0905 An early start and going to church

I WOKE this morning -- Mothers Day -- at around 6 am, and spent some time watching the sun rise. It was beautiful to watch, and light from a long time before the scheduled appearance of the sun.

This meant that I was well awake in time for the 8 am service at the historic St Thomas' Anglican Church. I had just written Chris a note and was about to quietly go out the door when she awoke, so I was able to tell her what my plans were.

It was a longer walk than I had anticipated, so I arrived just as the bell was ringing to announce the commencement of the service, and I actually got to my seat as the first hymn was underway. I'd have been there a bit earlier except that a woman at the door greeted me with a hug -- it was rather like coming to our own church.

The photograph above, taken after the service, when the door was shut, doesn't do the friendliness of the people justice.

I suppose there were over 100 people present, and it was a fairly conventional Anglican service, which wasn't easy for a Baptist to follow. But then the congregation clearly had similar difficulties. They were unfamiliar with a couple of the hymns, and some were getting a trifle lost navigating around the Prayer Book -- well, its modern equivalent. Here I think our church does a lot better both with music and with keeping people well-informed about what is happening.

There were several readings, one of which was a selection of verses from Revelation. This was the main reading for the morning's sermon, and the reader was totally lost, hopping from section to section. But we got the gist in the end.

A further positive was that a number of people were responsible for different sections of the service, and this flowed well, with the minister having to do little other than preach.

There was no indication whether or not visitors were invited to share in communion, but that's pretty typical for Anglicans, and I take the position, "When in doubt, don't."

The greeting time was towards the end of the service, and picked up again as soon as the meeting was over. I think this is good. An elderly lady mentioned that she had come from North Western NSW before moving to Port Macquarie, and was surprised that I could mention places like Narrabri, Baan Baa, Maule's Creek... she was actually from Baan Baa, and she and her husband had owned the property across the Namoi River from my uncle and aunt, Lance and Gert Hollingworth. So it was nice to have that link. Another chap in the congregation was also from that area. We had a brief chat about the picture theory which, from memory, was at Baan Baa.

I couldn't stay to chat, as it was Mothers Day and I did want to get back to Chris before the day was too far gone.

0805 Saturday, Kempsey, the coast and Ronaldo's

SATURDAY MORNING we decided to go to Kempsey. The last time Chris and I had stopped in Kempsey, it was evening, we grabbed a room at the only motel we could find, and headed to the RSL looking for something to eat.

The RSL's bistro had just closed, but they had one last pizza, sliced salami, and already cold and pretty greasy. But nothing else was open, so that was what we had to content ourselves with. Perhaps things have changed in 30 years...

Our first stop was at the information centre. There was also a quite magnificent toilet block there. We had some intention to avail ourselves of the facility when a tour bus pulled in and people poured out -- a seniors' tour on their way home to Queensland after having been as far as Sydney before the bungee reached its limit.

Well, eventually we got there... Meanwhile we had some morning tea on the picnic tables.

Next we went to the information centre (see picture at top), a Glenn Murcutt design, as will be obvious to anyone who knows of his use of corrugated iron.

The centre contains an aboriginal art gallery as well, so we went in and had a look around. Beautiful work, but a bit outside our holiday budget.

So we drove quickly around the town, then headed back to the lookout just off the highway. These views are from the lookout. The first settler in the district built his home on the site now occupied by this lookout.

We next drove out to Crescent Head for a pleasant lunch in the Bowling Club. I took a few photographs here as we drove around the town, and we drove a couple of kilometres out of town, but then returned to Port Macquarie. After all the dirt roads on our way to Ellensborough Falls, we were not keen to spend a lot of time on similar thoroughfares this soon.

The bird on the fence rail was just cute; the shot of the beach was taken from near a lookout above the golf greens.

We looked around town for eateries, and the club was probably the best place we spotted.

Along the way back, we stopped into Ronaldo's Tomatoes, but it was too late for us to go and pick strawberries, which had been our intention. These two rural photographs were taken at Ronaldo's, and show the tubes in which strawberries are grown hydroponically.

The final shot is of the roadway out of Ronaldo's, heading back towards the Princes Highway.

