100 Fun Family Activities to do in Newcastle & Region this Summer

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1. Visit the animals at Blackbutt Reserve. 2. Go for a play at the amazing Speers Point Park. 3. Watch a magnificent summer sunset. 4. Go for a ride on a train. Suggestions: Edgeworth Trains, Walka Works Trains or just the State Rail trains on the or Hunter Line. 5. Visit a community garden and water or weed the plants or join others in a working bee. Suggestions: Laneway Park in Adamstown, Fig Tree Community Garden at Wickham Park, Warners Bay Community Garden. 6. Visit . There are so many things to do in this fantastic museum. 7. Walk up to Nobbys Headland. It’s currently open every Sunday from 10am to 4pm. 8. Make and fly paper planes. 9. Visit . 10. Visit local wetlands Hunter Wetlands Centre, (Ash Island) Wetlands or Belmont Wetlands. 11. Go up to the top of Mount Sugarloaf and see the view. 12. Relax and have a cloud watching session. 13. Get your kids to write a postcard and send it to a friend or family member. (Babies can scribble, drool or do a handprint on it). 14. Go for a swim at the ocean baths at Newcastle or Merewether (Merewether should be open soon after renovations). 15. Walk along Newcastle Foreshore. 16. Fly a kite on a windy day. 17. Go camping. Suggestions: In a campground, in your backyard or even your living room. 18. Walk or cycle along the foreshore of Lake Macquarie. Suggestions: Warners Bay to Speers Point or Eleebana to Valentine. 19. Get your photo taken with the Brett Whitely egg sculpture in front of Newcastle Art Gallery. From the right angle, the egg and nest sits right on your head. 20. Take the ferry to Stockton and back (or vice-versa if you live on the Stockton side). 21. Visit an art gallery. Suggestions: Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery or Newcastle Art Gallery. 22. Visit your favourite library and ask the librarian for recommendations for kids books. 23. Enjoy the views from The Obelisk in The Hill in Newcastle. 24. Make homemade lemonade. 25. Visit a local market. There’s heaps to choose from. Suggestions: Farmers Markets, Islington Markets, Hopscotch Sundays Market, Salt Water Market or Sacred Tree Market. 26. Have a picnic in the park. 27. Walk or cycle through Redhead Tunnel on the . 28. Stay up late and star gaze. 29. Visit . 30. Splash around at an aquatic playground. Suggestions: Lambton Pool or Maitland Pool. 31. Make a giant sandcastle on the beach. 32. Visit Blue Gum Hills State Park in Minmi and learn about the park’s mining heritage. Check out the maze and mining themed playground. 33. Get out the chalk and draw on the sidewalk or driveway. 34. Visit . It’s the largest moving coastal sand mass in the Southern Hemisphere. 35. Plant a tree. 36. Relax in a rotunda. Suggestions: Lambton Park, King Edward Park, Centennial Park, Dangar Park in Mayfield and Maitland Park. 37. Play hide and seek. 38. Get your photo taken in front of a Mister Trevor Dickinson mural. Suggestions: Newcastle Museum, Mayfield Pool or Merewether Tunnel. 39. Jump in puddles on a rainy day. 40. Enjoy some outdoor music. There’s usually live music over summer (I’ll keep you posted). 41. Walk along Green Point Reserve between Belmont and Valentine. 42. Get all the generations of your family together and take a group photo. 43. Visit the historic village of Catherine Hill Bay. 44. Make sock puppets and put on a show. 45. Roll down a hill. Suggestions: King Edward Park, Foreshore Park. 46. Make a fort in your backyard or in your house on a rainy day. 47. Plant some seeds and watch how quickly they grow. Suggestions: watercress, beans, 48. Visit the Tree of Knowledge in Wickham, one of the oldest and most historic trees in Newcastle. 49. Buy a canvas and some paints and create a masterpiece with your kids. 50. Explore the caves at Caves Beach at low tide and in calm sea conditions. 51. Make a fort in your backyard or on a rainy day in your house. 