Tomaree National Park provides a stunning backdrop to the coastal towns of Port Stephens. It’s the only place in NSW where you can see rhyodacite outcrops, a rare volcanic rock. The park's rugged bush coastline is perfect for walkers, with the Wreck Beach trail offering a scenic route through angophora forest. It's also great for whale watching and exploring the historic gun emplacements at Fort Tomaree. Don’t forget your fishing rod — the waters here are teeming with fish.

Constructed on the site of a former mosque from the Islamic city, this church dates back to between 1402 and 1417, according to the oldest documented evidence. Featuring a single nave design and side chapels nestled between buttresses, the original Gothic structure has undergone significant modifications due to restorations and extensions carried out between the 16th and 18th centuries. Notable elements within the church include a Renaissance presbyter, shaped like a triumphal arch, and the chapel dedicated to the Holy Family (1765-1766), which showcases the artistic influence of sculptor Francisco Salzillo. The main entrance of the church, adorned with the shield of the Catholic Monarchs at its peak, is in the Isabelline Gothic style. In contrast, the adjoining communion chapel exhibits a more Baroque aesthetic, featuring an entrance constructed between 1726 and 1735.

This house was home to the poet and his family between 1914 and 1934. It was a farmhouse, much in line with others which existed in the same street in the early 20th Century. The museum retains the furniture and fittings typical of the area's homes from the last century, tougher with photographs from different moments of the poet's lifetime.

Ain Zubaidah stands as a testament to ancient engineering, a water system commissioned over 1,200 years ago by Zubaidah, wife of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Moved by the plight of pilgrims, she ordered the creation of a complex network to channel water from the Al-Kar mountains to the holy sites of Makkah. This 35-kilometre feat of engineering combined underground channels, surface aqueducts, and deep reservoirs, some reaching 40 metres underground, to traverse the arid landscape. Though time has left much of the original structure in fragments, sections have been restored, including a major renovation in the 1920s. The system's scale remains awe-inspiring, with its gentle gradients, 132 inspection chambers, and strategic storage tanks. Today, visitors can explore remnants of the conduits in the foothills around Makkah, a tangible link to a visionary project that sustained generations of pilgrims.