Port Maquarie

On Day 4 of receiving my sexy beast of a car and one day before the Christmas Eve, I set out on a Road trip.. Obviously, I had no set destination.... so it was s coin toss between the Great Ocean Road and Brisbane. I had half a mind of going back to the Great Ocean Road... because I knew how beautiful it is... there wasn't much alluring about QLD, but at the same, I'd never ventured further up north than Port Stephens so discovering new land didn't seem such a bad idea... besides Byron bay was on the way... and that is supposed to be wonderful.. Brisbane won the toss and I set out early in the morning with Coco with just a couple of shorts and not enough spare clothes (the plan was to use the opportunity to do Boxing Day shopping in Brisbane).


The car is extremely sexy and although I have no idea if her mileage is good or bad, I feel she just can go forever without taking a break. I arrived at Port Maquarie in about 4.5 hours without any break wearing a Santa hat all the way! As soon as I checked into the hostel, I cuddled up with Coco and we both fell sound asleep. Woke up in a couple of hours and it was well past lunch time.. so instead of eating something first, I set out to the Lighthouse. I choose most of my destinations based on whether or not they have a lighthouse.. so I was pretty excited to go check this one out.

When I got to the lighthouse.. and I must say, the car's GPS system is sooo handy. I didn;t have to rely on my dodgy navigation skills at all... The lighthouse was ... well... not what I expected... it was tiny:


After that I headed to the main street in the town had a greek wrap and chatted with the owner of the greek eatery who was Indian while his wife and presumably her sisters made fun of me showing too much skin and how they'd never dream of wearing anything like that in public (yes.. I do understand Hindi and a bit of Punjabi, ladies!).. I asked the owner what the best beach was and he said there were many if I wanted to take a walk along the beach line.. but if he was to pick just one, it would be the Shelley beach.

Over there I saw an interesting sculpture of a man sitting calmly on a throne with dragons/monitor lizards trying to climb up to his high grounds.


The place was supposed to have goannas there but I didn't spot any.. instead I saw these funny turkeys gobbling away happily and running around with little kids chasing them.. It was a nice family beach.


I lied on the rocks with little Coco for a long time until a couple of annoying men came to disturb our peace and tried to chat up with me. At which point I decided I'd just make my way back to the car than engage in any forced socialization with these encroachers.


I stopped on the main street again and had a super-choc drumstick and a salad takeaway for dinner where one of the people staying at the hostel who was there struck up a conversation with me.. I was too much loving the chocolate to be all snarly at him.. so I exchanged some pleasantries and walked back to the car.. The wind was starting to pick up.

The hostel was quiet with most people enjoying their dinner in solitude and on their PCs or phones.. I sat across this dude who was eating something obviously too spicy because there were no other free benches... He wasn't a bad conversationalist.. he was German with a strong accent and poor grammar. I finished my lunch and excused myself saying I was going to go check where the music is coming from.. he said he'd like to come along too.. so we walked together.. and found that just a couple blocks away there was a sort of fair/show with all the rides and things.. the types you see in small towns and it was mostly empty. So we walked back to the hostel.

The next morning on Dec 24th, I set out early towards Brisbane... this part of the journey was longer than Sydney to Brisbane.