Kicking Back Wednesday 3/5/08

The east coast of Australia is about beaches, reefs and holidays at any of the little coastal towns along the 1500 mile shoreline. This is prime Aussie vacation territory and the fellow tourists we have been rubbing shoulders with in the big cities are long gone. Fly-over country if you will. Overseas tourists like us would usually hop on a Quantas for a couple hundred bucks and go straight from Sydney up to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef with perhaps a stop in Brisbane along the way. Those less intellectually gifted will rent a car and spend a lot more to take weeks to get to the same place. That would be us.

We have a little cereal and fruit this morning and as we leave Port MacQuarie, we have a 4 hour drive ahead of us and we intend to take 8 hours to do it. The Pacific highway runs straight north and varies between two, three and four lanes with a 100KM (62 MPH) per hour speed limit. We certainly wouldn't want to do that. We find a series of coastal roads that zoom off to the water, visit a little trailer park, maybe a lttle town, several beaches, go past some woods and farms and then wind back to the highway where we travel a while, until we find another side road and start the process all over again. We know that we are on roads that few Americans have seen and it occurs to us that most Americans wouldn't want to. We visit the communities of Crescent Head and Hat Head and stop for lunch in Southwest Rocks. The volunteers at the Info center there send us to a little fish shop down the street where the fresh fish is pulled from the display case, "crumbed" and dropped into a fryer with some taters and voila, fantastic fish and chips for lunch. We eat at a sidewalk table across the street from a pretty park and beautiful horseshoe beach. Our only wildlife encounters have been lizards that range from about 18 inches up to 3-feet long and we see a lot of them alongside and crossing our roads.

At about 2:00 PM we realize that our side trips are over and we have some miles to cover to get to Yamba for the next two nights. The Pacific highway takes us through Coff's Harbor, homeof the giant banana (sort of like the Walleye at Garrison) and some of the more popular beach cities into what is referred to as the "Gold Coast" which continues up to Brisbane. This designation seems to come from the desirability of the area for Aussies on holiday from the big cities down south. We are now also traveling through banana plantations and sugar cane fields which would lead us clever types to believe that the climate may be warming.

We arrive in Yamba at a bit after 5:00 and find our little motel on a short street that borders a park and the town beach. Our balcony gives us a view of both so it will be fine. Our desk person suggests a walk up to the hotel on the hill a few blocks away which has a spectacular view of the ocean and entry into the harbor. Like most small town Aussie "hotels" it is mostly pub with some rooms upstairs. The ocean side of the pub/restaurant is all glass but nothing opens and there is an overwhelming smell of stale beer. Nothing's perfect.

The Seaspray Cafe across the street from the hotel has been recommended for dinner. Mary orders one of the specials, a Thai beef dish served over fettucine and John has the other special, a pan fried parrot fish served on risotto with cashews, pea pods and lemon-butter sauce. Mary's dish is so good that we decide it is in the top five things we have had to eat on the trip. John's dish is the best single thing we have had to eat on the trip. What a find! We are a bit carried away with the experience sitting at a sidewalk table, eating great food and sipping a really good wine as dark clouds roll in providing a perfect backdrop for the white hotel on the hill across the street. We are seeing Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart with white suits in Key Largo, but we know it is just a bunch of Yabbos in tees and board shorts drinking beer and shooting pool. Well, it helps pass the time.

We embarrass the owner of the restaurant and ourselves with our praise of the food and get back to our room before the rain hits. Hillary has now taken Texas after the earlier victory in Ohio so the game is on. The trees in the park across from us are loaded with parrots so we know what time we will get up in the morning.

Today's local headline: Jessica's "Shear" talent rewarded Yamba Daily Examiner (Local high school girl wins regional sheep/wool competition)