we went on a Monday.

Unfortunately, we were pressed for time therefore we were only able to stay for an hour. If I have the chance, I would definitely go back. There are still a lot of places to explore in the city.