0705 Must be Friday the 13th

REAL LIFE always involves the mundane. After the yesterday's excitement, we were ready for some ordinary business.

There was shopping to do. And Chris had forgotten to bring her camera's USB cable, so we couldn't transfer her pictures to the computer. Sadly, my laptop only reads a few types of cards, such as SD, and her camera uses Memory Stick cards. We nearly lost her card inside my computer's card reader.

So we had breakfast at the local Maccas and then I started driving around looking for cables or card readers. I wasn't having a lot of success.

Chris was sitting in the car listening to a CD while I was searching the shelves of one of the shops, and, when I restarted the car, I thought it cranked just a trifle slowly considering how much the battery had been charged over the previous day, and the fact that the car was already warmed up.

I tried one national electronics supplier who had a multi card reader for $40. I thought this a bit extreme when I had seen similar devices at Woolworths for about $12. So I went to Go Lo and the Reject Shop, to no avail. Finally I found a rather nice computer shop just opposite the Coles Carpark in Short Street, where I bought a reader labelled $19.95 but supplied to me for $15.

I returned full of good cheer, clutching my bargain, and jumped into the drivers' seat.

The battery was totally dead.

"One hour to ninety minutes," said the cheery lady at the NRMA.

She was spot on. Exactly one hour, and the van arrived. Fortunately, the alternator was charging fine, but the five-year-old battery had reached the end of its life. $140 later, we were underway again.

"It's a good thing this didn't happen at Ellensborough Falls yesterday," I said to the NRMA man.

"It wouldn't have been me who had to come out," he told me. "That would have been for the Wauchope fellows. But you wouldn't have seen them as quickly as you saw me."

By now it was time for a late lunch, so we went off and had something to eat.

Time was getting away, so we went out to Settlement Point, a new development on the river near where the car ferry crosses to the North Shore, and had a look around before heading home again.

Photos taken at Settlement Point and across to Pelican Island...

I can't remember whether it was that night or some other, but we went to a Mexican eatery called Poco Loco, where I had enough delicious Nachos to keep me going for a day or two.

When the woman (the shop's owner) brought us the menus, she also gave us a second menu, but not for drinks. "This is a double sided pizza menu," she said.

"I have never had a double sided pizza," I replied.

She went of laughing aloud. "No one has ever said anything like that to me before!" she said. She seemed quite tickled by the idea...

0605 Did we ever leave Thursday behind?

PERHAPS OUR GPS would get us back safely. After our experiences of the day, we were ready for any kind of problem in finding our way back. Everyone was telling us to drive to Comboyne and then head north to Wauchope, where we could take the Oxley Highway back to Port Macquarie.

When we got to the road to Wingham, "Miss Exterminate" (our GPS lady) was sure that would be the best route for us to take. Perhaps there was some way to Kendall and Kew down there but, by then, we had no enthusiasm for that course. Timbertown, Wauchope, and Port Macquarie. That was what we wanted.

After a few arguments between us and Miss Exterminate, we decided to put her in a darkened glove box and navigate by "seat of pants" methods.

We found a council truck which appeared to be in a hurry to head back to the depot somewhere near Wauchope, so we followed it. After a few anxious minutes when we were not completely sure we were on track, we saw some reassuring signs, and drove on happily.

Eventually we were back in Port Macquarie, and happy to have dinner and a relaxing evening.

Photos in this episode: On the road to Wauchope, in Timbertown, and Wauchope township.

0605 The goal revealed

WE HAD come up through Kendall to to Comboyne, then taken the Innes View road, and finally been directed back to the turn off to the Wingham Road. We arrived there hot on the heels of two ladies in a black Lexus, who had earlier been following us the wrong way.

There was a sign pointing to Ellensborough Falls, and it said, "19 km" -- and we could see it was dirt road most, if not all, of the way.

I looked at the fuel gauge. By now it was indicating that we had a quarter of a tank left.

I did some quick and anxious mental calculations. Perhaps we had 70 km worth of petrol, which would easily take us the 38 km to the falls and back to this corner, as well as the 4 or 5 km back into Comboyne.

