Port Macquarie Trip 2019, Days 4 & 5: Sunny days

The forecast for our Port Macquarie week was for it to be cloudy and rainy on Friday, the day we arrived, and then pretty much clear, sunny days in the low twenties for the rest of the time. So far that has been correct. We did indeed have rain on Friday, and we have had glorious days since, meaning there’s been nothing to hamper our holidaying activities, which, to date, have included …

Relaxing

By relaxing, I mean playing the occasional round of mini-golf (during which I scored a very surprising hole-in-one on one occasion, but otherwise our results suggest that we are not taking it seriously enough to make great improvements to our scores), walking, and reading.

Dining

If you haven’t realised it already, dining is an important part of our holiday! We usually eat two meals in, and one meal out, each day, gradually picking off our favourite restaurants in Port. On Days 4 and 5, these were:

• Little Fish Cafe at the Innes Lake Vineyards. We love sitting on the verandah here, enjoying the view of the vineyard. As it turned out, there was a mix-up with our booking, which put us out on the lawns instead of on the verandah. Given the perfect day, that worked out very nicely. Sorting out the little kerfuffle gave us time to talk to the server who had an interesting story to tell about why his Scottish mother ended up in Port Macquarie via Melbourne. The food is French-inspired and while the wine isn’t the “toppest” notch in town, neither is it the most expensive, at $7 per glass. My summer wine of mostly semillon with 20% chardonnay (I think) was light and pleasant. For food we shared half a dozen mussels, and then I had the venison while Len had beef, which we followed up with an apple and hazelnut frangipane tart for Len and a creme brûlée for me. A hearty but tasty meal. We returned to our car the long way, giving us an opportunity to check out some of their beautiful trees, a favourite being their bauhinia (which had just a couple of flowers on it.)
• Botanic Wine Garden. This is a newer restaurant in town – modern, and a bit “funkier” than many in retiree-focused Port. Our meal started off splendidly, with a small charcuterie plate comprising manchego (sheep’s) cheese, bosquito (mushroom salami), and some pickles, and a warm entree of delicious charred pumpkin, with pumpkin puree and pepitas. But then things went a little awry. My chicken with charred corn was very tasty but Len was not so lucky with his kingfish. The restaurant handled the problem extremely well. Not only did they not charge for that dish, but they also gave us a complimentary creme brûlée (which was flavoured with thyme, and was delicious). We would certainly go back – if we ever are back in town – because the problem seemed to be the fish supply more than the cooking. We loved the music which was just the sort that we like for dining, interesting but not emphatically in your ear. In fact, early on in the evening I tried to Shazam some of the songs (always difficult with the ambient noise in restaurants), which the owner noticed so came over and told us the Spotify playlist he’d discovered. We’ll be checking that out. I also loved that the wine list identified the name of the winemaker, as well as the Winery.

Sightseeing

• Glasshouse exhibitions: After Little Fish Cafe, we went into town to potter along the water’s edge and visit the lovely Glasshouse Gallery, where last year we’d seen the 2017 Archibald Prize finalists. This year there were two exhibitions. On the ground floor and mezzanine level was I am the old and the new featuring West Arnhem Land artist, John Mawurndjul AM, which particularly interested us given our Arnhem Land travels last year. This exhibition, from the MCA, features bark painting, funerary poles and Mimih figures. The exhibition labels were in his Kuninjku language as well as English. The work was beautiful – featuring wonderfully fine, delicate cross-hatching, all in natural ochre colours. The Mimih figures were particularly impressive – their slenderness, fine cross-hatching, and stark faces, evoked their spirituality. The second exhibition was Elsewhere: Travels through Syria, Iran, Egypt, Morocco and Central Asia, featuring works by Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis. We also enjoyed this exhibition, including the video presentation in which the artists explained their works and their aims, which were, primarily, twofold: to respond to the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism, and to share their perceptions of “people and places that have been clouded by misapprehension”. They make it clear that they are travellers in the region, the subtext being that they are in no way attempting to appropriate the lives they are depicting but rather sharing their experiences of/response to them. The response is, I’d say, both respectful and affectionate. (BTW I have heard of Sharpe before, but not Ollis)
• Timbertown: Our main activity for Monday was to visit Timbertown, which is a big tourist attraction or “interactive museum” in nearby Wauchope. It aims to convey something about life in the area in its late 19th to early 20th century timber industry heydays. I have never been there before, though Len has once when he came up here with Mum and Dad and our kids (without me). Timbertown has had a rocky history, having been closed and opened a couple of times since it first opened in 1977. Once government owned and run, it is now privately owned. Two of the buildings are original, while the rest, like the dear little school, have been built to original plans. There is much to do here, and we tried a few – a steam train ride, a horse and buggy ride, whip-cracking (at least Len did), and the Timbertown winery. We also saw the steam saw mill running (though it’s not allowed to actually saw wood) and we visited the Woodworkers Guild building. Being off-peak, it was quiet, but there were maybe 20 retirees wandering around while we were there, plus a couple of families with pre-school age children. I’m not sure I learnt a lot, but it was an enjoyable experience!
• Kindee Suspension Bridge: No matter how often you visit a place, there is always something new to discover, and this trip we discovered the existence of the historic Kindee Suspension Bridge, which is, apparently, Australia’s oldest suspension bridge. Located just 30kms west of Wauchope, we had to check it out because we both love a good bridge! It was built in 1936, using steel from Newcastle and local wood. It crosses the lovely Hastings River, and was, we thought, worth making the trip to see even if barbed wire fences and gates prevented our being able to explore it from the riverside itself.

Some still images…

Some movies…