17th - Surprise! (Thursday)

I guess every city has their own variant of rats with wings; Copenhagen has pigeons, Sydney has seagulls, and Forster and Tuncurry has pelicans. These are though a little different from the others due to their huge sizes. I saw a guy filleting a fish at a table down at the water and he had to actively keep the pelicans away. They probably weren’t more aggressive than seagulls, but their size made them much more intimidating.

The pelicans waiting eagerly and aggressively for leftovers from the fish

I chose to go on a drive to a town called Walcha on my way to Port Macquarie. I set the GPS to take the scenic route, which resulted in a couple of hours drive on a twisted gravel road up and down mountains and hills. Think of the roads up and down the Alps, including all the hairpin turns, but without the ability to look further than halfway through the next turn due to the tall trees lining the road on each side. And the gravel, of cause. Fun, but pretty exhausting. Walcha itself was beautifully located in between of some beautiful tree-covered hills and mountains, but pretty boring. Almost no activity and I got the feeling that it was a town where old people moved to to get old and die in peace. And isolated – it required a couple of hours drive to Port Macquarie which is the closest larger town. And that was still by a winding (but paved) road.

Port Macquarie was actually a nice small town. It was filled with hotels which made sense due to the town’s location at the sea. It can’t have been much larger than Walcha, but it was much more active and therefore much more interesting.

When arriving at Port Macquarie I noticed a group of people gawking over something at a small ridge by the water. Considering the children were the craziest in the group I assumed it involved animals. And quite correctly; less than 200 meters from the shore a small group of orcas where swimming around. That was a surprise I hadn’t expected. Woo!

Unfortunately the best photo I got of the orcas. A large one did a couple of jumps, but I unfortunately never caught that on camera. It seemed a little more impressive when it wasn't a staged show.

When trying to update the blog I noticed that the netbook was running low on battery, so I picked up my power cord and plug converter… Well – I would have taken out the latter if I could find it. So to buy a new one has the highest priority tomorrow.