Tracks on the coast

From beach to river to bush, Elissa Blake finds Newcastle has key attractions for an energetic family.

The day starts with eight clangs from the clock tower at Newcastle's historic Customs House and I hurl myself out of bed thinking I've overslept. Except I haven't. A glance out our apartment window, on Scott Street overlooking the harbour, confirms my suspicions. It's 6.04am.

In Newcastle's industrial past, the clock and time ball above it overlooked a busy wharf and railway interchange. Every day the hollow- steel ball (first hoisted in 1877) would drop at 1pm, accompanied by a report from a cannon housed on the seafront at Fort Scratchley. Ships in the harbour would then synchronise their chronometers. Fast-forward to today and the rail yards are immaculate parkland; Customs House is an upmarket restaurant and bar, and its clock still shows the correct time but clangs two hours ahead. Big ships still visit, however, and as I watch the city wake up, I see a parade of bulk carriers being towed and nudged through the harbour channel.

We arrived in town the previous day but rather than head straight to the Chifley Executive Suites, built at the back of what used to be Newcastle's main police station, we opt for a leg stretch in the Glenrock State Conservation Area, 500 hectares of forest, creeks and bushland about five kilometres from the city centre - the remnant of the coastal temperate rainforests that once covered the region.

This was Awabakal country and before white settlement it provided the area's indigenous people with food, shelter, tools and coal. But you can't keep a good thing quiet and it didn't take long for settlers to discover these riches. Centuries of activity have left Glenrock peppered with more than 145 historic sites.

My children, aged five and seven, think they're up to tackling the Yuelarbah Track, a five-kilometre walk winding past the pretty waterfalls on Flaggy and Little Flaggy creeks. From there the track becomes more challenging, taking walkers up and down sets of steps and along eroded tracks. Bellbirds ping in the treetops, one of 140 species of bird recorded in the park.

"Try to stick to the track," a ranger, Rebecca Scott, advises before we set out. "Or you might fall down a hole." Glenrock's mining heritage is everywhere and not all of it is obvious. Lengths of old railway are underfoot in sections of the track and the remains of Australia's first railway tunnel are here, too. Copper was smelted in the dunes behind Burwood beach from 1851 and the area was also the site of market gardens servicing a growing city. In 1932, the Scout Association of Australia was granted a lease of 40 hectares of land at Glenrock Lagoon and scouting activities have continued since. When we get to the track's end at Glenrock Lagoon, Rebecca tells us we could keep walking around from Burwood beach to the Newcastle suburb of Merewether.

Newcastle is easy to navigate by car, too, thanks to wide roads and streets that speak of civic pride and the prosperity that came with industrial booms. When its steelworks closed in 1999, however, Newcastle's character changed. A walk along central Hunter Street reveals a city that's still coming to terms with that altered identity. BHP is not the only corporate footprint to have shrunk: discount emporiums occupy what were once department storefronts and banks. The strip is both down-at-heel and buzzing from a fleet of cafes, shops and pop-up stores. A brisk 20-minute walk takes you to Darby Street, the hipster end of town where more cafes, bars and boutiques are found.

Children need other distractions, however, so we walk to Foreshore Park, which leads to Nobby's beach. With the sun sinking low, the views across Newcastle Harbour are superb and the long finger of Nobby's lighthouse lamp is visible as it sweeps the sea.