Before we made our way from Coffs Harbour to Port Macquarie, we had to prepare a sign. Slowly, Kerstin started to like preparing it 🙂 Done with that, we had to reach the highway. The right spot for hitchhiking is important, that’s what we already learned. We walked a bit confused and without sign, cause nobody wanted to stop for us. Until Nick, our lift from Byron Bay to Coffs Harbour turned around the corner and gave us another lift to the highway. After a few meters walking we found the perfect spot: all drivers could see us and had enough space to stop. That’s probably why after 5 minutes someone stopped: again a Nick, farmer, who was on his way from Gold Coast (where he had a small holiday apartment) to Newcastle (where his farm was) in his 50 year old truck. Again a nice drive with nice talks. He dropped us off on the highway, 5km before Port Macquarie. We held again our sign and voila, the next car stopped and gave us a lift into the city. Today it worked perfect! Unfortunately, we had to walk around 30 minutes to our camp ground. Having lots of luggage we arrived and spent the rest of the day on the beach (Town Beach).
The next day, we did the coastal walk as long as we wanted to. This one led along all beaches of Port Macquarie, always slightly above sea level in order to have a beautiful view on the seaside. After Town, Oxley and Rocky Beach we arrived at Flynns Beach and wanted to relax a bit. As we wanted to have a swim for cooling down, we were surprised: the sea is a lot cooler, and that actually in the mid of summer. We were used to the comfortable 25°C in Gold Coast and Byron Bay, so we didn’t stay very long in the water. Anyway we continued quite fast as we wanted to visit the koala hospital, which hosts sick and injured Koalas, try to help them and let them back to their natural habitat. Every afternoon there is a guided tour based on donations where some of the koalas are going to be fed. Each of the koalas gets a shot of soy milk out of a syringe due to their natural intolerance against lactose. However, they are not able to eat like that without making a mess, why the nurse always has to clean their mouth which looks pretty cute 🙂 The guide told us that the main reasons for koalas in the hospital are chlamydia and due to human being (e.g. car accidents). Unfortunately there is one, called Berry, who will have to stay in the hospital forever because he has a genetically inherited disease. Another female koala has an amputated left leg and a removed eye, but she acts as nothing would have happened and climbs up the trees. After that, the tour and almost the day was over and the next day we continued hitchhiking to Newcastle.