🐨 Koala- la la la la 🎶 Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia 🇦🇺

 Friday, May 10:

🚐 Susie and George took me to the Port Macquarie Surf Museum 

The museum is in a shopping mall

A collection of old skateboards

Early surf equipment

There’s this cool place in the mall for parents to hang out with their young children,

and a photographer is displaying her work there, which just happens to be 

portraits of George & Susie’s son Chris & his family!

We had lunch at Frankie’s in Port Macquarie.

 

Then we went to the Koala Hospital.

This guy gave me the best show

This video was too long to upload, but hopefully, you can access it with this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZDSgtmvvRUvFwZgOd23PkI5hvbVMdQYT/view?usp=sharing

These are the koalas that will be released soon, up in the trees. 

In the photo above, the koala is in the Y of the tree.

In the photo below, the koala is half-way up the thinner tree trunk.

All of the previous times that I’ve seen koalas have been more like these two photos. 

Getting to see them up close like I did was a dream come true!

From the Koala Hospital, we went to Judith Jackson’s house in Port Macquarie.

They have 2 dogs: Fennick and Jess

This is a better view of Jess, who is older. They are actually dog-sitting her for Ben’s parents

The Jackos are Lego fans. Here’s a bouquet of flowers made from Legos!

A close-up view

On Saturday morning, May 11, we went for breakfast at Seasalt, where their daughter Ptarmigan works

My breakfast: Smashed Avo toast

Judith, Jonah (age 14), Aisha and Ptarmigan (who are 18-year-old twins) and Ben 

(They also have an older son, Jett, who is away at Uni) in Sydney

The view from the outside seating area of the restaurant

Then we went to the Glass House and toured their gift shop and art gallery

A painting of Town Beach in Port Macquarie

Art Deco Koala

This one was my favorite. It lit up as if it were illuminated from behind!

Dingo, Kangaroo, & Koala

I photographed some birds of paradise. They have a Birds of Paradise Lego sculpture at their house also.

Judith told me that the head of the “bird” is actually flying down toward the stem,

and what we typically see as the beak and head feathers is the tail and wings.

When looking at it the way on the right below, they call it “Crazy Bird.”

Next, we walked along the breakwater where many people have painted the rocks.

Tio Negro was from Chile

This has the scripture that my daughter Joy used in the song she wrote when her dad was diagnosed with a malignant terminal brain tumor

Through the Waters_1.mp3

On the opposite side of the walkway, a lovely park and skate park/pump track

And the painted rocks go on and on….

Town Beach (the one in the painting at the gallery)

Indigenous language & art on the stairs

Even the restroom is lovely (and has a coffee shop!)

A new beach park amphitheater. Joe always loved amphitheaters!

Town Beach

More painted rocks on the other side of the breakwater!

Next we drove to Lighthouse Beach and the Lighthouse

Jonah decided to walk down onto the rocks, and he lost one of his Crocs shoes

Didn’t see any koalas here

The beach from the Lighthouse side

After coming home for a while, we left again for a country drive up into the mountains. We went to the town of Comboyne and back. It was pretty rainy and misty, but still lovely.

We came home and fixed a nice salmon dinner, then played a few games of Sequence with the kids before bed.