Visited for the first time in maybe 4 years, was super impressed with the transformation the hotel…read morehas gone through and how better it looks now on the inside. Ordered the kilcoy rump steak and was amazed with how it was cooked to perfection ( medium rare), full of flavour and super tender, best steak I've had out in a long time. The mushroom sauce was something different too! Excellent vibe for dinner and drinks!

Amazing dinner. We…read morehad the salt and pepper calamari that came with two delicious accompaniments, a chilli jam and an aioli. Both were delectable. The calamari was perfectly cooked. We had a share plate of Mexican tortillas. Talk about divine! It was more than we could handle though. Certainly generous in the serving sizes. The staff were all lovely too. They had great kids meal options and a huge array of fun colouring sheets to keep the little ones occupied. Definitely somewhere we will be coming back to.

The good things about this hotel are the Manager, the location, and the price. Did I mention the…read morelocation? The internet sucks, the interior walls are bare brick. The bed is hard, but surprisingly comfortable. There's a fridge, microwave, kettle. Everything is clean, but worn. There are even some plates and flatware. Free parking as well. This area is absolutely amazing, with beautiful beaches and amazing views, so if you are looking for a cheap place to stay that is within walking distance of the shops and the beach, then this is for you. You get what you pay for and this is a cheap motel at a cheap price. I considered 2 stars, but it's not THAT bad. But if you are used to decent hotels and don't do cheap, stay elsewhere.

Let's talk about the new look first. It's nice! Exposed brick, neutral tones, funky lighting and…read moredivisions creating a feeling of privacy. Most of the seating is adjacent to or within view of the kids play area. I can't help but feel the space is much smaller than pre renovation however I didn't walk around to see where the rest was being utilised. The menu is inexpensive, no fuss pub grub; offering salads, burgers, grills and schnitty's. The portions are decent. My partners $19 schnitzel was enormous and the gravy ordered as extra was more than enough to cover. Curiosity was my main drive; choosing the South African hotdog. Sadly it wasn't a significant taste sensation to warrant attempting to make it sound 'exotic'. The tomato and onion relish was an uninteresting tomato pulp and you probably could have stuck any old sausage on the roll. As a local I would definitely come back for the value for money.

Was a regular to this pub a while back, came for a few beers and a snack so I ordered the haloumi…read morechips. 15 dollars later and my bowl of haloumi chips arrive, 6 chips in total. Flavour was there but can't really justify 6 chips for 15 bucks

This is a Must See location but you need to be fairly fit to get there. It's about 500 feet above…read moresea level and there are probably hundreds of metal and stone steps to climb. But if you can make it, it is SO worth it. I'll post some photos, but seriously, if you are staying in this area, you should not miss out on this climb and the views. Absolutely stunning!

Always a pleasure to visit. Amazing views, lush green scenery and some wildlife spotting if you're…read moreextra lucky. You have to pay the price in exercise to experience it but my fitness is fairly poor and I still made it to the top! Bring a camera. You'll want to take some snaps but it also doubles as a handy 'I-need-a-rest' excuse. Parking was hard to come by being a Saturday, perfect weather, surrounding beaches and water sport activities taking place. There is extra parking however up the one way lane to Zenith Beach.

Absolutely horrible experience, if I were you I would avoid this place at all costs. It's over…read moreexpensive, very low quality food and completely arrogant waiters and ground staff. My recommendation for those who are reading this keep going to anabay or salamander Bay and hit up the taverns there. They have amazing food. Brilliant service and a stunning atmosphere. Now for the full details. We came in on bikes being a beautiful day. Thought we'd stop in for lunch and a beer. We parked the bikes in the shade. There were no signs saying do not park here or staff parking only, it was open slather. So we walked up and found a table in the shade, it was already 32° C and will feeling the heat and very keen for a beer. After sitting down, ordering a beer, settling in and ordering our food. We were then told by one of the staff members who bought my dish out (I'll get to that shortly) That we had to move because the table was already booked. If there was something clearly saying that the table was reserved we wouldn't have sat there in the first place. However, it wasn't clear so we had no idea. This waitress, french-speaking lady, then took my food away and told us we had to relocate to another table. Finally, after finding another table in the shade, we all sat down and my so-called crispy pork belly was served in front of me. Now this dish is $23 and it had a handful of pork belly and a very little amount of what they thought was pineapple salad I think. The pork belly was like chewing gum. It was flavorless, far from crispy and a big challenge to eat. My mate who was with me was Kane on the prawns and salad. This dish was $28 and it came with three prawns including the heads which were already cut off and three pieces of green rocket I think. Locally you can pick up half a kilo of tiger prawns for about $20. My mate went and said something about the meal because he was completely disgusted at the price and the value in which we were sort of compensated for. I'm leaving. We've come down to our $30,000 bikes to find them being watered and covered in bore water from a sprinkler that wasn't there when we arrived. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, the staff were notified and some very large overweight middle-aged individual in a high-vis vest came down and whinged to us saying that we shouldn't have parked there. I asked him to show me where the signage says "no parking" But there wasn't one because someone had taken it down well before we had arrived. So I explained to this individual that it was not our problem and this looked like parking for customers. Now I'm a local, I live 15 minutes from this place and the four occasions I've been here over the last 12 months. I've not had any luck with the service or the food quality. If it was my choice we would have moved to Salamander Bay or Anna Bay where there are two amazing taverns with much better food quality and outstanding service. The staff here just did not care about their service or the issues with saturating our $30,000 motorbikes in bore water. Don't come here, it's over expensive and the food quality is well below average. You won't leave here with a smile on your face, I was totally disgusted and I can assure you I will never return. I'm hoping you've read this review in full and seriously reconsider where you are going for lunch, this place had so much potential back in the day, but it is completely failing right now, it's failing the locality and the reputation of this amazing area that we live in.

