Port maquarie

 

Port Maquarie

 

 

After Coff's Harbour, we stayed in a small woodland campsite in Gumma Reserve (Near Macksville), and it was a proper campsite - fire pits and everything!

 

 

It took us multiple attempts to get a fire going with the slightly soggy wood we had. So we used a beer crate another camper gave us. And then he came to help build the fire because we were totally inept.

 

On the way down to Port Maquarie we stopped off at some really nice places. This headland was somewhere around South West Rocks.

  We also came across this old Gaol in South West Rocks, near Little Bay

 

When we arrived in Port Maquarie, we stayed in a campsite in the middle of a koala habitat. It also just so happened to be right next to Port Maquarie Koala Sanctuary, which we'd been to 3 years ago. We went again! This time, there were only 2 koala's that had been there since we were last there - a lot of new arrivals as they regularly let them back out into the wild.

 This Koala only had one eye and one leg - he had to stay and wasn't allowed out back into the wild.

 Koala getting his glucose shot

 This extremely energetic Koala kept running around in circles.

 

After the Koala hospital, we went down to the seafront. Last time we were here, we discovered an awesome skate plaza (seriously good - the best I've ever been to) right next to a great surfing beach (directly behind the skatepark). When I came last, I really wished I had a surfboard and skateboard. This time, I had both!! Unfortunately, there was no surf today! There had been the day before - I missed out. However, I wasn't going to miss out on a skate!

This is what heaven on earth looks like (minus the random dude)

 

We milled around the shops for a bit, had a drink on the seafront and than headed off further down south towards Forster. On the way, we stopped off for the night at Wingham. It was a proper country town - with the police station, school, library, church all next door to each other in houses. There was one pub and an RSL (a restaurant/bar/gaming place), which we went to for dinner. The campground was free - in a beautiful spot by the river:

 

There are hammerhead sharks in that river. No joke.

 

 

When night fell, we had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bats flying over us. The night was thick with them for the best part of an hour. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen!