May 22nd: Driving The Pacific Highway

Day 49 (Day 24 in Australia)

A driving day today from Byron Bay to Port Macquarie. A 400km journey in total (that’s roughly 250 miles in English money) though I managed to make it about 40km longer.

The driving was easy. Very easy. It was nearly all on almost deserted motorways at 110kph with cruise control on and music playing. After an hour I was getting slightly nervous that we hadn’t passed a petrol station. They’re not big on motorway service areas here.

The trip computer was down below 50km of fuel left so I took an exit to a town called Iluka. I didn’t realise it was 18km away. Fortunately when we got there the one and only garage was open and had fuel. Plus we had a very nice coffee there.

Back on the motorway (eventually) we continued our controlled cruise until we came to Coffs Harbour, where we had lunch and did a little shopping. Very busy little place.

After lunch we drove a couple more miles to the actual harbour in the town of Coffs Harbour. Parked up, we had a stroll along the harbour wall to Muttonbird Island Wildlife Sanctuary. A muttonbird is the Antipodean word for a shearwater. Collecting their fledglings is known as ‘mutton birding’ - a source of food and feathers!

Zoom in (I’m too lazy to crop the photo)

Sadly we didn’t have enough time to explore it further so we got back on the road.

It was after 5pm when we reached our hotel for the night but we were delighted to be on the fourth floor overlooking the ocean with a balcony/conservatory where we shall have breakfast.

Our room

Our balcony/conservatory

View from the balcony
Getting dark so will try a better one in the morning

Our room from the balcony*

Checked in, we then had a stroll to an area full of eateries and picked one. We chose well. Excellent food and drink plus a chat with the Nepalese waiter about football. It turns out he has the Cherries centre forward, Dom Solanke, in his fantasy team!

A longer drive tomorrow but we want to visit a local attraction first so it will be an early start for us. ‘Night all!

* You can tell I didn’t take many photos today!

Comments

  1. Jayne22 May 2024 at 11:56

    Terrific photos. Hotel looks lovely. Post little fledglings on the mutton birding!

    ReplyDelete

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