Rain, rain again… it seems as if I’m now paying for my awesome New Zealand weather with a ton of rain up the eastern coast here. As if to rub it in, pretty much every restroom or shower block you enter has posters imploring you to save water because of drought conditions in New South Wales. It could be worse though, apparently a few weeks ago Port Mac went through a solid two weeks of unbroken rainstorms. Still, it put the kibosh on my plans for today including the sunset fish and chips cruise and most of my time on the beach. I thought about staying an extra night and trying again, but I think I’ve used up the rainy day activities for the town and I don’t feel like blowing through all of my computer’s video just yet. Tomorrow I’ll head to Coffs Harbour and just sail another day.
Sadly I got another snorer last night but managed to get to sleep relatively quickly anyway, he wasn’t in the same league as the previous dude. Still, come morning when I heard the rain pouring down and saw him packing up to leave I gladly burrowed back under my sheets and slept in to the luxurious hour of 10AM. I then spent most of the day walking around the town, and checking out the shorefront walk in between rain squalls, but as the weather moved back in I beat it back to the hostel. It sadly turned into a 4 hour rainstorm that made for a cooped up afternoon catching up on email while people watched what seemed to be an endless marathon of Malcolm in the Middle on the tv. My hopes of maybe getting the room to myself were getting quite high until about 7 when I saw three very loud swiss dudes enter my room. Oh well, if the RCI thing doesn’t shake out I’ll probably spring for a real hotel sometime next week just to have a chance to have a real shower and a soft mattress.
Despite the weather disappointment the time here has been quite entertaining on the nature front. The area is well known for “urban” koalas and sure enough I spotted one hiding from the rain while walking today. Unfortunately the area he was cuddled up in was too dark for a picture but it was still great to see a wild one. Less pleasant was my first encounter with a golden orb spider. These things can grow up to the size of a child’s head. The one I saw wasn’t that big, but still had a body that was probably an inch and a half long and a significant span including its legs. They aren’t one of the scary ultra venomous ones, but it was a reminder that I’m slowly making my way up to the tropical areas where paying attention to that sort of thing becomes (in the words of one of the hostel guys) “an important consideration.” Lastly, as I walked down for some non-nautically served fish and chips tonight I heard an irritated flapping of wings as I passed a bush. I figured it was a magpie or cockatoo upset with me, but an instantly later two big black forms burst from the bush and flew right into the light. Again it was something I’d seen at the nature reserve, but this time it was two flying foxes (basically a huge bat.) The did two swirls then swooped by about a foot from me to go back into the bush as I stood there mouth agape.
Port Macquarie itself is pretty but quite small. Apparently the surfing is pretty good which is one of the draws for younger people, but it hasn’t been great while I’ve been here. The rest of the town appears to be one of those resort towns that has seen better times. It reminds me a lot of some of the lakeside retreats that used to be a popular family and old folks destination until airfare became affordable and allowed people to go further afield for a weeklong trip. There are more than a few buildings that are obviously old family motels converted to cheap apartments for seasonal backpacker workers for the fruit picking and other activities around here. The street where the hostel sits has a few of these and some very beach house looking properties covered with ramshackle additions that are clearly multishare housing as well, though on a more permanent basis than the hostels. Overall the YHA here has been good, but had I known it was going to rain constantly I would have checked into the more expensive one which was farther from the beach but had cheaper internet.
I’m still a bit worried about what I’m going to do for the next bit, sometime in the next few days I need to work out what area I’ll be in for the ANZAC day national holiday and book something (depending on where I am that might be hotel night as it might be take whatever you can get.) Hopefully while I’m at Coffs Harbour I can get a handle on just how much I want to do in the Gold Coast/Brisbane region before I head up to the tropics. Part of me feels like I have ages left to plan for but I need to remember that the diving course and sailing trips I’m planning will take up a week or more by themselves.
No more internet tonight so I’ll just add on tomorrow’s notes then post a combined trip report tomorrow.
Finally some nice weather in Port Mac as I’m leaving, but I’d been reassured by someone travelling south that Coffs Harbour was essentially the same sort of town so I wasn’t missing much. My greyhound actually didn’t leave until the afternoon anyway so I got up and did a nice bit of beach walking and had a swim. As a result (and because this section of the pacific highway is basically a band of eucalyptus with a road through it) I had a nice nap on the bus until we got close to Coffs Harbour.
