The name Barry, it’s a bit of a strange one that you don’t really hear too often. Until now… Welcome to the family Barry the bright blue hair dressers car, our ride for the few days.

Those with beady eyes will see the very appropriate number plate, CI (channel Islanders) VJ (Vic and James)

We set off on our adventures, James driving us out of Sydney with the sat nav giving us 380K until we hit our destination of Port Macquarie. Before too long James got bored so I drove and he snoozed, and snoozed and snoozed some more.

The scenery was rather samey with a lot of grey highway and bush. A few koala signs, but no real koala’s. Even taking the ‘scenic route’ which wasn’t very scenic at all, just took us through a few local villages driving 50k along the way. Thankfully no speeding tickets for me this time!

We were heading to Port Macquarie to meet up with some of James’ old riding pals Dan and Chrissie who put us up and showed us around for the weekend. Like all good hosts they took us to the local bike shop and borrowed James a bike so he could go ride, it was far too hot for me to ride so a cliff path walk and a dip in the sea was the order of the day(s).

Port Macquarie was, like the rest of Australia at the moment, in the middle of a heat wave, so it was hot hot hot. But pretty, with gorgeous blue seas and a lot of green around a bit like a more tropical Jersey. As it happens, the bike shop needs a mechanic and there’s plenty of farms around so one day we may be back…

 

 

We went down Koala street – which Chrissie has spotted Koalas on before! Sadly for us we didn’t see any koalas. We did however see some lizards, goanna, bats, bush turkey and a dead roo on the roadside.

A big thank you to our lovely hosts for the weekend Dan and Chrissie – hope to ride again with you some time soon!

Next stop was 280K down the coast to the Central coast to say with James’ family and the two lovely poodles Dollar and Claude. It was only a flying visit in and out, but we managed a walk down to the lake edge to see some pelicans and try not to melt as it soared to 38 degrees

 

 

 

The next mission was to collect the bike boxes from the storage locker, fit them in the back of Barina, the smallest car in the world, and get them to the airport… Needless to say, we were very happy when they fit and we certainly didn’t think they would!

A final ‘supper’ and we were all set and ready to leave for the next chapter.

Time for NZ, where more adventures await!