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| No caption necessary |
Having had lunch down by the sea we headed over to the Pet Porpoise Pool which would give us our first opportunity to sea dolphins as well as sea lions and other sea based animals. Unfortunately we were too late to get a good days experience there so planned to return the next day. That evening’s accommodation came courtesy of BP as we stayed round the side of their petrol station about an hour’s drive south of town. Rather than entertain ourselves by the usual methods of the laptop and my iPod, we spent a few dollars on Pictureka which is a card based picture game which supplied a surprisingly large amount of fun considering just how basic it is.
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| Our free nights accomodation |
The next day we enjoyed another lie in as we had opted for the 1pm tour, rather than the 10am tour, at the Pet Porpoise Pool. We had heard you get the chance to play with the dolphins if you arrive early so we in fact arrived around midday and made straight for the dolphin pools. The place was strangely quiet so it took us a bit of time to work out what was going on but eventually we did and were allowed to play rugby with a couple of dolphins called Zippy and Bucky. At least we were allowed to throw a rugby ball for them to catch following the rare occasions when one of them would actually bring it back to us.
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| Playing with either Bucky or Zippy as we had no idea which was which |
Before the dolphin show began at 1pm there was a chance for a bit more interaction with them as well as a sea lion called Ellie. To begin with everyone would line up before leaning of the edge of the dolphin pool at which point Bucky or Zippy would appear to give you a quick peck on the cheek as a photo was taken. After this we got the same treatment from Ellie the sea lion except it was more of a wet slobbery kiss anywhere on the side of the face.
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| Getting some dolphin loving |
The show itself was pretty good as the dolphins would impress the crowds with various classic moves including waving, flipping and general splashing but they also had a small game of rugby which was rather fun to watch. I was left rather disappointed by one aspect though as they clearly only intended to tease the audience with a hoop positioned particularly high over the middle of the pool rather than actually jump through it. How hard can it be? Every so often the dolphins would have a break as various other sea lions came out to perform tricks ranging from a one handed handstand to a demonstration of how to correctly deal with litter.
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| Standard dolphin action |
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| Is there a more classic sealion trick? |
After the show we were allowed to feed the fish which doesn’t sound particularly interesting but we were feeding them other fish part which, other than coming across a little cannibalistic, suggested to us that they must have been pretty big fish. We had hung around the dolphin pool to get a little extra porpoise entertainment so missed all the instructions but then we spared no time picking up some fish innards with our tongs and thrust them into the water. A massive fish appeared so quickly to dispatch my offering that I recoiled bloody quickly and may have even let out a little squeal. At least this fish was a little more intimidating than the puffer fish we caught in Hervey Bay. Following the fish we quickly fed the Blue Penguins, which meant Linz had to touch a “slimy” fish which she wasn’t best pleased about, before heading back to the van. On our way out we opted to buy our dolphin and sea lion smooching photos.
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| Scared by another fish |
Before leaving Coffs Harbour we pulled into the supermarket and picked up the necessities for dinner including some rather tasty looking options from the butchers. I went for a large chicken spring roll, as I had been missing them since leaving Asia, and Linz chose a chicken and cheese option. We annoyingly had to shell out on power than evening but even more irritatingly our butcher meals were horrific as it appeared they had hidden the most disgusting parts of a chicken under my rice paper and Linz’s breadcrumbs.
The next morning we continued south past our free night’s accommodation at the BP garage and onto Port Macquarie. There was clearly only one reason for coming here: koalas. Our first stop was at the town’s koala hospital where sick and injured koalas are brought from all over the region and healed up. The majority of injuries are caused by bush fires although many are due to cars and dogs. The koalas are all kept in fantastic pens as each one is built around natural trees allowing them to climb very high as if they were in the wild but not get too far.
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| A rare sighting on an awake koala |
Each pen came with a story regarding the koala’s condition and history but the majority of them seemed to be in good health. Strangely an uninjured wild koala had decided to come and visit the injured ones and placed himself in a non-enclosed tree just by the pens. The staff were clearly used to this as they had a “koala in tree” sign prepared and placed against the visitor’s tree. Needless to say almost every koala we saw was asleep but the hospital was an excellent place to visit and was even free to enter.