Coffs Harbour itself is an annoying to navigate town with the main clusters of things at the extreme points of a triangle around a creek inlet. My hostel here is right down by the water and is actually a nearly brand new purpose built building, quite nice, though it continues the stupid YHA tradition of only having 2 wall plugs for a 4 person room (both miles from the beds.) It was close to dinnertime when I checked in and the reception guy (and the dude running the shuttle van) recommended heading to a nearby pub for trivia night and 2 for 1 pizza, I didn’t take much convincing. My new roomie tagged along too and in the lobby I met up with a few Canadians, including a guy from Boissevain of all places.
The pub itself was a typical aussie village pub/hotel but the pizza was surprisingly great and the beer was cheap. Our team won a couple of spot prizes as well as the backpacker challenge (we beat the other two backpacker teams) and managed to get two free bottles of semi-terrible but drinkable wine and a godawful six pack of light beer. It actually would have been 3 bottles of wine but for the American at the table who invited a local friend to join us, her very drunk (VERY) friend felt the need to shout out our answer before it was our turn… She then proceeded to steal my wine and spill it on me, eat my roommate Craig’s leftover pizza, first pulling off toppings then randomly rubbing them on my face and the american’s mouth telling us to “EAT EAT EAT.” To make her even more appealing she felt free to punch anyone within reach very hard and without warning. I have a nice bruise on my chest this morning. Bizarrely enough though the pub closed down by 10:30 and in fact everything close to our hostel was closed by then, so Craig and I headed back to the hostel, snuck in our six pack (no drinking after ten) and watched the 5 channel tv until about one. Overall a weird night, but cheap drinking as I think I only paid for two beers all night but drank most of a bottle of wine and a few of the gross beers. As most of you know I’m not much of a beer drinker normally, but most of the time over here a shot of anything will cost you significantly more than even the better beers.
Today the plan is to head down to the beach, do a walk out to a nature preserve at the other end of the marina then have a swim. I’m told jumping off the big jetty is a blast, especially at low tide. On the food front there’s a fisherman’s coop at the marina that does fresh caught fish and chips (fush and chups David!) at a bargain price. There’s also some rafting around here apparently for full day trips but I need to pick up my pace up the coast so I think I’ll move on to Byron Bay tomorrow instead.
I’m told email may be bouncing back from my tristanhartry.com account, if that’s the case for you try my thartry sh
Rain, rain again… it seems as if I’m now paying for my awesome New Zealand weather with a ton of rain up the eastern coast here. As if to rub it in, pretty much every restroom or shower block you enter has posters imploring you to save water because of drought conditions in New South Wales. It could be worse though, apparently a few weeks ago Port Mac went through a solid two weeks of unbroken rainstorms. Still, it put the kibosh on my plans for today including the sunset fish and chips cruise and most of my time on the beach. I thought about staying an extra night and trying again, but I think I’ve used up the rainy day activities for the town and I don’t feel like blowing through all of my computer’s video just yet. Tomorrow I’ll head to Coffs Harbour and just sail another day.
Sadly I got another snorer last night but managed to get to sleep relatively quickly anyway, he wasn’t in the same league as the previous dude. Still, come morning when I heard the rain pouring down and saw him packing up to leave I gladly burrowed back under my sheets and slept in to the luxurious hour of 10AM. I then spent most of the day walking around the town, and checking out the shorefront walk in between rain squalls, but as the weather moved back in I beat it back to the hostel. It sadly turned into a 4 hour rainstorm that made for a cooped up afternoon catching up on email while people watched what seemed to be an endless marathon of Malcolm in the Middle on the tv. My hopes of maybe getting the room to myself were getting quite high until about 7 when I saw three very loud swiss dudes enter my room. Oh well, if the RCI thing doesn’t shake out I’ll probably spring for a real hotel sometime next week just to have a chance to have a real shower and a soft mattress.
Despite the weather disappointment the time here has been quite entertaining on the nature front. The area is well known for “urban” koalas and sure enough I spotted one hiding from the rain while walking today. Unfortunately the area he was cuddled up in was too dark for a picture but it was still great to see a wild one. Less pleasant was my first encounter with a golden orb spider. These things can grow up to the size of a child’s head. The one I saw wasn’t that big, but still had a body that was probably an inch and a half long and a significant span including its legs. They aren’t one of the scary ultra venomous ones, but it was a reminder that I’m slowly making my way up to the tropical areas where paying attention to that sort of thing becomes (in the words of one of the hostel guys) “an important consideration.” Lastly, as I walked down for some non-nautically served fish and chips tonight I heard an irritated flapping of wings as I passed a bush. I figured it was a magpie or cockatoo upset with me, but an instantly later two big black forms burst from the bush and flew right into the light. Again it was something I’d seen at the nature reserve, but this time it was two flying foxes (basically a huge bat.) The did two swirls then swooped by about a foot from me to go back into the bush as I stood there mouth agape.
