17th - Koala patrol to the rescue! (Friday)

I started off by taking a walk in Port Macquarie; seeing the city in daylight as an excuse for getting a new EU -AU plug converter. Let’s see how long it’ll take until that disappears, too…

When leaving the town I went by a koala hospital; any wounded koala that shows up in the area ends up here to be mended and sent back out. It was pretty impressive how much they can do for the animals; they have apparently had several of them being survivors from bush fires with 3rd degree burns all over their bodies (and some with their eyelids melted together due to the heat), but most of them have been able to recover fully within half a year and sent back out into the wild. I was pretty impressed to be honest.

I drove almost directly towards Coffs Harbour (where I am now), with a stop at Crescent Head, a small coast town halfway. A small town based on its tourism; there where houses to let and a lot of camping space available.

Coffs Harbour is quite a nice small city; I can with a certain confidence say that it’s the largest city between Sydney and Brisbane. Makes sense, because if you choose to drive directly between the two cities, Coffs Harbour is the natural place to choose to spend the night as it is right in between the two places. Nothing much else to say – considering spending a couple of hours tomorrow here before I move on.

No internet tonight either – apparently something has crapped it up here too. But otherwise nice motel; large room, large bed, nice sofa, nice TV. What else to wish for?

First day with great weather the entire time! Woo!

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.