A few Days at Club Whyndham in Flynns Beach, Port Macquarie.
Sunday 2nd March 2025
An uneventful 5-hour drive down the highway to Port Macquarie, and we were soon settled into our cabin at Club Whyndham at Flynns Beach.
The highway, these days, makes the trip so much easier, but it's also a bit boring with the only change from the "road" being through Coffs Harbour - and that won't be for much longer.
Dinner tonight at the restaurant at Club Whyndham. Quite satisfactory. We sat outside near the pool and shared our dinner with the water dragons.
Monday 3rd March 2025
A nice 4km walk into downtown Port Macquarie along the Coastal Walk this morning. Love these coastal walks!! The actual walk is from Westport Park in the CBD to the historic Tracking Point Lighthouse, a distance of 9km. We "popped" onto the beach at about the mid-point at Flynn's Beach and walked as far as Town Beach, where we found a nice spot for breakfast at Little Shack.
As you would expect, the views along the walk are quite spectacular as it passes through areas of rainforest, over rocky headlands (Windmill and Flagstaff Hill) and along some pristine stretches of sand (Flynn's, Shelley and Oxley Beach).
Well worth the effort.
Our return walk was along Lord Street and through a part of Macquarie Nature Reserve along the Roto Track and adjacent to Wrights Creek. So nice to have greenery in the middle of "town" preserved for posterity. The Koala Hospital is also found in the Nature Reserve but is closed for redevelopment at the moment. We did visit the hospital when we were here a few years ago, and it's a lovely spot to visit.
Tuesday 4th March 2025
While the Koala Hospital (mentioned above) has been dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating koalas for over 50 years, Guulabba - Place of Koala is a recent extension and is found in Cowarra State Forest (just off the Port Macquarie highway interchange) - our destination today.
Generous donations to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital following the Black Summer Bushfires in 2019 helped realise the goal of building a Wild Koala Breeding facility. It has been named ‘Guulabaa’, which means ‘Place of Koala’ in the Gathang language and now has many resident koalas, including Nero, Casper, Benny, Phil, Ella, Baz, Bobby, Hunter, Nigel and Trish, some being able to be seen from the viewing decks. We had a volunteer guide who did a wonderful job of filling us in on the operation of the facility. We were impressed, and it's so good to see an organisation like this flourishing.
Back into Port Macquarie for lunch at Social Grounds and then on to Sea Acres for afternoon tea and a stroll along the Rainforest Boardwalk.
Sea Acres Rainforest Centre, in Sea Acres National Park, is an environmental education hub and gateway to one of the largest remaining coastal rainforests on the Australian east coast. The Boardwalk features an elevated 1.3km boardwalk through the rainforest canopy.
Common species of tree include tuckeroo, coogara, red olive berry, white walnut, flintwood, strangler fig, sour cherry, Francis watergum, maiden's blush and mock olive. Vines are common and include lawyer vine, supplejack, and water vine. Walking stick palms and Bangalow palms are also seen. Epiphytes are common in the taller, more protected areas, such as the staghorn and elkhorn ferns. The hare's foot fern is an interesting climbing plant in the rainforest. The taller areas in the gully may be considered more sub-tropical rather than littoral rainforest.
The park was initially declared as a nature reserve in 1987 and gazetted as a national park in October 2010. The current centre was opened in 2011.
We've been here a few times now, but it's an amazing spot and well worth a revisit.
Dinner again at Whyndham. We must be feeling lazy, as we have no desire to go elsewhere. Eating inside tonight as the weather has cooled down.
Wednesday 5th March 2025
Breakfast at the resort before the long journey home.
