Wednesday Nov 3
Off to Coffs Harbour … we arrived around 11am and checked-in to Pacific Towers at Park Beach. . Our apartment was not one of the renovated ones so while nice with great views the bathrooms and kitchen were very dated. We had originally booked a fully renovated unit but after changing our booking dates several times due to Covid restrictions all that was left was an un-renovated one - both are the same price - go figure. Not unexpectedly the unit came with all the usual holiday apartment “features” - 1 tea towel, 2 garbage bags, 2 DW tablets and a mish-mash of kitchen paraphernalia and of course the oven was filthy.
After settling in we drove to the Surf Club for lunch planning to go grocery shopping afterwards. To our surprise the club was fully booked but they managed to squeeze us in. As it was so busy it took an hour to get our shared wrap.
We did the grocery shopping afterwards at a very large modern plaza with a Woolies (not a Coles). Back at home it was time to relax. We had steak, roast potatoes and asparagus for dinner - the steak was tough and the potatoes not much better - at least the asparagus was excellent. Where oh where is a Four Seasons when you need one !!🥵🥵
Thursday Nov 4
Since, according to the forecast, it was to be the best day we drove to Dorrigo National Park to do some bush walking. The 1-hour drive became 1.5 hours due to extensive road works - many many “stop-go's” which drove Dieter to distraction. The park and walk were excellent but even part of the walk was closed due to track-works - some days you can’t win. We had our packed lunch then drove into the town of Dorrigo for a look around - only worth a drive-by; from there we drove to Bellingen, supposedly a nice little tourist town with some good restaurants - we did a walk around but weren’t really bowled over.
I drove the rest of the way back to Coffs dodging more stop-go’s - back in town we checked out the restaurant scene walking by the “many” “good” places - cripes alive - total disaster - they all looked like pretty ordinary shop-front cafes.
Back at home I made my, usually excellent, spatchcock - but alas, it was another culinary disaster - the chook was very ordinary, the home fries hard as a rock (over cooked) and the asparagus mushy also due to overcooking - the over cooking was due the spatchcock taking 30 minutes when in my oven/grill at home it only takes 16 minutes. Further use of the oven, proved to me at least, that it was not working very well.
We concluded we could well and truly axe Coffs off our bucket-list; however, with state borders closed there really weren’t many options - and all good places are fully booked until kingdom-come with sky-high prices.
Friday Nov 5
The dire forecast of heavy rain did not eventuate at breakfast time so we enjoyed a very nice brekkie on our terrace overlooking the ocean - watching both the real-people and the dolphins surfing. We did some drive arounds and walks retuning home for tennis at 3pm then dinner at Latitude 30 - a harbour front seafood bistro - pretty good fare - Dieter drove the short distance (a couple of k’s) so it was an early night.
Saturday Nov 6
We did a scenic driving tour to Sawtell and Urunga with a couple of walks - we really liked the town of Sawtell; it has a nice village atmosphere. We had lunch at a pub in Urunga. Despite the forecast being quite grim the cool and cloudy day gave way to a warm and sunny afternoon. After stopping for a bit of shopping we got home at 4 something, quite tired. My back was giving me a lot of grief but at least I was able to do the walks. We had planned to go out for dinner but could not get a reservation (at a few different places) so stayed home for pasta and salad.
Sunday Nov 7
We had brekkie on our terrace watching the early morning surfers. The day started out sunny and warm …. so we drove around some more and did some short walks - we had lunch at a massive pub in Woolgoolga because the restaurant we had planned on was unexpectedly closed. By the time we got home the forecast storm moved in so we had sandwiches for dinner.
Monday Nov 8
The rain which had been predicted but never eventuated moved in overnight - drizzle all day long. We went to the Sherewater river front cafe for a pretty reasonable lunch in a great setting. By afternoon the rain had cleared so we did a beach/headland walk - only about an hour. We went back to Latitude 30 for an excellent fish dinner.
Tuesday Nov 9
We set out to do some rain forest walks - about 15 minutes drive away. On the second walk we noticed that there were leeches everywhere - on our boots, pants, even in out boots. Fortunately I had some insect repellant in the knapsack which we used to get them off - thank goodness - it was quite a disaster - we both (mainly) Dieter had a few bleeders - we hot tailed it our of there and went back to our unit for our packed lunch as we wanted to change our clothes — all in all very creepy - lessons learned - never go bush walking in the rain forest after rain, wear gators and spray your clothes with insect repellant. We did get another game of tennis in later in the afternoon as my back was much better. We had dinner at the local shopping center pizzeria - since it was Tuesday we got a free beverage with our meal - so a pretty cheap and cheerful outing.
Wednesday Nov 10
Up early to pack up and head out - we drove only as far as Newcastle (4.5 hours) and checked into the Novotel on the beach - by using some Accor points it worked out at about $40 + $25 for parking. Can’t say too much about the Novotel other than, well, its a Novotel. Since it was already 2:30pm we went to the closest pub to try and find some lunch - alas we were too late, the kitchen was closed so we settled of a bag of chips. It had started raining so we made a run back to the hotel - the rain intensified as the afternoon wore on - so we did some reading then got ready for dinner. We started off with our free welcome drink at the hotel’s bistro (one of the lobby area pretty ordinary looking places) - but, hey, it was free. We borrowed a couple of large umbrellas from the hotel and walked over to Noah’s for dinner (fortunately only 4 minutes away) - it's part of a hotel but has a nice dining room overlooking the water. We both has seafood/fish for dinner which was pretty good. Then it was a dash back to the hotel in the pouring rain.
Thursday Nov 11
Today was the final leg home - a 2 hour drive - the rain seemed to have cleared in spite of a forecast to the contrary. We arrived home just after mid-day and then it was straight into a whirlwind of unpacked, laundry and grocery shopping.