Hope you find the reviews you want, if not, contact us to get more help
Looking for some olde world Australian charm. Don't hesitate to take the turn to Bellingen when your heading up old highway one. Bellingen is one of the nicest little towns you'll find when driving from Sydney up the Pacific Highway towards Queensland. It's about a half an hours drive from the highway (just before you reach Coffs Harbour) through beautiful dairy farms and lush bush. Bellingen has retained the olde worlde charm of an Aussie country town and is set right on the pebbly, pristine Kalang River.
There's some great old heritage buildings, fabulous coffeeshops and cafes and a timeless feeling if you go for a wander down the main street. Around the centre of town you'll discover the Federal Hotel, the locals watering hole.
The pub has been given the total gentrification on the ground floor level and, while they have retained the essential Aussie Pub feel, it's been brought way upmarket.
A nice verandah to one side is where the locals hang out, was packed when we arrived. They have a central bar at the front with a stage where they put on live acoustic, jazz and blues music on weekends. A pub with live music always wins me over. All the usual gaming rooms etc and very posh toilets, and out the back they have a humming restaurant which serves excellent meals, a cut above your average pub fare by a long shot, but not cheap. Obviously very popular - it was packed, and you line uo for your order and take a buzzer. I enjoyed great fish of the day and my friends found the steak cooked to perfection. The rooms upstairs are pretty ordinary however, not up to the standard of the downstairs renovations, ...still the old style, but quite acceptable nevertheless and cheap at $80 a night if you don't mind wandering down the hall to the bathroom.
Bellingen is well worth a visit for it's beautiful scenery, the charm of the old town and if you head on up the valley you can take an awesome rainforest drive over the hill to Dorrigo, which is some of the most beautiful rural scenery in Australia.
If you happen to be in Bellingen on the Sunday of the month when they hold the Bellingen Markets make sure you check it out - it's fantastic with all that a country market should have, awesome choice of food, old wares, plants, clothing, a really nice vibe, plus great music.
This is what an Aussie pub should be. So rare now to find one these days not sterilized by yuppydom into what I call a "Woolworths Tavern", since Woolworths started buying up pubs and become the largest liquor supplier in the country. Old traditional pubs like "the Billi" have been homogenised out of existence into these bland sterile places with 19 televisions and you wouldn't know where you were once inside - no character and disinterested staff working for a corporate giant. The Billi is how pubs used to be in Australia.
This old pub used to be run by an old lady known as Ma Ring for many decades and she was over a hundred when she died. Ma took up the licence in 1929, arriving from Barcaldine where she had been a partner in a Hotel. For many years later all the stock arrived by Rail. Almost every parcel was addresed simply with initials M.A.R. The name stuck and most people in town had forgotten that her real name was Margaret Alice Ring. It was something of a tradition at the New Brighton that Mar took up her position in the quaint little Saloon Bar around 5 and the locals would vie for the honour of buying her a glass of beer.
An ardent card player, Mar gave her unique style to the watering hole which still bears her name. Her MBE, awarded in 1971 was recognition of her support for the Ambulance, Red Cross and School of Arts Hall. Mar continued as licensee until her death in 1983 aged 101!When Bob hawke was president of the ACTU he visited the Pub and Mar gave him a twenty minute lecture on how to serve a good beer. Short pull and clean pipes.
It is truly a classic older style Aussie Pub, just as it has been for who know how long, across the railway tracks at the tiney village of Billinudgel, just past Brunswick Heads off the Pacific Highway if you are heading north.
A one horse town!
Shaded by giant old Poinciana trees and offering 180-degree views of Simpsons Creek (a picturesque tributary of the Brunswick River), Hotel Brunswick in the sleepy beachside town of Brunswick Heads has been a popular watering hole for decades since famed Queensland hotelier Jim Cavill built it in 1940. The combination of classic pub cuisine, shady beer garden and free Sunday music sessions has enabled Hotel Brunswick to retain much of its original charm while navigating the changing face of traditional Aussie pubs.
While late-night lockouts and one-punch laws seek to reform a beleaguered hospitality industry, this iconic North Coast pub is using music to engage the community and has featured music Thursday-Sunday for over 20 years, and some of the best local musicians and some well known acts travelling through appear here. While parking can be an issue, it's a favourite place for locals to grab a top quality pub meal in the spacious beer garden (although the food queue can get pretty frustrating on the weekends) and it's not cheap for a pub, considering you have to line up and answer a buzzer. The meals are really big (almost too big), with generous salads but it's hard to avoid the ubiquitious Aussie chips and they NEVER change the menu. The fish eaters praised the fish and its freshness, with schnapper being their regular special, and the vegetable korma is delicious if you're a vego. While you are paying pretty well top prices for drinks, there is a weekly pool comp, pub raffles, a gaming room, engaging historical photos on the walls, some nice touches like an old rowing boat in the beer garden for kids to play on, and very professional uniformed staff, with some very pretty girls behind the bar.
There’s a rich history embedded in the old timber walls of the Royal Mail pub in Goodna, just outside of Brisbane – and a lot of music! 26 years of live music in fact!
It’s seems only fitting that ‘The Mail’s’ began as a stopping off point for travellers, a history that is still continuing today, as this Grand Old Pub is an essential stopping off point for touring Blues n Roots musicians from across the country! Andrew Café, the hotels owner for the last 26 years, together with his loyal patrons and staff, have now established themselves around the nation as one of the best live Blues n Roots venues in Australia.
The old building is essentially unchanged from it's original rustic heritage. The walls are adorned with a random selection of old posters and farm paraphanalia and dusty musical instruments, an old red phone booth out the front, and a great beer garden out the back. You'll find a colourful cross section of local personalities always ready for a yarn - bikers, road workers, hippies, Aussie's of all shapes and sizes. It's a set from an Australian road movie. The pub serves traditional pub food, steaks , burgers, simple with all the trimmings. There's old style pub accommodation upstairs - clean and simple. It's music that brings everyone together at the Royal Mail and there's live music on all weekend and a jam night during the week. This pub just goes off!