Beachside bliss at Bannisters, Port Stephens in NSW, Australia

Followers of chef Rick Stein, seafood lovers and people looking for the right beachside weekend getaway, it’s time to pack your baggage.

A two-and-a-half hours north of Sydney, on the East Coast of Australia, is the attractive seaside vacation spot of Port Stephens – over 30km of white, sandy seashores, pristine waters, fabulous nationwide parks, beautiful sand dunes, coastal walks and tiny cities, all wrapped up in a terrifically laidback life-style.  26 beautiful seashores and an impressive bay, the native space is a blue water paradise.  World-class surf breaks, scuba diving with gray nurse sharks, swimming with wild dolphins, snorkelling in quiet bays, sightseeing cruises, jet boat pleasure rides, and quad bike excursions – Port Stephens is all about family-friendly enjoyable. However for many who love to do completely nothing on vacation, and do it in model, then Bannisters Port Stephens is the right vacation spot!

Port Stephens just isn’t a city in its personal proper, however quite a set of relaxed coastal neighbourhoods, every providing one thing slightly completely different, together with Nelson Bay, Anna Bay, Shoal Bay, Fingal Bay, and my private favorite Troopers Level, a picturesque peninsula and sleepy bayside hamlet on the southern shores of Port Stephens,

In 1826 a small garrison of troopers was established at Friendship Level to seize escaped convicts. The garrison was later deserted and Friendship Level was renamed Troopers Level. It’s now referred to as the most effective spot for sunsets in Port Stephens, with beautiful waterways, secure swimming seashores and an award-winning marina that pulls yachts from across the globe.

Household holidays to Troopers Level started after I was very younger. Packed into the again of the automobile, with my youthful sister and two very bushy spaniels, it appeared like an countless journey and I’d inevitably get car-sick someplace en route. My sister and I’d battle over the armrest and my dad and mom would shout to us to cease bickering. We had been sizzling and sticky, we had been drained and irritable. These are the issues childhood recollections are manufactured from!

However as soon as we arrived all that was forgotten instantly, swept away within the pleasure of being on vacation in our favorite place! We’d spend the summer time in an antiquated picket home, with a wrap-around verandah, in true outdated Australian colonial constructing model. We drew straws for who’d get the privilege of sleeping out within the tiny screened-in part of the verandah that served as an additional bed room. The entrance steps of the home led straight to the seaside, and we might disappear down onto the sand for hours at a time, solely returning because it acquired darkish. Parental supervision was minimal, this was many years earlier than ‘helicopter parenting’ existed. We shaped ‘gangs’ with different youngsters on the seaside, and spent hours collectively looking for shells and looking out in rock swimming pools. Saturday afternoon we got 20 cents to spend on the native store and would spend an age deciding which of the sweets to spend the cash on, rising hours later with a small paper bag with our ‘combined lollies’. Saturday nights there was all the time a film on on the neighborhood centre and almost the entire city would flip as much as watch it, it doesn’t matter what was exhibiting. We watched pelicans fishing with their outsized beaks and realized to fish ourselves. We hand-fed the colorful rainbow lorikeets that landed on the verandah at any time when somebody went outdoors. We swam and made sandcastles, adorned with shells, seaweed and driftwood. Household barbeques had been an virtually every day ritual and somebody, normally me, would inevitably lose a sausage to a artful kookaburra that had swooped in simply because the sausage was on its solution to my mouth! These had been a few of my happiest days. However I grew up, moved away, moved on, moved abroad, and left these summers at Troopers Level behind.

Now, 40 years later, I used to be returning. Having lived in Zambia for properly over 30 years, I used to be making certainly one of my rare visits again to Australia to see my dad and mom. Time was brief, however I used to be decided to revisit the Troopers Level of my childhood. I hopped within the automobile and headed up the street, and down reminiscence lane.

The outdated winding, car-sick-making, freeway was gone, as a substitute, a three-lane expressway sped me alongside, quicker than I used to be ready for. I missed my turnoff and spent a while ‘discovering myself’ within the streets of Newcastle, earlier than a pleasant bystander acquired me again on monitor. Pulling into Troopers Level I used to be pleasantly stunned to see some issues hadn’t modified. Some issues although had been unrecognisable. The neighborhood centre was nonetheless standing, although no Saturday night time movies gave the impression to be marketed. The nook retailer with the sweets was not. The wharf the place I’d learnt to fish was nonetheless intact, however the home with its wrap-around verandah was gone. What was additionally the identical, however completely different, was the outdated Salamander. The as soon as down-at-heel, sixties motel, Salamander Shores, had by no means appeared so good in my youth. Nevertheless it was the Salamander not. Remodeled, many thousands and thousands of {dollars} later, right into a four-star luxe retreat for foodies, Bannisters effortlessly captures the coastal appeal of Port Stephens, completely packaged into a contemporary resort, and this was the place I’d be spending my weekend.

