We will be in Sydney for 5 days in August and would like to take a day trip to Portstephens to see the Dolphins and maybe the Whales. We were thinking of renting a car for one day. Any suggestions about where to rent from or the best company to go with in PST to see the Dolphins? Is there anything to see on the way?
Thank you
Sydney Please
Recent Activity
View all Australia & the Pacific activity »
- 1 Australia Tour Operator Help
- 2 3 weeks in NZ self drive
- 3 Sydney hotel
- 4 Hotels in Australia
- 5
Hidden Gems in Melbourne
- 6 Cricket, diving and NZ - how long to fit it all in?
- 7 Help with 4 weeks on South Island!
- 8 Travel to NZ with a dog
- 9 6 hour wait at sydney for flight to brisbane. Any ideas to pass the time?
- 10 Darwin, Kakadu, Katherine itinerary help
- 11 Australia 18 day trip advice
- 12 Sydney airport to Circular Quay least expensive option
- 13 BEWARE: Avoid Wicked Travel
- 14 Careful before booking any short-term accommodation on NSW Coast
- 15 Micronesia- when to visit
- 16 Seeking hike companion for Stewart Island (southernmost NZ)
- 17 Please Help my New Zealand 10 days trip Itinerary...
- 18 10 Days in NZ South Island - Feedback?
- 19 Help me plan my April - May trip to Australia
- 20 1st trip to New Zealand
- 21 Melbourne--in the summer is air conditioning a must ?
- 22 Hotel suggestions near Brisbane airport?
- 23 Melbourne Airport / Rental Car Question
- 24 South Island of New Zealand end of May?
- 25 Foodies, help! Melbourne Chinese Restaurant recommendations
Hi Adeleh,
There a quite a few tour operators running both whale and dolphin trips in Port Stephens. I have been on most of them and found the two best operators to be the Moonshadow cruises and the Spirit Of The Bay Cruise.
The Moonshadow is quite a large vessel which has underwater camera's. It is a purpose built ship designed to basically be a floating restaurant and it does the job very well. The Moonshadow is usually the prime cruise boat for the Asian tourist industry and can be heavily booked by this sector. Also this ship being the largest of the whale and dolphin fleet is not able to get in as close to the shore as some of the other boats.
I personally like the Spirit cruise as it is a smaller vessel but this allows it to get into areas that the Moonshadow cannot, the Spirit is also licensed to go out of the bay into the open ocean. I have stood on the bow as we went out of the heads and saw the most amazing site of a hammerhead shark come out of the depths and breach right in front of the bow.
Regardless of which cruise you take you will see lots of dolphins and in August you should see whales as well.
The last dolphin count came in at over 135 dolphins that have made the Port their permanent home. You may also see large green sea turtles amongst other things.
There are literally heaps of car rental agencies in Sydney, we mostly use Hertz but that is only because my company gets a special deal with them.
There are a number of wineries on the way into Port Stephens if you are into wine you might like to take a look at one of them. You are also not far from the Hunter Valley wine region which is about an hour drive out of Nelson Bay. We just went to the Hunter Valley Gardens there in January and they arevery nice but maybe not so great in August.
If you like a bit of excitement then I can recommend the down hill toboggan ride in Port Stephens it is a lot of fun.
Some websites to check out are:
http://www.portstephens.org.au/
http://www.dunesnet.com/
There are some very good photo's on the last link.
Cheers
Paul_S
Bayswater car rentals are probably the cheapest - but check the milage allowance - it's not cheap if you excede that.