On with the mini-travelogue!
We had a leisurely breakfast the next day and then loaded up the car to start our journey up the coast to Brisbane. After saying goodbye to the kids and then Lee, we headed on up the Pacific Highway. Very nice views can be seen from this road - the area is more hilly than I expected and the vegetation is lush along with some pretty lakes and inlets. We stopped for lunch at a place called Tea Gardens, which is a short drive from the highway. Another of those strange places and we ended up eating in a pub cum betting shop cum bistro. You order your food from a hatch and your drinks from the bar and then eat in a kind of courtyard area after placing your bets on the horses if the fancy takes you. Unlike most places in Australia, they didn't accept credit cards and yet they had a very modern wireless pager system to tell you when your food is ready.
Our next stop was Port Macquarie where we pulled up at the site of the old jaol on the hill (another of those institutions built by the convicts). The building is not there anymore, there is just a plaque under a gazebo. Very nice view over the beach and the river estuary (more of a channel really) but it was extremely windy.
The town itself doesn't have much to offer and after using the post office we decided to move on. On the highway outside of Port Macquarie I saw my first kangaroo, which unfortunately was dead. We hit Coff's Harbour at about 7:00pm and tried to find somewhere to stay. All of the hotels or motels in the centre were either full or a bit dodgy looking so we ended up down by the sea in the holiday apartment area. We found a nice (if a little retro) motel suite with a lounge/kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom for AUD69 (about £28!). After a nice meal at a local Thai restaurant and an amusing encounter with a drunken bottle shop owner and a credit card machine, we retired to the room for a few drinks and then sleep.