Change of plans

We'd been looking forward to a 12 night stay at Burleigh Heads (Queensland) this month but with most of Australia in the grip of fear watching Victoria deal with its COVID-19 disaster, and borders closing all around us, we decided to cut our losses and head for Port Macquarie instead - for 6 nights.

We had our own small CV-19 scare too with Rob developing (slight) cold symptoms, resulting in a hurried dash to the drive through testing centre at Canberra's EPIC last Friday. The results were negative (of course) but hardly a great start to feeling in the holiday mood for us!

Anyway, after 7 hours of fairly easy driving north up the M1 and the A1 last Wednesday we got here .... to Port Macquarie ..... only 48 years after our first visit, for our HONEYMOON, in January 1972.

This is where we're staying at the Sandcastle Apartments for the next 6 nights, not too far at all from the 1960s era Beach Front Motel (now long gone) where we stayed in 1972.We do love a bedroom with a sea view!

Town Beach at sunset (just over the road from our apartment).

After our long day's drive we really enjoyed our walk from Town Beach, right around to Town Green on the Hastings River at the magic sunset hour on Wednesday night.

We were thrilled to find ourselves walking past Bill's Fishhouse and Bar on Clarence St on our way back to the Sandcastle Apartments - one of Port Macquarie's best restaurants - with a table free! it meant we had to sit outside on a rather cool coastal night but we're totally ok with that in these socially distanced times.

We enjoyed a fabulous meal at Bill's - mulloway (jewfish), saffron and mussels for me and salmon for Rob (and chips!).

Thursday dawned a spectacular clear sky day so we didn't waste too much time getting out in our walking gear to experience the first southern leg of Port Macquarie's famous 9klm long coastal walking trail.

This is me against a beautiful background of Town Beach, assorted rocky coves, the Hastings River entrance and the mountainous hinterland beyond.

This is Rob standing on the lookout at Flagstaff Hill. i took a picture of him in about the same spot in 1972 - but he and the lookout looked a lot different then.

Walking down from Flagstaff Hill towards Oxley Beach.......

We're up high here, taken from Windmill Hill Reserve, looking south towards the distinctive Nobbys Beach headland.

Looking down on Rocky Beach .......

and looking back on one of the wild, inaccessible little bays of Rocky Beach ......

.... and on to our end point (for today) Flynns Beach .......

... and coffee at the busy Sandbox Cafe, Flynns Beach.

Best spot for a morning coffee .......... (even better than Hassett's Park?)

Knowing that rain was coming for the rest of our stay (maybe?) we wasted no time after our morning walk in heading out for more sightseeing while the skies stayed so clear.

I'd remembered a stunning lookout near Laurieton from our visit in 1972 so on Thursday afternoon we headed south, along the coast road, past Lake Cathie, Bonny Hills, Grants Beach, turning west at North Haven, on the way to North Brother Mountain in the Dooragan National Park.

On the way I happened to see a turn off to Armstong Oysters, on the Camden Haven River. Armstrong Oysters are one of the largest (family owned and operated too) producers of Sydney Rock Oysters in NSW with an annual production of 3-4 million oysters per year with leases across the Camden Haven, Nambucca and Macleay Rivers. Today, things were pretty quiet at the Camden Haven lease, so quiet that the pelicans were very excited to see us and gave us a warm (but ultimately disappointed) welcome.

The North Brother Mountain summit lookout looks vastly different to how it looked 48 years ago, having been declared a National Park since 1997. A perfect spot to quaff my half dozen Sydney Rock Oysters from Armstrong's!

This is the view i remembered ....... down to North Haven, Camden Head, Laurieton and the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

... and looking north back towards Port Macquarie ......

We met a lovely group of young girls who'd climbed up to the North Brother summit lookout on the steep walking trail up from Laurieton (3km one way). After catching their breath from the steep climb they offered to take pics of us here together to commemorate our 48 year Port Macquarie anniversary!

This was the view looking south - towards South Brother and Middle Brother Mountains - powerful places in the local Birpai people's dreaming stories.

We ended our sightseeing with a stop off at Lighthouse Beach (12klm south of our Town Beach) - and a very late lunch for Rob (fish and chips) by the ocean.

By mid afternoon, the ocean breeze was turning pretty cold - we could tell a real weather change was in the air!