Port Macquarie itself is pretty but quite small. Apparently the surfing is pretty good which is one of the draws for younger people, but it hasn’t been great while I’ve been here. The rest of the town appears to be one of those resort towns that has seen better times. It reminds me a lot of some of the lakeside retreats that used to be a popular family and old folks destination until airfare became affordable and allowed people to go further afield for a weeklong trip. There are more than a few buildings that are obviously old family motels converted to cheap apartments for seasonal backpacker workers for the fruit picking and other activities around here. The street where the hostel sits has a few of these and some very beach house looking properties covered with ramshackle additions that are clearly multishare housing as well, though on a more permanent basis than the hostels. Overall the YHA here has been good, but had I known it was going to rain constantly I would have checked into the more expensive one which was farther from the beach but had cheaper internet.
I’m still a bit worried about what I’m going to do for the next bit, sometime in the next few days I need to work out what area I’ll be in for the ANZAC day national holiday and book something (depending on where I am that might be hotel night as it might be take whatever you can get.) Hopefully while I’m at Coffs Harbour I can get a handle on just how much I want to do in the Gold Coast/Brisbane region before I head up to the tropics. Part of me feels like I have ages left to plan for but I need to remember that the diving course and sailing trips I’m planning will take up a week or more by themselves.
No more internet tonight so I’ll just add on tomorrow’s notes then post a combined trip report tomorrow.
Finally some nice weather in Port Mac as I’m leaving, but I’d been reassured by someone travelling south that Coffs Harbour was essentially the same sort of town so I wasn’t missing much. My greyhound actually didn’t leave until the afternoon anyway so I got up and did a nice bit of beach walking and had a swim. As a result (and because this section of the pacific highway is basically a band of eucalyptus with a road through it) I had a nice nap on the bus until we got close to Coffs Harbour.
Coffs Harbour itself is an annoying to navigate town with the main clusters of things at the extreme points of a triangle around a creek inlet. My hostel here is right down by the water and is actually a nearly brand new purpose built building, quite nice, though it continues the stupid YHA tradition of only having 2 wall plugs for a 4 person room (both miles from the beds.) It was close to dinnertime when I checked in and the reception guy (and the dude running the shuttle van) recommended heading to a nearby pub for trivia night and 2 for 1 pizza, I didn’t take much convincing. My new roomie tagged along too and in the lobby I met up with a few Canadians, including a guy from Boissevain of all places.
The pub itself was a typical aussie village pub/hotel but the pizza was surprisingly great and the beer was cheap. Our team won a couple of spot prizes as well as the backpacker challenge (we beat the other two backpacker teams) and managed to get two free bottles of semi-terrible but drinkable wine and a godawful six pack of light beer. It actually would have been 3 bottles of wine but for the American at the table who invited a local friend to join us, her very drunk (VERY) friend felt the need to shout out our answer before it was our turn… She then proceeded to steal my wine and spill it on me, eat my roommate Craig’s leftover pizza, first pulling off toppings then randomly rubbing them on my face and the american’s mouth telling us to “EAT EAT EAT.” To make her even more appealing she felt free to punch anyone within reach very hard and without warning. I have a nice bruise on my chest this morning. Bizarrely enough though the pub closed down by 10:30 and in fact everything close to our hostel was closed by then, so Craig and I headed back to the hostel, snuck in our six pack (no drinking after ten) and watched the 5 channel tv until about one. Overall a weird night, but cheap drinking as I think I only paid for two beers all night but drank most of a bottle of wine and a few of the gross beers. As most of you know I’m not much of a beer drinker normally, but most of the time over here a shot of anything will cost you significantly more than even the better beers.
Today the plan is to head down to the beach, do a walk out to a nature preserve at the other end of the marina then have a swim. I’m told jumping off the big jetty is a blast, especially at low tide. On the food front there’s a fisherman’s coop at the marina that does fresh caught fish and chips (fush and chups David!) at a bargain price. There’s also some rafting around here apparently for full day trips but I need to pick up my pace up the coast so I think I’ll move on to Byron Bay tomorrow instead.
I’m told email may be bouncing back from my tristanhartry.com account, I’m in the process of fixing it.