52. Do a torchlight tour of your backyard at night and see what you can find. 53. Find a dock and sit at the end of it. 54. Write a book about your kids with your kids. Extra points for illustrating it as well. 55. Visit the historic village of Morpeth. 56. Spot a rainbow. Hint: You can always find them in fountains especially Civic Park in Newcastle. 57. Get your hands on a large box and let your kids imagination go wild. 58. Get the whole family involved and draw self-portraits. 59. Visit a new park or playground that you haven’t visited before. There’s plenty listed in the Parks section of The Mummy Project. 60. Choose your favourite tunes and make a family playlist and crank it up. 61. Take your family to the movies. Suggestion: check out smaller theatres like Lake Cinema in Boolaroo or The Regal Cinema in Birmingham Gardens. 62. Stay up late and tell ghost stories. 63. Walk along the river at Maitland and see how high the water rose during the flood of 1955. 64. Grow a vegetable garden from seedlings and eat what you grow. 65. Visit a marina and play “I wish that was my boat”. Suggestions: Wickham, Nelson Bay and Belmont. 66. Get some friends together and play cricket in the park. 67. Go geocaching. What’s Geocaching? It’s a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. There’s quite a few locations in the region. 68. Watch a fireworks display. Suggestions: NYE, Day. 69. Go boating on Lake Macquarie whether it’s a tinnie, a ferry or your own toy boat. 70. Visit the cannons at Gregson Park in Hamilton. 71. Climb up 180 steps to the top of Tower on Newcastle Foreshore. 72. Visit the Canoe Pool and see if you can find remnants of the concrete Map of The World. 73. Play dressups. The more crazy and imaginative the better. 74. Visit Rathmines Park, former home to the RAAF Catalina Flying Boat Base. Now home to an amazing plane-themed playground. 75. Play barefoot bowls. 76. Visit a local skate park and skate, scoot and bike or just watch the local talent. 77. Explore rock pools at the beach at low tide. Suggestion Merewether, Caves Beach. 78. Walk through the boardwalk above the mangroves in Carrington. 79. Spot a coal train leaving or entering Newcastle Harbour, the largest coal exporting port in the world. 80. Cook up a barbecue in a park. Food always taste better when it’s cooked and eaten outside. 81. Visit recreation area. It features a playground, walking tracks and miniature trains on Sunday. 82. Decorate plain white t-shirts with some fabric paint to make cool custom shirts. 83. Visit the Convict Lumber Yard in Newcastle, a historical site dating back to 1801. 84. Visit AA park on King Street in Newcastle. This tiny park with the metal train on the wall is a great little spot of history. 85. Visit Brickworks Park in Wallsend, former home of a brickworks. Now a tranquil spot to go birdwatching. 86. Go to a headland and watch for whales or dolphins. Suggestions: Fort Scratchley, Nobbys Headland, Redhead or Dudley Bluff. 87. Make a time capsule to open in a year. 88. Walk past the Gothic looking Newcastle East Public School - the oldest continuously running school in Australia. Their Colonial Fair is on Saturday 18 October. 89. Collect rocks and decorate them with paint, stickers, etc. 90. Visit the new viewing platform in Cathedral Park adjacent to Christ Church Cathedral. 91. Visit the Fairy Garden in Broadmeadow. 92. Walk or run a 5K ParkRun 93. Watch a movie under the stars. Suggestion: Newcastle Permanent Cinema Under the Stars. 94. Visit , an hour from Newcastle. 95. Visit the family-friendly Blacksmiths Beach. 96. Blow bubbles, big ones, small ones using pipecleaners or wire twisted into a large ring. Try this bubble mix from CSIRO. 97. Have a picnic at Finnan Park at recreation area. 98. Play Frisbee Golf at Jesmond Park. 99. Get out some instruments (or make your own) and play some music. The louder the better. 100. Visit Little Beach in Port Stephens, a top summer spot for families. Share your fun. Post photos of your summer activities using hashtag #TMPFun100 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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