Bannisters Port Stephens opened in late 2018. That is the second location for the Bannisters group, which started in 2002 when media entrepreneur Peter Cosgrove renovated a seventies motel at Mollymook, a tiny city on the coast, three hours south of Sydney. However Bannisters by the Sea by no means actually took off till Cosgrove welcomed in Rick Stein, who began his first restaurant outdoors of the UK right here in 2009. Rick Stein’s in Mollymook has since grow to be an extremely well-liked restaurant for Sydneysiders, Canberrans and Worldwide guests alike, all wanting to take pleasure in some high quality seafood and take in the slowed-place south coast life.

Beginning his profession in 1975 with The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall UK, Rick Stein has made a profession out of traversing the world and discovering a few of its most scrumptious areas. He’s written over 20 cookbooks, made greater than 30 cookery reveals, and he’s now one of many world’s most well-respected cooks, with a fame for serving solely the best fish and shellfish – unbelievable seafood merely ready. After the success at Mollymook, and eager to broaden their footprint in Australia, Rick, his spouse Sarah and Peter Cosgrove turned their hand to Bannisters Port Stephens.

Located cliffside, the resort is grand in scale however boutique in vibe. A glowing makeover infused with design components like flooring to ceiling glass, trademark whites and breezy blue tones, timber accents and loads of greenery; one way or the other respiratory new life into the house while retaining the character of its former Salamander days. Canine and kids are welcome, there are even pet-friendly rooms. The employees are tremendous pleasant, and one way or the other have the knack of managing to make good service solely drama-free. An infinity pool seems down over the identical public jetty the place I’d as soon as realized to fish, and the place affected person fathers and excited kids nonetheless dangle their fishing strains. The resort options 80 rooms, together with 4 luxurious suites and a penthouse, that each one include both water or bushland views. There are a few completely different choices in terms of eating – a cavernous bar downstairs known as the Cheeky Canine, good for pizza, pool and watching sports activities on the enormous TV screens and Julio’s Mexican Cantina, with bay views, Mexican meals and margaritas. However, by far the most effective, indubitably, is Rick Stein’s, a high quality eating restaurant, however with a relaxed, vacation really feel.

When superstar chef Rick Stein takes the helm, you realize you’re in good arms, add revolutionary Head Chef Mitchell Turner, whose ardour for cooking started from a younger age, and the ensuing menu shines a highlight on the most effective of the area’s seafood. The standard of native seafood and proximity to the Hunter Valley and its wines bought Stein on the situation for the restaurant. King prawns, sand whiting, snapper and blue trevally star, whereas Sydney rock oysters are sourced from native growers a mere 600 metres away. You’ll be able to’t get extra native than that.

Port Stephens is dwelling to among the finest seafood on the east coast of Australia and the menu displays this. It begins with a number of recent seafood – suppose grilled scallops and freshly shucked oysters. Observe that with an entrée of sashimi of native yellowfin tuna or maybe native lobster and dust crab linguine. For fundamental course, I went with the superb Sri Lankan native swordfish curry, while my son opted to depart the seafood and go for a Tasmanian wagyu rump steak. Desserts are decadently wealthy, mine being a divine chocolate fondant. No matter you select, the elements are freshly caught or sourced and superbly ready, and when mixed with a wide-ranging wine record to enhance each course, you actually can’t go unsuitable.

Early the subsequent morning the rising solar solar is shining by way of the gum bushes and glistening on the water within the calm, clear bay that stretches out in the direction of the distant Yaccaba and Tomaree headlands. A pre-breakfast stroll all the way down to the wharf and alongside the seaside, it doesn’t get way more excellent than this. Port Stephens is a magical coastal vacation spot, the place you may change off, get swept up within the pure environment and take a break from the every day grind. 

Sarah Kingdom

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, earlier than transferring to Africa on the age of 21, Sarah Kingdom is a mountain climber and information, journey author, yoga instructor, path runner, and mom of two. When she just isn’t climbing or touring she lives on a cattle ranch in central Zambia. She guides journeys often in India, Nepal, Tibet, Russia, and Ethiopia, and takes climbers up Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro quite a few instances a yr.