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.

Kiama - The Big Poo

I've wanted to visit the Australia's big things for quite a while now. I've seen two of those in South Australia. According to the words of a wise man, Australia is full of giant fiberglass statues put up by nowheretowns to attract tourists (or something like that). I miss the man that said those words. I've dedicated this blog in the hope of showing him how much he and all his words mean to me. I pray that I'll somehow reunite with the love of my life through this blog.

Of all the attractive big things, obviously, The Big Poo seemed like the best place to start this journey with. Wiki states that it was erected by the townsfolk of Kiama as a protest against reusing waste water. It says that it was made form foam.

I caught a train from Sydney at 7:29am and arrived at Kiama after a 2:22 long journey. On the way the weather had already begnu to show that it wasn't going to be at its nicest, but I was hoping and praying that there would be blue skies down south as compared to Sydney. After all, they say that Wollongong is a beautiful place and Kiama isn't far from Wolly much.

As I got out of the train, it was pouring mixed with really strong winds. I

So without further ado, here're the photos from Kiama.

This is the Big Blowhole. This unique rock and cave formation makes trapped water spout out in a giant fountain over 30ft high at times.

There is a beautiful lighthouse near the big blowhole.

This is the small Blowhole. I personally found this one more beautiful as its much more in the open and is less crowded and there are rocks where you can just sit and watch it blow forever.. Its very very beautiful and mesmerizing.

But wait.. where's the Big Poo that got me motivated on the journey to Kiama? I aksed a few boys at the cafe near Shell harbor and the oldest and wisest of them said that it was 60km up somewhere and there was no way one could walk to it. But if it really was 60km of there.. It wouldn't really still be Kiama, would it, buddy? Guess he was makin sure his seniority and wiseness wasn't challenged in front of the youngsters. At the visitor's center, the older nice lady that I asked the same question to said that she was here for 7 years and has never seen it so it must've crumpled away.. After all it was made of foam.

But wait.. On the way to Kiama Hieghts just before the small blowhole, I found the giant caricature.