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Awakening quite late thanks to clever parking under trees at the Frederickton Golf Course, we enjoy a shower inside the clubhouse, before we snaffle down some cereal (nice change!). Leaving the golf course rest stop with fond memories, we undertake a short jaunt back to Port Macquarie, in order to visit the PeAk coffee roastery (see other blog for the full details!)
Then, onto the Port Macquarie Koala hospital - a not for profit organisation that takes in injured or ageing Koalas. To say it was cute is an understatement. Here, they take many NSW koalas injured from bush fires, car accidents and dog attacks and hopefully, if they recover well enough, release the little blighters back into the wild to forage for eucalyptus trees... and of course to sleep. The 'hospital wards' were spacious cages, positioned outdoors with a great many signs saying 'please keep quiet' to us, the 'ward visitors'. Having already seen a great many captive koalas in zoos, seeing the little critters here was actually quite 'acceptable'. Here, they weren't up to life on the wild side just yet, and were getting all the help they needed to be release again. It was really nice actually. We considered adopting a koala, but acquiesced at the last.
Of particular note was the tale of Barry the Koala. Barry, a young whippersnapper who was being nursed back to health, was not content with taking it easy. As such, he made numerous bids for freedom, apparently escaping multiple times. As this was no good for him (he wasn't able to feed himself yet), they made a special enclosure that was 'Barry proof'. And although this was several years ago, they now honour Barry through selling a small cuddly toy of him. They then encourage visitors to the hospital to send mock photos of where Barry has 'escaped' to when they get back home! ...and one of the photos we saw was from...
wait for it...
Jersey!
Barry the koala has escaped and made it all the way to Jersey!! Maybe he wanted to visited Durrell Wildlife trust?
Having topped up our koala addiction, we then walked straight past the Roto House that was next door to the koala hospital. Someone lived there at a point, apparently. Who knows.
Back on the koala theme, we made one final voyage to a koala sculpture in Port Macquarie (see yesterday for details). ...and the koala we made a special effort for was.. none other than the Dame Edna Koala! "Hello Possums!" i'm sure I heard her (him?) say.
Our next stop was the Tacking Point Lighthouse. It was so incredibly windy up here! The area was named by Matthew Flinders in 1801 whilst remapping the east coast in HMS Investigator, but the Lighthouse itself, was built in 1879 after a great many wrecks on the coast. The lighthouse is apparently the 4th oldest in Australia, and is small and cute. There was none of the grandness of the lighthouse spotted in Byron Bay. Function over style. We are also told that this is a great place to see whales, but we're out of season. Should have been here in September when the are migrating. Oh well.
...and just as we look to leave Port MacQuarrie, Alice wants to find one more fibreglass koala. She is overruled as it is 14.00 already, and it's time to get going!
The final, final stop before leaving town however is a Coles, where we buy supper and make cheese and tomato sandwiches in the car park. We get some funny looks, but the simplest lunches in the strangest places are sometimes the best (...I don't think Alice agrees on the location part, though!).
Before we head towards our stopover for the evening, we drive over to Crowdy Head (pop. 300), where we sought out the Crowdy Head lighthouse. It was of identical design as the Tacking Point lighthouse, and we find this quite amusing. Here we enjoy the vista, and sun ourselves briefly on the well kept grass around the lighthouse.
In order to get to Crowdy Head (where they don't even bother to close the doors to their houses it's so in the sticks), we drove through Harrington, in the Manning Valley. This was of note as it was especially beautiful thanks to some kind of complex sandy beach / estuary arrangement. Not sure why it looks how it does, or how it works, but it looked lovely nevertheless!
30mins or so down the road, we find our rest stop. It's a massive car park that serves the adjoining Caltex petrol station, McDonalds, KFC and Subway. Low expectations for this one, however... there are free showers in the very clean toilets. A deal breaker? We loiter in the food court in amongst the horrid fast food shops, and rinse Mr McDonald's free wifi. Thanks Mr McDonald. We also read, before retiring to our bed chambers-come-kitchenette to cook stir fry. Yum.
However, just as we prepare to cook... We notice we've ran out of butane gas for our hob. As such, me make an impromptu trip to Taree to hunt for gas. This journey was of little note, apart from another beautiful sunset, and seeing a former Protestant church that had been converted into a BWS bottle shop. haha!
Returning to our car park, we cooked and settled down for a noisy night...
AF
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