Places to visit in and around Hunter and Central Coast NSW

Gosford’s Leagues Club Park is an innovative regional play space where you’ll discover local history and the stories of the region’s Aboriginal people. The place where this is exemplified is the community node, a unique gathering and performance space that emerges from the park’s tidal waterway. The community node is circled by 11 m timber poles that represent local Aboriginal clans and neighbouring nations. These stunning poles were decorated by local Aboriginal artist Gavi Duncan to signify land, water, the universe, local people, kinship and learning.

Painted handprints were provided by local school students, symbolic of community involvement in the park’s design.

Nearby, you’ll see the sandstone amphitheatre-style seating and accent lighting, creating an exciting and unique space for gathering and celebration.

Next time you’re around Newcastle’s iconic working harbour, look out for Honeysuckle Park, with its family-friendly interactive play elements, recreational spaces, connection to the water and places to catch up with family and friends.

You’ll fine sandstone seating at the harbour’s edge, shade structures, BBQ facilities and seating, native plantings and a maritime-themed play space with shade provided by ship’s sails. There’s also an additional 300 m of promenade pathways, cycleways and green space as part of Newcastle’s coastal walkway.

The park celebrates the heritage of Newcastle’s working harbour – look out for artefacts from the former Newcastle Maritime Museum throughout the site, including port and starboard marker lanterns, and bollards and plaques from ships that were built in Newcastle’s Dyke Point or that frequented Newcastle Harbour.

Leagues Club Park features Australia’s first recreational tidal terrace, a shallow water play area that rises and falls with the natural tide. As the water rises, you’ll see the sand and sandstone bed reveal a swirling school of sea creatures, with a design that takes inspiration from the past.

These sandstone carvings are modelled on the nearby Bulgandry Aboriginal Art site, a significant local site that includes ancient engravings. Some of these carvings, including representations of fish, stingray, whale and dugong, are now meticulously recreated as large sandstone islands that are covered and exposed with the tide.

Designed by Gavi Duncan and carved from locally sourced sandstone, the islands represent Brisbane Water as a significant source of food for local Aboriginal people, as well as and the importance of Country – both land and sea – as a resource and spiritual connection.

Located in the heart of Market Street Lawn on the repurposed former heavy rail corridor, the Signal Box is an important piece of Newcastle's heritage. It was built in 1936 and was used to direct trains in and out of the former Newcastle Railway Station.

The building was fully yet thoughtfully restored in 2019, and today you’ll fine it is a unique inner-city dining destination.

The stunning restoration won the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2019 Newcastle Award for Heritage, and the 2020 NSW Greenway Award for Heritage.

You can now discover this piece of heritage, combined with contemporary design, by enjoying a meal from breakfast to dinner, or by simply taking in the restoration as you’re spending time on the Market Street Lawn.

During the 1987 International Sculpture Symposium at the picturesque hamlet of Wondabyne, beautiful sandstone was donated from Gosford Quarries, and the sculptures handed over to the people of Australia as a bicentennial gift from the artists.

Today, you'll discover these magnificent sculptures in the lovely Mount Penang Parklands. Each sculpture is unique, influenced by the environment and the cultural heritage of each of the artists. Common themes emerge from the collective work – nature, Mother Earth, the womb as a force to mould and form, our relationship to nature and partnerships between human beings. You can get to Mount Penang from the Parklands Road, Kariong.

Come and see the diversity of Australia's flora at Mount Penang, which is designed around 12 garden 'rooms' with each featuring something different from across the continent.

One of the most popular rooms is the cluster of Queensland Bottle Trees. These unusual and distinctive trees develop their unusual bulb shape – they can reach an impressive 2 metre diameter – as they mature. Each tree is more than 80 years old.

The name of the Bottle Tree can be taken literally, as there is a significant amount of water stored within the trunk. Aboriginal people would create reservoirs in the trunk and eat the roots and sap of younger trees, and the leaves have been used for cattle food during drought – but we don’t recommend sampling these tough old specimens.

See the transformation of the former Newcastle Railway Station to The Station Piazza - a quality community space that celebrates and enhances the site’s heritage. During your visit, seek out an Aboriginal interpretive artwork that also serves as a unique meeting place.

The artwork was designed in consultation with the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council and reflects Newcastle's Aboriginal people and their relationship with the land and the harbour.

Concrete seating is arranged in a boomerang configuration, while stencilled concrete represents tide lines and the importance of Newcastle harbour as a food source. You’ll see fish, crustaceans and land animals, and an illuminated 'fire pit' glows red after dark.

The space also incorporates Aboriginal-inspired themes, including a functional artwork based on a traditional campsite.

The bandstand at the heart of Newcastle Station Piazza is a unique stage for events, live music and plays. Its chunky vertical steel members and light wires are an interpretation of the gasholder that could once be found on the site.

The large cylinder-stored gas would fuel The Station lights and be pumped onto trains to provide lighting for the trip to Sydney.

The new bandstand’s industrial look and circular shape provides a modern practical representation of the city’s industrial past.

While much around the former site of Newcastle Rail Station has changed, the state heritage-listed buildings within The Station precinct remain – carefully restored as part of the precinct’s transformation into an exciting new retail and entertainment destination.

The two-storey station building we see today was built in 1878. Restoration works reinstated the original verandah, opened access to Scott Street, repaired doors and windows, restored the original fretwork and opened the ground floor to retail and events.

This award-winning restoration and repurposing of the ground-floor station building and platforms has created a place where you can discover artisan shops and galleries, play spaces and a café.

Newcastle’s Museum Park, at the former Civic Station, is home to a unique steel art feature that doubles as a place for you to rest your feet. This beam on the park’s grassy lawn, once supported the station’s pedestrian footbridge and has been retained on site as a nod to the park’s rich transport history.

As the broader area was transformed, the footbridge was carefully deconstructed, with the original bricks re-used to replicate the brick facades at full scale in the plaza paving. The haunched beams have been conserved, repainted and adapted as seating within the lovely, green landscape.