Koalas and friends
Port Macquarie was one stop we made after a few days in Sydney. Where is Port Macquarie, you ask? It’s about a 4-hour drive north of Sydney or a one hour flight on a prop plane. We opted for the prop plane and were met at the airport for the whole reason we added the city to our itinerary – Amy!
Amy was matched up with us through CSU’s International Friends program way back in 2001 when she spent a semester at CSU as an exchange student. We showed her Rocky Mountain National Park and took her to packed sports bar for the first round of March Madness! Now it was her turn to show us koalas and the beach and introduce us to her partner, Jacques, and her son, Levi.
Amy and Levi took good care of us!
Even though we hadn’t seen her since 2001, it seemed as if it were just yesterday and we caught up with all her adventures and life. We had a great time! I should mention that Amy introduced us a bit of Australian trash TV – “Married at First Sight” or MAFS. They record the show (They can skip the commercials. and after watching 5 episodes, we were hooked and watched it until the end to see what happened! It was good to learn that Americans aren’t the only people who will do anything to be on TV.
One of the city beaches in Port Macquarie. Amy took us for coffee along the beach.
A good time to visit is in the afternoon when the volunteers hand feed the patients.
This koala likes to visit a tree near the hospital. He’s not a patient!
This guy was having a nice nap.
This little guy was at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie. Injured or sick koalas are treated here until they can be released. Some stay forever due to their injuries – blind, amputated limbs
North Haven Beach – a short little drive south of Port Macquarie. The beach was empty the afternoon we checked it out.
Snake signs seem to be everywhere we turned in Australia.
After our visit with Amy, we headed across town for a 2 day visit with Sonya and Graham and Hollie, the cocker spaniel. We met Graham and Sonya in Split, Croatia, and when they found out we actually had Port Mac on the agenda, we got a lovely invite to spend a few days with them. Sonya and Graham took us to do some wine tasting and beer tasting and introduced us to a delicious Australian sparkling wine. Hollie, the cocker spaniel, was a good hostess, too. She was more than willing to let us pet her as long as we wanted!
We wanted to fix everyone Mexican dinner while we visited. Our first plan was chicken enchilada casserole with green enchilada sauce. We moved to Plan B when we couldn’t find any green enchilada (or red!) sauce. The Plan B fajitas were a success!
Burge Sparkling wine – yummy! Thanks, Sonya, for introducing us.
Hollie, Graham, Hollie and Sonya – friends in Port Macquarie