life, upside down: Port Macquarie Weekend

It was a hot weekend in the New England region (again) so to beat the heat we headed southeast to Port Macquarie. It's a beautiful drive—but extremely winding as you cross the dividing range. At least as you drive through the Cotton-Bimbang National Park the enormous eucalyptus forest provides some shade on the road.

Driving through the eucalypt forest over the Dividing Range

The view of the valley as you come out of the forest

Heading down and around the mountain

The winding road down the mountain..

Looking up!

When we reached Port around midday on Saturday we were tired of being hot and squinting in the car (the air con can't keep up with the heat, only keep it bearable) but the fresh ocean breeze was cool and refreshing. We had some trepidations about the trip having seen the weather before we left: a stiff northeast wind was blowing, potentially bringing jellyfish with it. There was a chance it wouldn't be good swimming weather but we didn't want to cancel our trip. (Besides, the hotel we were staying at had a pool, so if worst came to worst we'd spend our afternoon in a pool instead.)

Sure enough, when we arrived at Flynn's Beach there was the jellyfish warning sign out—but still plenty of people in the water. We asked a lifeguard who said there'd been some that morning but it'd been clear for a while. Satisfied, we sat down to eat our lunch under the Norfolk pines on the beach.

We'd geared up/suited up/lathered up to go swimming when there was an announcement.. two people had been stung by blue bottles in the past ten minutes. "[You can keep swimming if you want, but] if you're allergic or you don't want to get stung ..." At this point 90% of the swimmers exodused the water and we decided to head down to Lighthouse Beach, a beach protected by a bit of headland (on top of which is the lighthouse) where we hoped there wouldn't be any blueys.

As we'd hoped, Lighthouse Beach was clear, without any sightings. And the water was cold! That indescribable feeling of overcoming the cold water, the moment you no longer cringe away from the cold but find the coolness refreshing, relishing the water and the crash of the waves.

Lighthouse Beach

Lighthouse Beach from the headland

The other side of the lighthouse

As we swam the sky was getting darker with an unexpected storm approaching. After swimming we walked up to the lighthouse where we could see the clouds rolling in from the west. The wind picked up and we saw lightning (time to leave higher ground!) but didn't get rained on.

We made it back to the hotel to check in before it started raining, and enjoyed a little afternoon downpour on the open verandah.

Sunday was a bit of a repeat of the day before, only in reverse: we walked (along the sunny boardwalk this time), we swam (the waves bigger and colder the next morning), ate lunch (Japanese instead of Thai) and drove home (it was just as hot and bright on the drive home.) It was a good weekend to get away, but of course Sunday evening we checked the forecast for the following weekend: sunny, high of 37C (that's 98.6F)... Turns out we should have waited a week to escape the heat!