Port Macquarie - Katoomba - Sydney

We continued our race down the east coast of Australia with another few hours of travel before reaching Port Macquarie. It was nice to pull into the town centre and start recognising things. We were picked up at the bus station by Mary with whom we were staying overnight. She took us back to her house and we spent a pleasant evening with her, Greg and Angus the dog.

The next day we presented ourselves at the koala hospital to see how the place was getting on without us - well enough apparently. So well in fact that one of the patients/inmates had felt comfortable enough to let her baby out and about! Anna Bay Sooty - a koala who had just arrived before we left - was suffering quite badly from conjunctivitis when we left but by the time we dropped by again everything seemed to have cleared up and she was the picture of health.


While we were watching, her little baby (gender unknown) stuck its little head up for a little look around. We learned later that this had only just started happening and several more permanent members of staff had not even seen the little kid.


Anyway, the pictures aren't great, but I would encourage you to check Sam's "Koalawrangler" blog (link on the right) for better quality pictures in future. We spent the rest of the day intermittently catching up with other vollies, feeding koalas and running out to look whenever the baby koala appeared. One on occasion I went to check on the baby without realising I was in another koala's enclosure. The first warning I got was when the irate occupant started clawing at my leg - I guess he was just letting me know he wasn't happy I was hanging around - so I beat a hasty retreat.

We spent that night with Joyce and Brian who very kindly not only put up with us for the night and fed us, but also gave us a lift into town for the 7am bus to Sydney! Everyone at the hospital was particularly welcoming, but Joyce, Brian, Mary and Gregg were really particularly good to us - it will be a shame to leave their country not knowing when we'll be back. At least everyone has email these days.

We got to Sydney that afternoon and quickly boarded a train for Katoomba. The first thing we did in Katoomba after dropping our stuff at the hostel was head back to our favourite restaurant in Australia - Niche Nosh.


They were unfortunately out of chocolate cake, but we had a wonderful dinner (and lunch next day) nevertheless.

So we're now back in Sydney and have just spent the evening with Louise and Mark eating Campbells soup flavoured Chinese food. The food wasn't anything special, but it was good to see them again. Tomorrow sees us on another early bus, destination Melbourne - our last stop in Australia. Time flies, eh?