Best Western Macquarie Barrack Port Macquarie

... and amazingly busy. It had a big reputation as a surfers beach, hence all the campers and vans, and me...hmmmm. Ploughed on and passed banana plantations and thick and dense forest. all very beautiful. I hadn't realised they grew bananas this far south. However, the road just got worse and worse and by the time I reached the turn for Stuarts point, I just had had enough and turned the other way and back to the Pacific Highway! I wonder if that's one of the worst ...

... the track was a bit dodgy in sections where the heavy rain had damaged it. At one stage we thought we had lost the track but obviously found it again!!

Anyway it was a lot tougher trek than we anticipated and we were happy to reach the end of the circuit and get back to the van for a bacon and egg sandwich and coffee.

Sheila is back with Tiger, Kath is reading the newspapers and writing ...

... doing the pool one got free tequila shots at the bar before we went. Bad thing was it was a pretty cold night. We ended up getting third though, out of maybe 8 teams or so I think, so we got a bottle of champagne for the team.

After my night in Byron I took the long bus ride down the coast to Port Macquarie (pronounced Kwar e. Took me so long to get that.) I stayed there 2 nights, doing a walk around the wetlands and visiting ...

Our next stop on the trip up the coast was the small town of Port Macquarie. There was not a great deal here apart from a beach, and a nature reserve, so on the first afternoon we took a walk around the nature reserve. The path meandered through the forest, which surrounded a lake. Huge bats populated most of the trees and the smell was terrible. At one point we ...

... noed i eusere map xi) bellingen isch es staetdli voller charme. naebe organic stores und esoterik laedeli hets gueti, herzigs cafis und njami glaces. es isch zwar alternativ aghuucht, aber doch kein verlaebte hippie ort. trotz de guete athmosphere simer naches stuendli wiiter in dorrigo national park. vonere plattform us het mer uebr das stuck raegewald choenne hinwaeg luege. als vogelparadies deklariert, hemer a dem abig zwar noed viel voegel xeh, defuer umso meh ghoert. :)

... to investigate what was down there, ride around the park taking turns on our one bike, and swim in the pool, as freezing as it was. They had a bit of a rest whilst waiting for The Golden Compass to come on in the TV room of the park but it never did so when they returned to the van, Dianne decided that she was on strike (actually typing up the blog for the day) and the boys were in charge of making Burritos for dinner.

... boards,surf boards, scooters, bunk beds etc. One woman was telling us "ah its worth setting it all up (it takes 6 hours!!) for the few days break.." eh..?? Beach here as usual is fab. Kids and people of every age were out surfing at the usual time everyone gets up here-6.30am! The surf kinda bends in towards rocks so fair play to them they know what they are ...

... on, there is barely any other traffic and when we hit towns along the way, it doesn't slow us much at all. We had decided that we would head for Port Macquarie as it has the highest urban population of Koala's there and I am hoping to see some. The countryside we were driving through is beautiful, there are trees, mountain's and lakes and Sydney is becoming a distant memory. I have managed to get my head around the maps in the brochure we were given and there are ...

... delicious fish and chips for tea. The Aussie's don't do fish and chips like the northerners but they are still pretty good. The next day we hire bicycles. Now most people know that after my legendary trip on a bike on Christmas Day in 2005 (when Phillipa-Jane made me cycle from her house to a party after several bottles of champagne, in my heels, to go to a party, insisting it was fun, even though I had said I ...

... up the coast, so suggested a meeting in Coffs before going on to Port Macquarie together. I was really looking forward to seeing Emma again and filling her in on the gossip from the rest of the seven day tour, as she was only with us for the first two days to Uluru. On my way to Coffs I was delighted to encounter another 'big thing' - this time the Big Prawn. I really do have visions of the Australian Tourist Board sitting round brainstorming and ...