19 - 21 Any Port not in a storm, the not so rainy Port Macquarie

 I can almost hear you say, what the heck, you were all in Mudgee and next you are in Timbertown – where is the geographical logic in that.  Well actually there isn’t any.  So after Mudgee we went to Newcastle to see family and friends, we did no sightseeing, just hung out and shopped.  Nothing at all interesting to report.

We were planning after Newcastle to go on to the Myall Lakes which I have been to a number of times and it really is a most beautiful place.  I could see us in a lakeside van spot kayaking, swimming, tossing the line in - but then we read the forecast.  Our decision Myall Lakes in torrential rain with no real indoor activities – maybe not.  So we went to Port Macquarie which was on our itinerary and had lots of indoor attractions and van parks less likely to be flooded.  Best choice ever, did you see how much rain fell around the Newcastle area.

We stayed in a small caravan park next door to a supermarket and opposite a bowling alley, back a bit from the water, just in case we were inundated with rain.  The day after our sojourn to Timbertown we had some showers in the morning but in the afternoon it had cleared enough so we were able to go to Seacrest Acres Rainforest Centre.  This rainforest centre has a great board walk moving from the forest understorey to the canopy above - an excellent introduction to rainforests for our kids.  We also found a new painted animal (having seen painted rhinos before) – Port Macquarie had painted koalas.

The next two days whilst we had a few showers we didn’t even get a fraction of what was happening an hour or so down the road.  We walked around the centre of Port Macquarie, explored the beaches (but it was a bit cool and windy to swim), had fish and chips on the foreshore and walked the Kooloonbung wetlands – which is an amazing wetlands with brilliant boardwalks smack in the middle of Port Macquarie.  There were also lots of flying foxes in there – giving rise to this cool sign (we are collecting cool signs and at the end of our travel hope to do a montage of just these).

We also had a drive down to North Brother with the intention of seeing the lookout and doing a walk.  We went to the lookout but the winds were too strong and had brought vines and trees down on the paths.

I read a post on another blog where they had found it hard to be enthusiastic about another beach after traveling to so many for 18 months.  We liked Port Macquarie but we didn’t love it.  But sunny days and beachy weather could have helped change that feeling.  Mostly though we were really totally grateful we missed the disastrous weather down south.