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| Outside the Billabong Wildlife Park |
In case we hadn’t got enough koala action we headed next to the Billabong Wildlife Park via a stop off at Kennedy Street for a quick photo-op. The park was slightly larger than the one we visited in Port Douglas as it was more of a small zoo including all the Australian classics such as kangaroos, koalas, emus, wombats and one insanely large crocodile. Although being able to pat a koala the highlight here was easily the kangaroo enclosure as we got our first sighting of a baby kangaroo. At first it just appeared to be a heavily pregnant mother but then the joey appeared by poking his head out much to the enjoyment of the few of us that were there. It was rather amusing to begin with as the joey was clearly new to the process of sticking his head out as a foot appeared first before he eventually worked it out.
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| Mother and joey |
We hadn’t planned to stay the night in Port Macquarie so headed out of town following our animal packed morning, and for the first few miles Linz remained desperate to see a wild koala in the trees we passed. South of Port Macquarie our next stop would be the town of Newcastle which of course the Australian’s deem relevant to shorten. Having already visited “Rocky” and “Brizzy” we were now at “Newie” where it was early evening and our only plan for the evening was to see the final instalment of the Transformers trilogy. For some reason no one has let Michael Bay know that just making a sequel bigger than the film before isn’t enough to make it any better. However, I never get tired of the special effects and still enjoyed it despite having to put up with expected levels of ridiculousness associated with everything from characters to plotlines in any Transformers film.
The night’s accommodation was found in a free rest area outside town and having woken up the following morning we headed into Newcastle once again. We parked down by the sea as it was fairly central and next door to our first sight of the day: Fort Scratchley. The fort was used as a defence post for the town due to its rather impressive selection of guns overlooking the sea. In 1942 a Japanese submarine surfaced in the port and rained shells on the town but it took just four shots from Fort Scratchely to convince the sub to flee despite never actually hitting it. It appears even in Australia that Newcastle can offer a reasonable defence but fail when it comes to hitting the target.
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| Fort Scratchley's cannons with Newcastle in the background |
Nowadays you are just able to walk round the fort for free while enjoying good views of the town in one direction and the sea in the other. On arrival we had to endure a rather awkward conversation with a member of staff dressed in old fashioned army gear who clearly hadn’t seen anyone else visit the fort that day. We turned down the offer of a tour as it would have made our free activity considerably more expensive.
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| Looking down from the fort over Nobby's Head |
Following the fort we walked along the sea front passed some very brave surfers, given the winter temperature, and up the hill to the war memorial at the top. The memorial, which is a large white obelisk, offers more good views of the city but didn't go down well with Linz who was unpleased with the town’s necessity to put it on such a hill. We headed back into town from here stopping at a rather nice cathedral which offered us our third consecutive free attraction. The church was rather enjoyable to walk round and we were pleased to have added it to our walking tour and in fact it proved to be considerably better than our next stop. The let down was the pedestrianised area called the Hunter Street Mall which was a collection of tame shops, scrubby people and general mess so we soon passed on to the waterfront.
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| The memorial (above) and the church (below) |
We had planned to climb the Queen’s Wharf Tower but for an unknown reason it was closed so we would miss out on the free views of the city from this vantage point. Instead we completed our loop of the town by walking along the waterfront back to the van having reasonably enjoyed Newcastle especially given the lack of money we had spent. We set off from the car park in search of our next destination: Sydney.
As would be expected Sydney was always going to be an expensive place to visit so staying somewhere relatively inexpensive was vital and in addition, following our experience in Brisbane, we decided not to take our van into the city itself so needed to be in commuting distance. Consequently we had to find a campsite in the suburbs where we could find a bus or train station nearby and we found one in an area called Dural. I have no idea how we found Dural as we had no sufficient map and a navigation policy based purely on guesswork. Whether it was the only road or due to our lack of a decent map we ended up on an incredibly steep and winding road in the van during the darkness of night. It didn't take long for a queue including half the population of Dural to form behind me, but eventually we reached the campsite. It was an extremely nervous journey and I won’t hide the fact that cooking dinner was a million miles from my plans for the evening so we headed straight back out to the McDonalds over the road.
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| Campervan life |
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