Hi Brett,
I'm surprised no one has answered you yet - the local novacastrians must all be asleep.
There certainly is an active club in your area and should make a concerted effort to get down and meet them and join in, they will able to answer most of you questions in a flash.
However, I don't think you'll find an SCT for under $2000, even second hand and even if it doesn't have goto, not unless its such an old model thats been bashed around that it probably wont be good enough to use without extensive work, so you'd be back at square one with that. You may be better saving your pennies for a working kit - I don't know about the Newcastle club but perhaps they have loan telescopes that you could borrow and help you with your observing cravings while you save up for a SCT.
If you get an SCT the 2" eps are no problem, but you will need to get a 2" diagonal to use them.
