Port McQueerie???

Thursday 1st February 2007

Picked up the car with no problem and set off north from Sydney. Driving is no problem – on the left – but very slow speed limits, which they enforce very fiercely, apparently. Stopped off for a drink at a lovely little place called Tea Gardens (popn. around 1,200) and it joins another smaller place called Hawks Nest which is on the coast with a wonderful long, deserted beach. Tea Gardens is on the river, so made a nice break on the way to Port Macquarie.

I’d booked the Quality Inn Motel in Port Mcquarie on the web on Tuesday evening and it a very nice motel, with a really good room.

I did say a few days ago that the strange thing about being in Australia was that nothing is strange. I was wrong. Port Mcquarie is strange. Strange in a way that you can’t put your finger on. There are many motels in Port Macquarie (popn 60,000) and although none of them are called Bates Motel, there are certainly one or two that would suit the name (fortunately, not ours) and fortunately, none with flicking neon. PM is on the Hastings River where it joins the sea and the area around the mouth of the river is very pretty – little fishing boats and larger sailing boats dotted around. But the town centre is weird. Just weird. Can’t explain why. Sid says it is the sort of place where you would not be surprised to find that all 60,000 people are related to each other. We did manage to find one ok-ish restaurant and had a half-way decent meal. Not that we’re in any danger of suffering malnutrition, considering what we’ve packed away in the past few weeks, as you can probably tell from the photos.

So, today marks four weeks that we’ve been away and it has absolutely flown by. Tomorrow, we head off to Byron Bay to meet Dan, Carol and boys for a weekend there. Very excited to see them all.