We made it (so far)

Ella and Abi, like all the other kids in Canberra, have had a lot to cope with so far in 2020: Fires, smoke, hail, and then the pandemic.... Ella's had 6 weeks away from school (in her first year of high school) and Abi's had 8 weeks away, more or less stuck at home all that time. 

The summer holidays were really limited because of the dangerous levels of smoke haze and the April holidays were spent at home in lockdown. Even though they're back at school now things are far from normal and there is a lot of quiet anxiety around now as the pandemic situation in Victoria is looking worse each day.

So its been a bit of restrained start to these holidays. Ella's back at Gym, but fewer sessions, no audience etc etc; Abi's back to her regular horse riding lessons but none of their usual holiday treats (playdates, movies, "Flip Out" etc) are operating as "normal".

We spent some time with them this past week. Abi has done a huge wall size mural painting in her bedroom of her favourite Palomino horse (how did I miss getting a picture of that?). It's hardly surprising she is such a confident horse painter as she draws them non stop!

 But I was pretty gobsmacked to see this self portrait she knocked off in a quiet moment this week too - pretty amazing for an 8 year old I think!

 Ella is developing a holiday small business enterprise with a line of "Couch Poate" merchandise: ankle socks, T shirts, tote bags etc etc). This girl is a force to be reckoned with - and her finished products are top quality! She has a small team of her Gym friends working with her on this.

She's also designed a piece of furniture for her bedroom that she and Rob are both working on - but more on that later ........

While we're still able to we decided to go out for a fancy lunch today, at Pialligo Estate - to celebrate the fact we've all made it through the year (so far) relatively intact and ready to support each other no matter what gets thrown at us next. 

It was a fabulous lunch - and so wonderful to see the girls enjoying beautifully prepared, refined dishes like the mature, confident young women they are.

An added bonus for Abi was the opportunity to get up close to the miniature horses at a nearby property on Beltana Road. This little beast even bit her on the finger - but Abi will forgive a horse anything!

More from the 70s

Just to set the scene.. we got married on the 8 January 1972 in Brisbane. We look very young in this picture -but that is because we were young: Rob was 3 days away from his 21st birthday; I'd turned the ripe old age of 20, the October before .....

 We had an extremely exotic "honeymoon" straight after our wedding, in Port Macquarie, a beachside resort a bit over 535km from Brisbane. It was the second time ever I'd travelled south of the Q'ld-NSW border area, and it may have been Rob's first!. 530 klm must have seemed like a big drive so we had a stopover in Grafton on the way there.

The pic below is of me in Grafton with our trusty little VW Beetle. Three months later it drove us and all our worldly possessions to Canberra where we've lived ever since!

In Port Macquarie we stayed in the Beach Front Motel just across the road from beautiful Town Beach - it seemed quite fancy (for us) at the time!

 Just for fun I found an image of the same area today (thanks Mr Hooker for the purple arrow which doesn't apply in this case) - the 60s era Beach Front Motel has long gone!

A picture of Rob - looking very cool at the Flagstaff Hill Lookout, at the southern end of Town Beach.

 Looking down on to Oxley Beach to the south of Flagstaff Hill....

 I found an image of the lookout today - the white picket fence has gone (thank goodness) and native vegetation is back in favour!

 ..and Oxley Beach today - looking a bit less sunburnt than in my picture...

 Aside from its beautiful beaches Port Macquarie has some very historic sites, being one of the oldest penal settlements in Australia. We enjoyed looking at some of these sites - not every honeymooner gets their picture taken at the local cemetery!!!

 I made sure my outfit was colour coordinated for my visit to this convict era church!

 We don't remember going out to fancy restaurants in Port Macquarie (were there any?), so our small celebration of Rob's 21st birthday was a DIY (shirt free) affair!
 We saw a bit of the surrounding area too, including North Brother Mountain about 40 klm south of Port Macquarie near Camden Head and the Trial Bay area about 80klm north.

Along with the grim charms of the heritage listed goal ruins  - there was quite a bit of excitement down on the beach area of Trial Bay the day we visited. The old Sydney Queen (ferry) had started taking in water on its last ill fated tow from Sydney on the way to the Philippines. It drifted into shore here and ultimately destroyed itself, creating a huge mess and problems for the locals in the process.

Despite the terrible photos we loved our "honeymoon" in Port Macquarie despite its daggy factor (which we didn't know about in 1972). In fact, with COVID-19 and all that we'll be taking more holidays/road trips like this (if we're lucky!!) over the next little while.