Coffs Harbour to Wingham via Port Macquarie and Taree

Breakfast was had somewhat earlier than yesterday, so that we could be on the road reasonably early. On the way down we were greeted by the "guard lizard". I'm led to beleive this is actually a water dragon.

We dropped into a pewter jewellery manufacturer just out of Coffs Harbour. On the way back to the highway we passed a number of banana plantations. Some of them must be ashamed of thir bananas as they had put bags over them. The owners of these were proud enough to display them























One of the road-works we had to stop at was in this quite splendid forest area. The photo was taken from the car.























We stopped in Port Maquarie for lunch. This seems like a nice town, with good shops, lots of coffee shops and restaurants and everything else you might need. Just out of the CBD is the Sea Acres National Park, where there is a 1.5km boardwalk through a spectacular bit of remnant rainforest. We saw a koala, kookaburra and another large lizardy thing, and several bush turkeys. The parks staff were surprised to hear that there was a koala there as they typically have ony a few sightings a year.

About 20 minutes further on, via Lauriton, is the Kattang Nature Reserve. This has a series of walks around a bluff. This has a lot of flowers and a few birds.























It was necessary to double back through Lauriton to get back onto the highway, since Kattang is on the wrong side of the estuary. These pelicans were catching a bit of late afternoon sun.

We passed miles and miles of roadworks where the Pacific Highway is being revised. It looks like it will be dual carriageway (4 lanes total) all the way to Port Maquarie, and probably much further eventually.

Our destination for today was to be Wingham. We needed to be there before nightfall, as we wanted to see the enormous flying fox colony. We made it just in time; the sun had set, but the sky was made dark by the thousands of bats heading out from their roost in the Wingham Scrub, to forage for fruit and insects. Apparently they might travel as much as 40km. This image shows the bats, but being essentially black against a dark sky, you can't see them very well.


















You'll just have to beleive me that they are there.

We had dinner at the golf club restaurant, associated with the motel we are staying at. It was very nice, almost "home-style" cooking. Ate too much again though.

After tea we went to investigate where all the noise was coming from. There is a large pond / lake, which is full of incredibly noisy frogs. I'm very glad we didn't have one of the posh, expensive rooms, as the frog noises near them are deafening. Our room is much quieter, since it doesn't look out onto the pond. There are still frogs here though.

This was taken with my phone. Don't bother trying to enlarge it; this is as good as it gets.