Or perhaps we had only enough fuel to take us 50 km, and that could be a problem if I wasn't reading that 1/4 full indication accurately.

But, surely, if people are needing fuel for 40 to 60 km, there would be fuel near the falls. After all, I did remember noticing that there was some kind of kiosk near the falls. So I decided we would proceed.

It was a bumpy and dusty ride, and sometimes scary, when I would drive from a brightly lit section of roadway into a darkly shaded bend, where the dust on the screen put me into a complete white-out. Sometimes I couldn't even tell which direction the road turned in!

But, at last, we were there. And it certainly is spectacular! The fall is no Niagara. The flow is narrow, but certainly falls a long way.

It is almost impossible to get a decent photograph from anywhere on the lookout platform. Even using my wide-angle attachment, which gives around the equivalent to a 22mm lens at 35mm size, I couldn't get what I wanted.

All you can do is your best...

These photographs show what I could get of the Falls.

Left is the full visible length of the drop -- you can just see the pool at the bottom that the water falls into. The next photograph shows the pool itself at the bottom of the fall.

At the top of this post is a view along the valley.

Once we had had a look we couldn't see any way for us both to take the walk to the bottom of the falls, and I didn't particularly want to leave Chris in the car while I took the walk, so we started heading back.

Fortunately, petrol was available at the little general store in the township gathered around the falls. I was taken by the lassiandra tree in the yard of this store, shown in the next photograph. We bought some flavoured milk and a couple of sausage rolls for afternoon tea, and then continued back to Comboyne.

The final post for Thursday 6th takes us back to Port Macquarie through Wauchope.

0605 The waterfall that doesn't exist

WELL, I didn't have the tourism booklet in my hand while I was driving, and Chris had her driving glasses rather than her reading glasses on; so, when we came to a sign saying, "Wingham" I turned that way, thinking that the booklet had said something about turning left when we came to a fork in the road, though I wouldn't have called this intersection a fork, either.

"This is the way to Wingham," Chris said. She seemed quite convinced that we were not heading to Wingham, so I did a U-turn and went the other way.

We found the entrance to a National Park area, and drove up the drive as far as the parking area. But the falls at the end of the walking trail were not Ellensborough Falls. We were glad that a sign told us that, as it would otherwise have been a long walk.

We concluded that, if there were falls here, maybe there would be more further along, so off we went again.

We did find some beautiful views.

In the course of the day, our grand-daughter had asked for pictures of nanna and poppa, so we took some photos with my mobile phone in addition to those we took with our ordinary cameras. Then we set off again.

The beautiful views were now more visible on the right hand (northish) side of the road rather than the left hand side. So I decided to stop and take some more photographs. Only I no longer had a camera. There was only one explanation. I had forgotten to bring it back into the car after leaving it on the car's bonnet while taking the mobile phone photographs.

So we had to head back about 5 km or so. Fortunately, I had reversed onto the roadway before driving on, so the camera had merely slidden off and landed in the grass. Everything was OK.

This time I didn't stop to take more photographs.

We kept driving, hoping to find signs, or someone who could tell us how to find Ellensborough Falls.

There was a utility parked on the grassy footpath, doors open. The door of the shed near the roadway was also open. I stopped and went to ask whoever was doing the work for instructions.

There were tools on the footpath, a compressor probably worth a couple of hundred dollars, and all kinds of goodies in the shed. But it was a landed Marie Celeste -- not a soul in sight. So we drove on.

A little further along, we saw some real people! A man and a woman on horses, and some children and dogs.

"Lots of people ask us this question," they said. "Back along the Wingham Road -- the turn-off is about 4km along. They should signpost it better."

Before we could leave these kind people, two women in a black Lexus sedan arrived heading back towards the Wingham Road. They stopped and asked Chris and me where the falls were. They were the same two women who had come into the Comboyne café. They had passed us while we were taking photos back along the road and assumed that we knew where we were going. When they reached the end of the road, they knew they had to return.

So we followed them and headed back some 10 or 15km to the Wingham Road...

0605 An interesting Thursday begins

THE GUIDE at the Sea Acres centre told us we should go to the Ellensborough Falls, allegedly the second highest falls in the Southern Hemisphere.

