BANNISTERS

The latest addition to a growing collection of beautiful properties is Bannisters’ gleaming white Port Stephens address, boasting glimmering bay views and housed inside an immaculately-renovated building that had a former life as a motel. With 78 rooms, it’s bigger in scale than the boutique-sized Bannisters’ Mollymook, but manages to retain the magic.

If you bother to tear yourself away from the infinity pool that overlooks the sandy shores of Soldiers Point or the stellar in-house dining options, there’s a beach and a jetty only a few steps away. If you don’t catch your own dinner, book a table at the famed Rick Stein at Bannisters, which serves local oysters and rock lobster among an array of seafood, like fish pie and Singapore chilli crab. E bannisters.com.au/port-stephens