Port Macquarie

It's hard to know where to start, we have had such a wonderful week in Port Macquarie.  Well from the beginning I guess!  We stayed at the Sundowner Breakwater Caravan park.  Mark and I stayed there years ago and had always wanted to come back.  It's a older park but in a really super location, right near the beach, walkways, skate park and playgrounds.
The first day or so it rained heeps and lots of wind.  They had forecast 100km per hour winds but lucky they didn't eventuate as we were too lazy to bring our annexe in!  After that we had fabulous weather.
We spent a fair bit of time catching up on some rather neglected school work, a pain but necessary.  The kids got all the work done with lots of bribery of the fun stuff we would do.  We had to do some shopping and buy a roof rack bag and other bits we seem to always be writing a list of things to buy!!
We had a lot of fun scootering and riding bikes and going for lots of walks.  It's a really picturesque spot and a great place to walk along the waters edge.  All of these rocks have been painted by people visiting the area.  We were tempted to do one our self but didn't get around to it.

My little shopper!  Charlotte thought she was such a lucky girl...:)

Am still busy as doing my knitting, with a little help.

We have listened to a John Williamson song about koala's and the koala hospital alot. We knew we had to visit. We have been spending a lot of time listening to John's songs, we all love them, good Aussie songs. There is an area of the hospital dedicated to John, as he is one of their main patrons. He bought the rights to Blinky Bill and donates all of the profits. The koala hospital is the only one in Australia and it's run mainly by volunteers. We had a great tour of the facility and an educational talk. We learnt lots about koala's and got to see quite a few too. One old fella even got down from his tree and went for a wander in front of us up to the next tree, was pretty cool. He wasn't even a 'resident' just a koala who liked to hang about the hospital. Charlotte had done a beautiful picture of a koala and had written on it 'I hope you don't die koala's', we gave it to the guide to pin up on the walls for the koala's.

We decided to take the kids whale watching.  It's something we've always wanted to do but never had the chance.  It's pretty early in the season but were told that there were whales about.  We went in an inflatable boat.  It was a super fast ride.  Jake had chucked a tantrum about going, as he was playing lego and whale watching was boring!!  He soon changed his mind when the boat got started.  He thought it was 'awesome'.  We got to see three whales.  Was pretty cool seeing how huge they were.  They didn't jump out of the water, which we were hoping they would but was still great to see them.  We're going to go again further into the season.  Definitely a must see.

All excited about to go whale watching

After we went whale watching we took the kids out for lunch and to this great play ground on the water front.  We checked out the jetty and decided it would be a great spot to fish.  We ended up having one of the nicest nights ever.  It was so nice and relaxing sitting on the jetty fishing.  We didn't catch much.  Charlotte caught two fish and I caught an octopus, we threw them all back.  Poor Mark was disgusted he didn't catch anything.  As we were sitting there two dolphins just swam by, we also had the most gorgeous sunset ever.  Was just a wonderful evening.

To make up for Marks lack of fish catching the day before, he booked in to do a fishing charter.  The kids and I spent the day at the beach, the playground and scootering about.  Was a lovely day, people were even swimming in the ocean, not us though!  We met Mark at the jetty to check out the catch.  Mark was tickled pink, he caught the biggest fish of the day, a lovely snapper (we cooked it the next day and it was delicious).  We watched the men scale and gut the fish.  The kids were fascinated.  The local pelicans came to get their daily meal.  I counted 30 plus pelicans, I've never seen so many in one place.  Apparently they know to come at exact right time each day and get very disgruntled if the boat is late!

The proud fisherman

We really did just have a lovely relaxing time in Port Macquarie, it's such a great place.  Admittedly there is quite a few apartment buildings and it's very touristy but we luckily didn't go in the busy season.  It's a town that just as a holiday feel about ti, kinda like a big Port Sorell.  We were a bit sad to leave, but hope to go back one day.