Road Trip Day 3 - Port Macquarie

Hola all! I'm gonna keep this short and with all the typo as the internet here is so expensive. We just got into Port Macquarie, about 6 hours drive north of Sydney. It is kind of crappy from what we can see, and having driven around for about 45 mins tryingot find the damn hostel, we're kind of over it before we got into it.

Still, road trip is goign well. The driving gets easier with every mile and every day, and now i've learned to love the excentricities of 'Le Tank' - the way, for example, it sounds like its about to take off when you reverse it, or the way the steering wheel is misaligned by about 6 degrees. I even got the locks fixed, though sadly, i didn't think to ask the guy to keep the key for me as a souvernier. Still makes me laugh to look at the picture!

So, we left Sydney predictably a few hours late, and after a few mistaken turns, got onto the (busy) freeway up to the lovely Port Stephens, where we stayed in a beautiful backpackers/ campsite called Melauela (I think) Backpackers. 5 mins walk from One Mile Beach, the first day was beautiful sunshine (even got a bit of a sunburn) and we spent it mostly in Nelson Bay - drank a pint in the sunshine, ate gourmet pie (prawn, baramundi and lobster in cocunut sauce no less!) at Red Ned's Pie Shop, and then did a couple of hours hiking up to Tomaree Head to see the sun set - really spectaculatr place, I'll put the pics up as soon as I can.

Today we slept through most of the sun :( but still went down to Stockton Beach to the massive (MASSIVE) sandbank and dunes, and walked around for a few hours to check it out. Really spectacular but very windy. From there we decided to head off and make for Port Macqaurie, which took a few hours (via a stock at The Rock Roadhouse - classic Australiana - a roadhouse rest stop in the giant model of Ayers Rock!!).

All in all things continue to go well, but its early days. I'm still getting to grips with all the driving, and the car, and the feeling of not going back to Sydney - that that chapter is all closed and done with. For the most part, it feels good, really good, to be moving again and exploring. Still haven't had a chance to figure out how to use my camera, but thats next on the list after i get off here (3 mins and counting).

So, please get interactive with this blog, leave psots and comments, I really do like to hear your thoughts. For those facebookers out there, I'll be posting the pics as soon as a I can, and of coruse, I'll put the links in this blog for those of you not yet down with the kids.

And a big big congratulations to Monica and Patrick! I'm so happy for you guys, I always had my suspicions that things might work out that way. Keep me posted on everything! All very exciting stuff! Next stop for me and Emilie after here will prob be Coff's Harbour, again another 250km or so up the coast, so I imagine the next post from me will be from there. Until then!