As people have said, it's absolutely freezing here in winter. The summer before last was really weird - I was actually wearing ugg boots and a jumper for a few days, because it was freezing. But as a general rule, it's pretty warm in summer, anywhere from about 25 to 35 degrees.
There's a shopping centre, but people quite often go to Coffs or Tamworth for shopping, because there's not a huge variety. It's about 2 or 3 hours to Coffs, and an hour and a half to Tamworth. There's also a Cinema, which is a cheaper than most other places, and an outdoor pool, as well as the indoor one at UNE.
There's an absolute buttload of cafes and restaurants in town, and a huge number of pubs, too. Lots of them have associations with the uni colleges, so they get cheap alcohol at various times of the year. I'm pretty sure there's a nightclub or two, as well.