Peter in Port: Lazy days and Sundays

SUNDAY WE were still tired -- a situation not much helped by an unfamiliar bed. Although not hewn from a single log of North Coast Hardwood, it is certainly not made of the finest breast feathers of Scandinavian Eider ducks, either. "Durable, motel-style" is probably how it was described in the catalogue. On the other hand, being of king-sized dimensions, it allowed both of us to toss and turn while inflicting minimum disruption on the other's sleep.

We were not off to any kind of early start. The local Anglicans were well underway by the time my foot first touched the carpet, and it was an off day for the Uniting Church which meets in several locations. We hadn't even located any of the other churches yet.

Interestingly, the local Anglican church, St Thomas', is the third oldest church building in Australia, as settlement in NSW went swiftly from Sydney/Parramatta to Newcastle and then to Port Macquarie. Other towns filled in the spaces between these centres over the following years.

The photograph above shows two of the older local churches. St Thomas', with the steeple-less tower only partly visible behind a tree, is the oldest in Port Macquarie.

Wauchope and Timbertown

So we moved on to Plan B: a trip to Timbertown, just outside Wauchope.

Wauchope is named for an early settler in the area who, after some kind of upset with the rest of his family, dropped the -ope from his name, going from then on under the name of Wauch. The full name was retained for his property, though.

You pronounce the name of this town like “War-hope” (but don’t sound the “r”! No pirates here!)

When people first settled in Port Macquarie, it was supposed to be a kind of prison camp, but people soon discovered that there were a lot of really good trees for timber to make furniture and build houses, and even to make waggons and coaches to travel in.

Australians are familiar with our cedar, a deep red-coloured wood, often used in the past for quality furniture because it is extremely rot- and insect-proof, and is easy to cut and shape with chisels and knives. A lot of furniture in England was made from Australian cedar brought to England by sailing ship from Australia. It is the wood of the native Toona Australis tree, and completely unrelated to the cedar of the Northern Hemisphere.

The North Coast of NSW is also a good source of hardwood both for architectural purposes and utility purposes, such as making fences.

There isn’t very much cedar left now, but hardwood is still cut from the forests of northern New South Wales. Some cedar logs left in the late 19th century as unsuitable for sale have been recovered in recent times and used. They were undamaged despite 100 years lying in paddocks, and were now economically usable.

The timber cutters often lived in little towns among the trees. Many have disappeared. Timbertown is a copy of one of these old timber gatherer’s settlements.

You can get an idea of the size of the timbers once harvested around the Port Macquarie area from this photograph of Peter standing in front of a giant hardwood log from the local forests. This log has been the marker for Timbertown for decades.

The next picture is of the main street of Timbertown.

The next is the interior of the little church at TImbertown. The original Presbyterian church building in Wauchope, it was transported to Timbertown and re-erected. It is still under Presbyterian management but is available for interdenominational use. It was closed up when we got there.

Rawdon Island and an injured man

On the way back from Timbertown, we saw a turn–off to an island, named Rawdon Island. So we drove down the road to the island. Here is a photograph of the the Hastings River from the bridge across to Rawdon Island.

As we crossed this bridge on our way onto the island, we saw two men going fishing. On the way back, perhaps 20 minutes later, we stopped to look at the river again, and the two were returning from the river. The younger one had cut his toe really badly on the rocks, but the older man (perhaps the young man’s father) had phoned the young man’s mother, who arrived a couple of minutes after us. The poor woman spoke breezily to Chris and myself with a kind of, "Oh, aren't boys silly!?" attitude. But her look and posture as she brought their van roaring across the bridge showed her real anxiety about her son's injury.

Down by the wharves and up on a headland

On Sunday afternoon, we went down to the wharves and looked at boats.

The harbour area is quite large, being part of the confluence of three rivers.