Day 83 - Byron Bay to Port Macquarie

  Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia
Saturday, November 24, 2007

We decided that the weather would determine our movements today: if it was sunny we'd stay in Byron and relax on the beach; if it was dull then we'd move on down the coast.

The sun tried to poke through, but was snuffed out by the clouds, so we took one last quick look at the beach & centre of town, and then headed south.

The "it does exactly what it says on the tin" Pacific Coast Highway took us down through a series of pretty non-descript New South Wales towns before arriving in Coffs Harbour.

Just as you drive into town, you pass another of the "big things", this time a Big Banana.

This marks the entrance to (and I am not making this up) a banana theme park, with banana themed rides and attractions.

Somehow we managed to restrain ourselves from visiting and carried on into town.



"Coffs" as the locals know it (Aussies have a thing about abbreviating!), was a cool little town about 10kms off the highway which is blessed with some very scenic coastline.



We headed straight for the (Howard and) marina, which had good views along the coast, and out to sea.

 

It looked like it was sunnier out to see than over the land unfortunately, but it was a nice spot to chill out for a few minutes.

 

We then walked down to 'Jetty beach' (yep, a beach with a jetty) which is the local's favourite apparently, and then decided to push on down the coast again.



I'd found a place featured in the guidebooks which Katie really liked the sound of, a small town called Bellingen. We decided that it was worth a quick visit, even if it required a bit of a diversion.

If we lived here, that sentence would read something like this: "We decoed that it was worth a quick viso, even if it reqoed a bit of a divo"



The books said that Bellingen was a charming small town famous for its market, which happens every 3rd Saturday, i.e today! The market is apparently full of all manner of organic produce, local arts & crafts, that sort of stuff... 

Bellingen was about 15kms off the highway, so we drove through slowly looking for the market, before realising that it was the day of the General Election voting, so they'd probably cancelled the market. Bloody politicians! ;)

Undeterred, we parked up and wandered had a quick squizz on foot. There were a couple of banks but no ATMs, and none of the cute little bakeries took cards, so we were on a pretty tight budget of about A$15 for our 2 lunches!

I plumped for a tremendous steak, bacon & cheese pie, which was as tasty as it was unhealthy, and Katie went for a veggie & cheese pie. I think she was expecting to be underwhelmed by her first east coast pie, but was pleasantly surprised and demolished it in a few seconds flat! 

After lunch we headed back to the PCH (weird that it has the same name as its Californian counterpart on the other side of the ocean), and headed for the lovely beach town of Port Macquarie.

I'd always wanted to visit Port Macquarie after meeting a guy who lived there when I was studying in Dallas. He hated Texas and was always eulogising about Port Macquarie, and how much he missed it. I also remember a few of the locals suggesting that if he missed it so bloody much, why didn't he go back!

"Skippy" (Phil) was a self-proclaimed killer boogie-boarder who used to travel the south pacific to find the best waves, so God knows what he was doing in Texas! Anyway, he said that his hometown was paradise, with wide beaches and rolling waves, and finally I was getting a chance to see for myself.

En route we passed through Nambucca Heads, which seemed a nice place and sounded like a cocktail, but it was a bit boring, so we pushed on again...



...but not before seeing roughly the 4674th business we've seen named after our friend Tilda, but this one was MUCH cuter than the usual petrol stations!

 

Katie had called ahead to book a double cabin in a holiday park near one of the beaches in town, so we headed straight there.

After checking in (Katie loved the cabin), we changed into beach gear and walked up the hill to the beach, which had about 90 minutes of sun left.



It was great to be able to lie back and relax, listening to the waves crashing against the rocks and the seagulls shrieking, while feeling the warm glow of the sun on our skin.

After that we walked back to the cabin, made some dinner in our cute little kitchen, and settled down to a night of Election results, how thrilling!

Something like 9 of the 10 tv stations had wall-to-wall election coverage, but there was one oasis of sanity amongst all the madness: one channel was showing The Empire Strikes Back!

Legend ;)

This discovery had Katie rolling her eyes, and she disappeared off to talk to a few friends & family on the phone with our calling card, which was proving a real bargain. 

Meanwhile I was loving my Stars Wars action, spliced with some election coverage during the ad breaks, it worked surprisingly well!

As Luke Skywalker managed to escape from Darth Vader albeit with a hand missing, the incumbent Aussie PM John Howard was definitely also losing his grip on the country...

Sure enough by the time we went to bed, the opposition leader, Labour's Kevin Rudd, was accepting the mandate of the Aussie people, and delivering one of those long and emotional victory speeches that we all love so much... ahem. 

People here are a bit worried that Rudd's government will pander too much towards the trade unions, but as usual the two competing parties seemed to me to have extraordinarily similar policies, so I doubt there will be much changing for the country, but only time will tell...

We went to bed looking forward to spending a bit of time on the beach tomorrow before starting the long drive down to Sydney, and my old friend Rob.


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx