This was more or less a travelling day. We set off at 8am and very soon lost an hour as we crossed the state border into New South Wales (one state uses daylight savings and one doesn’t but basically we are now 11hrs ahead of the UK). It does mean half our devices say one time and rest another.
Our stop for breakfast was a couple of hours in Byron Bay. This is a beautiful surfers town with many older men with ponytails and a hippy feel - very cliched we know. We quite liked it.
We both had salmon, spinach, poached eggs and toast for breakfast with smoothies/juice and that definitely set us up for the day.
We took in the views of the beach but did not paddle. Instead we wandered and Pam bought hat number 3 - number one split somewhere in the Caribbean and number 2 is probably still in surfers paradise. How many will she end up with? She’s currently on a hat-trick - yes, we can sense the groans from here.
So we left Byron and hoped to see the lighthouse. It was packed and there was nowhere to park so we had to settle for a drive by plus some absolutely stunning views.
Our next stop was a quick quirky one. In the UK we have the Angel of the North. In New South Wales they have the smaller “Big Prawn” of the north.
On the very boring pacific highway road there are a few novelty stops. We passed on Tropical World but turned off into Clog Barn which had a miniature model village of places in The Netherlands. That brought back memories to Mark who lived there for around 6 years plus the places we have both seen from our previous cruises. Pam got another key ring from the gift shop to add to her collection and we chatted to the owner and his son.
We also drove past the Coff’s Harbour Big Banana. It is a water theme park.
Finally it was onto Port Macquarie for our overnight stop in the El Paso Motor Inn. A cheap and cheerful place with laundry, restaurant and a very small pool but it was in the central area so it worked for us.
We wandered into town and picked a seaside fish and chip supper.
We must say this area feels like a family seaside town but without amusement arcades. There were lots of young families around and caravan parks. We haven’t found the beach proper yet but tomorrow is another day.
Why haven’t you found the beach when you were there a few hours I hear you say! Well, you see, we got distracted by the Port Macquarie Hello Koala trail. We had done a similar one in Norwich with our girls many years ago and quirky things like this tickle us. We found about 8 out of 85 so far and here a a few of them.
We settled down for the night but there seems to be hundreds of birds in the few trees just outside the property having a rave party. They better not keep that up all night.
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