Saturday in Port Macquarie

We headed back to the river for our morning walk today - right to the start of the "famous 9klm Port Macquarie Coastal Walk"- at Westport Park near the Port Marina (on the Hastings River). We ended up near the Sails (by Rydges) Resort (a fave of Josh & Jody's) and decided to order breakfast at the nearby Seasalt Cafe on the Marina. The day had started cloudy and grey, but nowhere near as cold as yesterday.

We don't get "styled up" for our morning walks - but Rob wears it better than I do!!

Seasalt proved disappointing - mediocre coffee - really bad zucchini fritters - but the best part was watching all the fish (bream?) gathering below us in the river and seeing all the oysters growing au naturale on the concrete walls of the marina as we turned our noses up at the breakfast offerings .

 The pic below is our view of Town Beach as we approached it from the breakwall at the entry to the river. I disapprove of the Council's decision back in the nineties to allow people to paint their (mostly tacky) "artwork" on the rocks of the breakwall..... but I am sure not many locals would agree with me.

 We took a drive to Wauchope in the afternoon, 19klm west of Port Macquarie. Wauchope was famous for its timber forests (famously used in the construction of the Sydney Opera House), now with most of its forests cleared it's mainly farming and (quiet) tourism. The Hastings River runs deep and wide at Wauchope.

We headed south out of Wauchope along the windy and hilly Bago Road through the beautiful Burrawan State Forest ...........

... until we got to the home of "Old Bottlebutt" an enormous and ancient Red Bloodwood tree (the biggest recorded example of it's type in the world!) in an area of remnant rain forest near the Burrawan picnic area. It wasn't too easy to get to ... there was about 3klm of dirt track and lots of pot holes involved in getting here.......

But in the end it was an easy (300m) walk through the rainforest to find this amazing tree .........

They say it could be over 200 years old - imagine it being around long before settlement times in this area?

There'd been a heavy shower in the forest before we got there. It was quite magical to walk amongst the trees while they shook and dripped on us, with the clearing sunshine making everything sparkle. It smelt wet, green and dank.

More styled up for a walk in the rain forest - but  a bit out of focus ....

On the way back we called in to see old friends who made their home in Port Macquarie 20 years ago .... they packed up their Canberra home and lives for the warmth and space of a coastal lifestyle. My friend Dorothy never stops creating: poetry, painting, textiles, sculpture ...... now she's preoccupied with her coronaviruses. While the rest of us are obsessing over our fears about this deadly virus Dorothy is taking it on one plastered loofah segment at a time. 

I took this pic of her in (one of) her studios in their beautiful back garden bordering the golf course.