We spotted Murray's Brewery along the road on the way to Port Stephens. On the way back, we decided…read moremake a pit stop for some food and drinks. There's also a winery on the premises, Port Stephens Winery. We dropped in on an early Saturday evening (around 6:00pm). The layout is quite nice with a beautiful view of the vineyards in the background and plenty of outdoor seating. The menu is quite massive with beer snacks, sides to share, lighter meals & salads, burgers, pizzas, BBQ, cheese platters and sweet treats. There also was a small gelato case inside. There's the usual merchandise with other random touristy nicknacks for sale. - Beer tasting paddle ($23.00 AUD for 6) - this is pretty pricey but you do get 6 samples that are 200ml each. The unfortunate thing is that they don't let you choose what you want. Never been to a brewery before where you didn't have the option. Lame! There's about 10 flavours on tap. The best one we tried in our sampler was the east coast lager and dark knight porter style. Rest were pretty unmemorable. - Crispy pork belly bites ($15.00 AUD) - came with red wined braised cabbage and macerated apple. You get 6 pieces of pork belly. The apple sauce was a nice combination and the cabbage was tasty. Pretty great for sharing. - Sweet potato wedges ($12.00 AUD) - came with a side of sour cream and sweet chili sauce. The wedges were quite chunky but needed to be way more crispy. Decent stopover. Food was better than expected but wasn't too impressed with their beer offerings.

Unfortunately, I never got to see Newcastle before they decided to rip up the railway leading into…read morethe centre of town. Then again, it did have the problem of cutting the town in two, so with this the foreshore has been opened up somewhat. So, this is the new station, and it certainly looks quite new, and rather fancy. Still, it is pretty much a regional station, though trains to Sydney are rather regular.

I didn't find that this place was really all that inspiring. In fact, it seemed to be just your…read moretypical suburban pub. I would probably say no frills, but then again sometimes no frills can be pretty good. This place was, well, bland. In fact, they had a really limited number of beers on tap as well, and none of them particularly thrilled me either. As such I doubt I'd come back, though I must admit that the service was pretty good.

Great pub lunch. 3 of us had the John Dory with salad and chips - yum. The 4th person had battered…read moreflathead which was good but by comparison it was a very small portion. Desserts looked good but overly sweet. Overall a tasty pub lunch but over $100 with a soft drink

The thing about Hamilton is that there is a pub on both sides of the railway station, and both pubs…read moreare pretty cool. However, this one was actually much livelier than the other one, so I guess I would have to give it points for that. In fact listening to the banter going on between the bar staff was actually rather amusing, especially since they were dealing with an undersirable. The other thing was that they had some awesome beers on tap, and a great outdoor area as well. Yeah, this place was pretty cool.

A basic little pub that's right across the road from Hamilton train station. I went in late…read moreafternoon, as a place to have a cold drink while I waited for my train. Given the time of day, I saw the place at its most naked (though darkly lit) and it was showing signs of wear. I considered sitting at the suede/micro-fibre lounges, however they'd seen too many good times and were rubbed bare. The other seating was stool based. Though not particularly comfortable (I probably wouldn't go there for a chat), in my brief wait for the train, my stool was sufficient. It felt a bit dingy. The bathrooms were older style, but roomy and clean. Edit: I hear they have new furniture?