Blogs from Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 13

Im moving out here. Port Macquarie is beautiful! 4 of us from the bus are staying at the same hostel called Ozzie Pozzie....its fabulous, small and friendly...with lollies for all the guests! very clean and well organised, personal yet with enough space for you not to fall over each other. Becky and myself are in the same dorm then Russ and Mark are in a twin to themselves. Thursday is pizza night so for $4.50 we had pizza and garlic bread. Then headed to....you guessed it....the irish bar. Not very authentic but the guys from bolton sat at the bar bought us drinks on the basis of us being english!! nice one! then we pretended to be irish all night so they played anything we asked for!! very entertaining night Met a local guy who hangs ... read more

Days 1 - 10 I think this is the first entry since leaving Sydney, so I'll catch you up with where I've been. (There don't seem to be as many 'internet cafes' in towns as there used to be, so there may not be as many log entries) My first day out, I paddled down the river from Narrabeen (accompanied by Don Andrews, and sent off by Michael Harris). On entering the ocean, a nor-easter(NEr) was just starting, and it picked up throughout the day - so I quit early - Maitland Bay (I think only about 10 miles or so). (beach was VERY hot) Day 2 Trying to remember - I think I paddled about 25 miles - to a little beach called: Frazer Beach. Day 3 - Newcastle First major port. I stayed on ... read more

We arrived in the lovely and very dead town on South West Rocks, the day before the Melbourne Cup. We did not have a pre-arranged place to stay, so we headed to the tourist information spot. They sent us to this "not-so-nice" motel. After passing on the motel, we went across the street and Sarah and I went into a real estate holiday place. We immediately were able to get a 2 bedroom apartment, one block from the beach and at a cheaper rate ($60 per night) than the seedy motel. After arranging the apartment, we headed to the local dive shop and booked a dive trip for the next day. Sarah and I were going to do 2 dives, one of them being a cave dive. I have never dove at night so I was ... read more

Monday morning - up at 5am - caught the cross-town bus taking people home from the casino - 7am Greyhound - 7 hours on the bus - moved about a thumbs-width on the Australia map...but we did see our first wild Kangaroo from the window! Port Macquarie (pronounced Mack-Quarry by the locals) was our base for a few days. We spent a really nice day on Tuesday exploring the coastline (some fantastic isolated beaches) before turning inland to visit an amazing Koala hospital in the middle of town. On Wednesday, we had another top day walking through Booloonbung Creek spotting Flying foxes and avoiding snakes and spiders. On the way home while we were checking out the Pelicans in the harbour (who were enviously eyeing the fishermen on the shore), wild dolphins starting turning up in ... read more