Newcastle to Port Macquarie

I woke up at 4am on Tuesday and began to edit and upload yesterday's photos. Drew woke at 6am and I made the usual teas for us both, Drew's cough seems to be improving, so the Lemon and Ginger must be helping.

Breakfast

We went down to breakfast at 7am, the opening time here at the Holiday Inn Express, Newcastle. The breakfast here is excellent - yes, of course not as big a range as that of the big City Holiday Inns in Perth and Sydney, but a very good selection.  

Drew's Breakfast

My first course, porridge with cinnamon - fruit, seeds and nuts

My main - the absence of the ubiquitous beef sausages from previous places is noticeable. I miss them already.

The Route

We went back up to the room after breakfast and agreed that Drew would pick up the driving today as we were no longer in the big city. This is the route we planned:

On the Road

As we had only been out of the hotel in the dark, we took the opportunity to start the day by driving down to the Newcastle Seafront to take photos of the sea and coast including Nobbys Headland where the Kangaroo lives! (see yesterday's post for more details). 

We left Newcastle Beach at 9.01am with me still driving and we pulled over in a quite roadside park in Karuah at 9.50am, so that Drew could use the park carpark to try out the car before taking over driving. 

All set up Drew leaves Karguh at 10.05am and we drive on to Forster and Tuncurry where we stop at 11.40am. Forster and Tuncurry are two coastal towns which are separated by a very large concrete bridge across Wallis Lake. The twin towns sit to the north and south of Cape Hawke Harbour, the entrance to Wallis Lake which stretches for 26 km down the coast. Forster-Tuncurry is a typical holiday resort with lots of accommodation; plenty of takeaway food and local seafood cafes; pleasant fishing, surfing and swimming areas; and a seductive and lazy holiday ambience. We stop at the Rockpool in Tuncurry, with great views back to Forster and have a coffee. Tuncurry Rockpool Coffee Shop.

Leaving Tuncurry at 12.45pm we arrive at the Comfort Resort, Water’s Edge, Port Macquarie at 2pm, just as check in starts.

[Co-pilot's note: The more observant of you, dear readers,  will have noticed that the car is facing outward. This is not a trick, my parking over here is just as bad as back home and myself and Captain Jack had some assistance with parking, which finally led to the Pilot - doing it himself!!!]

A brief sidenote on hotels

As you will have seen from all of the hotels to date I have kept with IHG hotels as far as possible, both for the quality of the hotels, even the express ones, and the benefits of the rewards scheme. But not all of our route is covered by IHG hotels. For many years in the US and Canada we have made use of Choice Hotels, not as high standard as IHG, but well above some of the local motel places. I already had the Choice Hotel app on my phone from those previous visits, so when I couldn't find any IHG hotels in an area, I have chosen Choice instead. Like Holiday Inn, Choice is a franchise, so the individual hotel is often owned by a person with only one or a few hotels. Unlike Holiday Inn, which has a strict brand relationship approach which includes colour schemes and tea/coffee brands and soap and shampoo brands - Choice tends to have a more eclectic approach - with some of those features shared at some of their hotels, but never all of them at all of them.  Therefore it was nice to see that the Waters Edge wasn't kidding, they are set right on the water of the Hastings River and while the beds are a lot softer (a polite way of suggesting worn-out) than the IHG ones the rest of the faculties are of a good standard. 

Port Macquarie

Having settled in to our room in the Comfort Resort at 2.30pm we went for a walk along the riverfront down to the sea. 

This panorama gives a good perspective on the river.

As we walk along the riverside we begin to see some painted rocks which lead up to and along the breakwall at Port Macquarie, they have clearly been developed over years.

This then leads onto the quiet town beach at what the locals merely call Port.

Back to the hotel

Avid readers of the blog will have noticed that when we did our last laundry in Sydney I said:

It will be in Ballina before we do out next wash.

Well at that time we had factored without the fact that we ended up 'dressing up' for dinner on four of the days in Sydney - our plan was to have 7 days worth of 'day clothes' and two days worth of 'eating out clothes' but exceeding that in Sydney meant that we would run out a day or two before Ballina, so, seeing that this hotel has washing facilities and they were right next to our room, I went down to reception to explore their use. 