She said we would do well to go out through Kendall again, out to Comboyne and then follow the signs to the falls before driving back to Wauchope and then along the Oxley Highway to Port Macquarie again.

It is easier to describe than to do, though.

The Comboyne leg

The first stage of the trip was straightforward. Oxley Highway to Pacific Highway, and then out through Kew and Kendall.

If you want to see some naturally beautiful landscape, this is the drive to do. Here are a few photos...

While quite a bit of the road was unsealed, it was in good condition, and easy to drive on. However, it is a long journey. Make sure your tank is full before you set out -- and the washer bottle!

Eventually we reached Comboyne, where we had lunch before continuing the journey. Food at Comboyne was quite pleasant. I had grilled halloumi cheese on a salad base, which was particularly delicious. The coffee was good as well. The photograph below shows the café where we ate.

However, there was a very loud gentleman in the café who did little to enhance our eating experience. He was full of himself: his adventures, his achievements in coin collecting... and there were enough errors in his stories to suggest that he was making them up. One of his tale was of his car breaking down in Bathurst. He claimed to have been given a lift back to Sydney with the grandson of the musician Dvorak, who, he said, had composed the New World Symphony while working in the US -- of course, this was Gustav Mahler. One error may be a lapse of memory, even if repeated several times, but, as I said, this was one of many such errors.

He also kept calling on the waiting staff and requesting things not on the menu (which he had) and claiming that, as a good customer, they would be able to supply what he wanted.

He had a young companion who seemed a little uncomfortable to be with the older man, particularly when he ordered the young man a meal which he didn't actually want. We had suspicions about the entire situation, but all we could say in the end was that it was uncomfortable for everyone.

Two women a little younger than Chris and myself also came in shortly after we did, and were served. Of this, more later.

The accompanying photo was taken in Comboyne.

After lunch we set off, following the directions in our tourist guide, which told us to take the signposted branch of the fork in the road just out of town and follow the signs to Ellensborough Falls.

This is the beginning of woes... [To be continued]

0505 Wednesday: the cusp of the week

ONE OF the popular attractions of the Port Macquarie area is the Sea Acres rainforest walk, so, the weather having cleared, we decided to head in that direction. It is only about a 10 minute drive from where we are staying.

Shelley Beach

We saw the Sea Acres sign, so turned down the roadway leading to the east off the coastal drive.

The road is narrow, and plunges steeply towards the ocean. It is fringed on each side with rainforest, which is protected in many places by a boardwalk - too close to the ground to be of a great deal of interest to anyone and his baby, blanket or no, unless they happened to be particularly slim.

So it was a surprise to us when this is what we saw at the end of the road. Not rainforest, but Shelley Beach.

Although the drive is typical of the entrance to an ecotourism area, it is just the way down to a quiet but attractive public beach. Certainly a nice place to spend a little time.

Sea Acres - second attempt

"We hear that often," said the woman in the Sea Acres shop when we told her about our unplanned trip to Shelley Beach. This was not to be the last time we were to hear that the local councils do not have a good reputation for clear signposting.

I handed over my $8.00 adult entry fee and was surprised to discover that it also included a guided tour if I wanted it.

As the walk takes about 1/2 hour, I thought this was remarkably good value, so I decided to take up the offer. Chris didn't feel up to the walk, so she remained in the visitor centre and cafeteria.

The lady who was to lead the tour asked if anyone else in the centre was looking for a guide, and was told that a Dutch couple at that time watching a rainforest display might also be interested, however they wished to view the entire presentation and then walk through the rainforest at their own pace.

So I had a guide all to myself. The walk is all on an elevated walkway weaving between the trees.

Conditions in the forest were mostly not suitable for photography. I could have taken photographs in the relatively low light conditions, but what the photographs showed would have been unclear anyway.

The first thing she showed me was a pepper vine. Local Aborigines used both the dried berries and the milder-flavoured leaves as condiments. This vine is apparently similar to one native to parts of Asia.

