Port Macquarie, 16.03

Day 3

If you’re looking for silence, you’ll probably find it in Port Macquarie. We arrive there on the 3rd night of our trip and as soon as the bus is gone, realize we’ve been left alone with our two massive suitcases. If you think buses run all night long as they do back on the GC, then you’d better think again, because there’s no transport whatsoever incl taxis. And the accommodation we’ve chosen offers no pick-up service after 9 pm. However, the kind voice on the phone says it’s a 5-minute walk around the corner, which encourages us to push and pull our suitcases up and down the streets, around the corner, to the Sundowner tourist park. The caravan park-style accommodation turns out to be pretty nice with some 4-bedded houses for backpackers opposite the pool area. And as the peak season is about to end and Port Macquarie is quiet, the 4-bedded house becomes our private residence for the next 2 nights.

Port Macquarie, a former penal colony for slack convicts who found life in Sydney Cove too easy, was the 3rd town to be established on the Australian mainland. However, apart from some frontier architecture Port looks everything but a penal colony. Gateway to the subtropical coast, with its palm trees, rolling parklands, and beach coves, it’s now a popular place for idle Aussies to serve time there. And by idle I mean retired in Port’s case :) Something like the GC for the youth, Port is the place to be for their oldies. And for me and Ann when we’re tired of the GC’s never-ending buzz :D Jokes aside, I guess a day is more than enough to be spent in Port. What’s there to see? The breakwall behind our tourist park, otherwise known as the People’s Gallery, where visitors have been painting the rocks for 10 years. The art on display covers everything from beer cans to touching love poems and odes to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. There aren’t many bare rocks left; so brand yours while you can. If you keep walking along the breakwall, pass the continuous stretch of beach coves, such as the Town Beach and lookout, Rocky Beach, Flynn’s Beach, and turn right somewhere close to Nobbys Beach, you’ll come to the Koala Hospital that cares for sick and injured koalas picked up around Port, surrounded by koala habitat. The admission is by donation, and believe me, it’s one of these places where you’d donate even if you were not asked to, unless you have a stone instead of your heart. The hot (subtropical (H)) afternoon ends by the pool back in the caravan park. Chill out..