Before going to the actual beach though, I went to Lake Cathie - not the town but the actual lake. Lake Cathie’s large saltwater lake is the second largest estuarine salt march area in NSW. Sometimes the lake is completely self-enclosed but periodically (now) the lake is opened to the sea. Occasionally the entrance is dredged allowing sea water to enter, whereas now the lake is open because of the recent flooding.
Here is the lake looking out over the lagoon area, out towards the sea,
and here it is looking inland.
I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I did find a reference that said the world's largest bowl is here in Lake Cathie. For those of you who don't know, lawn bowling is a rather popular sport here in Australia, and the balls that are used in the game are called 'bowls'.
After leaving the world's biggest bowl (?) I went for a walk alongside the lake out to the sea. I loved this tree - isn't it just crying out to come and sit in it?
Here is the actual mouth into the lake, with the sea on the right. Even at low tide there is quite a current!
And then I was out to the beach... looking north,
and one last look south.
First up this afternoon I went to see Roto House. Roto House was built in 1890 and was the home of John Flynn, a land surveyor, and his family. John and his wife, Jessie, had 6 children. The four youngest children were born at Roto and three of the children continued to live at Roto until 1976. Now the house is owned by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and is one of the few remaining 19th century timber buildings in Port Macquarie.
Right next door to Roto House is the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital. The hospital was established in 1973 and it is the world's first, and only, hospital dedicated solely to the care and preservation of koalas. The hospital has a treatment room, eight intensive care units, a 24 Hour Rescue and Treatment operation, and multiple recovery yards. The hospital has a research affiliation with the University of Sydney. Between 200 and 250 koalas are admitted through the hospital annually. Chlamydia, motor vehicle accidents and dog attacks are the most common cause of injuries sustained, and the hospital has both adult, injured koala as well as young joeys (yes, baby koalas are also called joeys) that have been orphaned.
Koalas have lived in Australia for at least 15 million years. European settlers destroyed much of the koala habitat when clearing land for farming and during the late 19th and early 20th century the fur trade was responsible for the death of several million koalas.
Koala is an aboriginal name meaning "little drink". The koala is a marsupial mammal; the female has a pouch, and it is a folivore (a herbivore that specializes in eating leaves).
The koala is most active between dusk and dawn when it eats and moves around. They eat mostly eucalypts of various species. As these leaves are low in nutrition, the koala sleeps on average 18 hours per day to conserve energy (not because they are 'drunk' on eucalypt oil).
Although koalas are solitary animals they actually live in a highly structured hierarchical society. Within each 'colony' there is always an alpha male and an alpha female (who does most of the breeding). They occupy the best home range habitat with the lesser ranking koalas living adjacent in overlapping home ranges of lesser quality habitat.
It can be very traumatic for a koala when they find their favourite food tree is no longer there. Their cat-like devotion to a familiar region makes it impossible to relocate older koalas, who will return to the same location, despite that area having little habitat and many hazards.
To end today I went on a little cruise of the Hastings River.
The mouth of the river looking out towards the Tasman Sea
The Settlement Point ferry (again)
Oyster farms in the river
There is a series of canals that have been built off the Hastings River. Homes along these canals are some of the most expensive in the Port Macquarie area.
Tomorrow is a travel day for me... stay tuned to find out about my next destination.
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