Later we passed various palms. One was the low-growing, so-called Walking Stick Palm. Having a slender stem, rarely growing more than about 10mm in diameter, they made excellent walking sticks. The roots grow from a bulb just below ground, so the entire palm would be dug up, the roots were cut off and the bulb was trimmed to form a hand hold. The stem was then just cut to length.

After the Boer War and World War I, there were so many soldiers requiring walking sticks, that this palm came close to extinction in its usual range along the eastern coast of northern NSW and Queensland.

Other palms in the area are Cabbage Tree Palms (the pith in the trunk tastes something like cabbage, and fibre from the fronds was woven to make cabbage tree hats in the early days of the colony) and Bangalow Palms, which were used as a source of fibre and liquid carriers made from the curved ends of the fronds.

The photograph below shows some of the local palms.

We also saw many native figs of different kinds including the Strangler Fig, which grows around an existing tree. It was once believed that this fig actually kills the "host" tree, but this is not so. It actually just outlives most host trees. However, it also competes for nutrients with the host tree so only those with particularly aggressive root systems survive long anyway.

A Strangler Fig wrapped around a tree is shown in the next photograph.

Some other interesting plants were a native ginger, and a very hard timber known as the Python tree, which is always cool by comparison with surrounding trees.

Of course, there were other familiar trees and shrubs as well as some less-well-known varieties. Among the interesting ones was a kind of very primitive pine with palm-like leaves rather than the needles familiar to us all, and having the seed on the outside of the fruit.

Chris and I had lunch at the visitor centre before moving on.

Koala hospital

Our next stop was the Port Macquarie koala hospital, where injured or ill koalas are treated. Some older ones or particularly seriously injured ones are kept there permanently.

Here are a few photos.

Observatory

On Wednesday night the local observatory, just across the road from our unit, was open to visitors. I went across and viewed Saturn through the telescope and watched a fairly interesting astronomical display based on the Stellarium software.

The observatory is run by a community group and has a reflector telescope of around 250 - 300mm diameter.

0405 Rainy days and Tuesdays

TUESDAY WAS rainy, so we decided to go for a drive.

We hadn't gone far from our flat when we spotted a Tourist Drive sign, which took us out towards the Highway and, ultimately, towards Kempsey. The main part of this drive was along Hastings River Drive, a generally fairly narrow road which takes the intrepid tourist through extensive areas of low-lying farmland and mangrove swamp. However, just beyond these, glimpses of the beautiful Hastings River are seen.

When we reached the end of this road, as we came to the Pacific Highway, we discovered that the Tourist Drive itself came to an abrupt end. After a mental coin-toss, we chose to drive south, intending to look at Kew and perhaps Kendall.

In 1978, when I was sitting for my professional practice examinations as a Local Government Town Planner, we were given a Design Subject which involved preparing a regional plan for an area defined in a base map supplied by the examiners. Although identifying details were removed from the base map, it was clearly the Port Macquarie area -- which I had never visited. So I have been keen for over 30 years to see the actual district I had spent a month poring over.

However, time makes the memory fuzzy, so I was surprised to find that Kew and Kendall were west of the Highway.

We drove through Kew, but were more interested in Kendall, the next town we came to.

In Kendall

Here are a few photos...

This is the old Kendall railway station, also used as a Craft Association centre.

The people of Kendall don't lack a sense of humour...

When you see what a pretty place Kendall is, you understand why the poet, Henry Kendall, author of the poem, "Bellbirds", would have been keen to live here.

On the coast: Rainbow Beach

Next, we drove back towards the east, crossing over the Highway.

We stopped in Laurieton for lunch at a nice little café, then began the trek north towards Port Macquarie. There we found Rainbow Beach.

As you can see, there were no rainbows there that day, but beaches have their beauties in grey weather, too.

We stopped here for about 20 minutes before continuing our journey north.

A well-designed subdivision

Our final stop for the day was in a small subdivision, just south of the main Port Macquarie township. Because it is on a steep hill, most houses have good views.

Here are a few shots.

At night

It was still drizzly, so we went to the local Blockbuster store for a couple of DVDs. We watched "Julie and Julia" which I found a much more enjoyable movie than I had expected, but Chris fell asleep about halfway through.