Quest for koalas

This weekend was a long weekend here in Australia (it was Labour Day on Monday). To celebrate the long weekend, we headed to Port Macquarie, about 5 hours North up the coast. We are still dying to see koalas or kangaroos in the wild, so we were all pretty excited about checking out 'the Port', as it is said to be prime koala habitat.

Well, this weekend we saw just about everything else but a koala in the wild. On the drive up, we took a little detour down a dirt road to see a 400-year old eucalypt. Along the walking path to see the tree, we spotted a python just hanging out on the boardwalk. It was the strangest thing...when I saw it, my mind instantly tried to make sense of seeing a python just 10 feet away from me. As in, am I in a zoo, or a reptile park, what's going on here?!? It was surreal. Although not poisonous, we (especially Gus and I) gave him lots of room, but Vic got close enough to snap this photo.

The 400-year old eucalypt we had set out to see.

We also took some time to do a guided tour of a subtropical rainforest, where we saw a wallaby. And went on a whale-spotting boat trip, where we saw several whales, including a mom and her calf. And to make up for the fact that we saw plenty of koala-crossing signs but no actual koalas in the wild, we visited a koala hospital.

The wallaby in the rainforest.

One of the injured koalas at the koala hospital. Awwww!


Another of the hospital's koalas up in a tree. Can you spot him? Is it any wonder we haven't seen one yet? They are well camouflaged up there!

One of the elements of this holiday which made it so successful was the kitchen facilities in and outside of our room at the hotel. At our last two mini-holidays, we've been lucky enough to score rooms with mini-fridges, microwaves and outdoor bbqs. This is a godsend with a kid like Gus, for which the term 'picky eater' is an understatement. When we go out for meals, we have to be very specific, like 'he'll have the burger, but with nothing on it, I mean NOTHING on it'. And when the kitchen staff forget and the burger comes out with ketchup on it, then we're stuck with a meal that Gus will not even look at. Grrrrrr. This has made for many a stressful supper out.

Vic and Gus eating supper at the hotel's outdoor kitchen....and Gus and I cleaning up afterwards.


It was a great, great holiday. It's a lot of fun to live in a country where we are also at the same time tourists where everything is new and exciting.

Vic and Gus looking for fossils at one of Port Macquarie's many beautiful beaches.