It turns out, much to our surprise, and contrary to our experience to be included in the room rate - i.e. free. What a bonus, the lady of reception even had some free laundry powder a rep had left her, which she gave to us. We set up the first load of washing to wash, then when it had finished filled the tumble dryer while loading the next wash. The tumble dryer, to make it accessible to people, is upside down, as if it wasn't the controls at the top would be outside the reach of people less than seven foot six. However, unknown to us, the machine controls had been inverted - so what looked like it should be 60 minutes was in fact 90, so we had to wait until after dinner to complete the second load.

Dinner

We decided to be radical tonight. Since we have arrived in Australia, especially in Sydney, we have noticed that dining times are significantly ahead of UK dining times. For example we eat at 5.45pm on Monday and at Porkfat on Sunday we were warned at 8.30pm that the kitchen would be closing in 15 minutes, so if we wanted to order more we would have to do it now. Looking for restaurants in Port Macquarie we noted that at least half had 7am to 3pm schedules - i.e. breakfast and lunch and of those who did open in the evening most had their last sitting at 7. But when we were out walking, just above the beach, we noted a restaurant called The Stunned Mullet that took bookings until the late hour of 8pm. So, on getting back to the hotel and putting the clothes on to wash we booked online, as is customary here, selecting 7.30pm as our dining time.

We left the hotel at 7pm and walked the 30 minutes to The Stunned Mullet.

We began our meal with mocktails. In my case a non-Alcoholic Manhattan, which was fascinating in having all the flavours of Amaretto, without the alcohol. The ingredients were sourced from Lyre's an Australian company who specialise in this area  

Drew opted for a non-alcoholic Amaretto Sour

For starters I had Lamb Cutlets, this was a White Pyrenees lamb with aji verde, patatas bravas, ajo blanco, orange, fennel, red cabbage - The lamb was tender and juicy the two sauces were exactly how they would have tasted in Spain, a real delight.

Drew went with King Prawns, these crisp king prawns were in a wonton wrapper with a shiso, shiitake, yuzu miso and fragrant oat flakes - Prawns in a Japanese style - a perfect mix of flavours that worked so well.

I decided to continue with the mocktails rather than the more normal sparkling water with a Non-Alcoholic Negroni. Never having had a alcohol infused negroni I can't compare the flavours, but they were herby and delicious.

Drew's main was Gnocchi, a desiree potato gnocchi with pumpkin, kombu, scamorza, cavolo nero, leek and pine nuts - An unusual choice for Drew, but he says that it was lovely. Soft and buttery gnocchi with a really cheesy sauce. 

I went with Moreton Bay Bug, this was a linguine of Moreton bay bug, de-shelled with garlic, roasted chilli, lemon, parsley, pangrattato - bug is somewhere between a lobster and a langoustine, very soft, but with a bold flavour. The garlic, chilli and lemon were enough to lift the whole dish and the pasta was cooked to perfection, exceedingly yummy.

Not knowing how big the mains would be I had opted for a side-salad of radicchio, witlof, pear, smoked hazelnut and orange mustard dressing - bitter leaves with a sweet dressing, a good combination. It was wonderful, crisp and tangy, but we probably didn't need it - still it would be rude to leave it, so it all got consumed. 

My final drink of the evening was a Lime and Jalapeno Soda, sharp and tangy, I really enjoyed it.

Drew completed his meal with Japanese pepper gelato with strawberry, dacquoise, cremeux, sesame, coulis and matcha - Drew really loved it.

I had the cheese plate of Manchego and Gruyere with pear these were two lovely cheeses and the biscuits were also delicious with sesame seeds and salt. The Gruyere in particular was very tangy and perfect for my palette.  

We finished the meal with an espresso each. It is worth noting though, that in common with our experience since we have arrived in Australia all the Australians, apart from the staff had left the restaurant by 8.30pm. When the couple of Irish ladies left at 9.00pm we were on our own while the staff prepared the tables for tomorrow. Having finished our coffee we left at 9.20pm 

Back to the Hotel

Walking back to the hotel was somewhat surreal, it was a lovely evening, we were in shirt sleeves and it is worth noting that it was now only about 9.30pm - but it was as if there had been a warning not to be on the streets, is it vampires, zombies or werewolves that get Australians to their beds by 9.30pm or something else. As people who go to bed at 10pm at home we are often considered peculiar for going so early. But for the whole of our half hour walk we saw three young lads walking ahead of us and one elderly lady, otherwise NOTHING. Even more amusing, arriving back at the hotel we saw the sign saying reception was unmanned between 9pm and 7am. It wasn't a problem as our room key opened the hotel late-night entry door, so we went in, dried our second load of washing and were in bed by 11pm.