Took a week off and drove to Port Macquarie and Coff's Harbour in the Mid-North Coast region of New South Wales. Really a beautiful area with a pristine coastline, long empty beaches and awesome ancient rainforests. Plus, on a purely hedonistic level, lots o' wineries and fresh oysters!
Our favorite areas were Bellingen and Dorrigo which are on the scenic "Waterfall Way" road. Bellingen is a small, authentically-funky town on the river and a place you can imagine moving to, getting into woodworking and setting up a silk screening studio in your old brightly-painted barn. (Note to self: learn woodworking and silk-screening.)
Dorrigo is at the top of a high plain which took about 30 minutes driving on a very twisty mountain road. Making it worthwhile was the even funkier, even smaller town itself and also the Dorrigo Rainforest. It's said to be one of the oldest remaining rainforests in the world, dating to when Australia was part of Gondwana, the ancient "supercontinent." Apparently, the big news of that afternoon was seeing a python knock a possum out of a tree and eat it whole. Luckier were the many "Bush Turkeys" we saw along the trail. I'm talking Aussie turkeys, not the soon-to-be-ex-Commander-In-Thief."Bush Turkeys" -- U.S. and Aussie versions:
Happy Thanksgiving!
