The front of “Roto House”

A bit of a slow start this morning as we didn’t have to leave the camp site until 12 although, in the end we were off the site before 11am anyway. We stopped off in South West Rocks for brunch (coffee and custard tarts !) before heading off down the minor road to Kempsey.
At Kempsey we joined the infamous Pacific Highway again to take us down to Port Macquarie.
We chose Port Macquarie as our destination for tonight for two main reasons. The first reason is that there is a decent Koala population in the area, together with a dedicated Koala hospital. The second is we wanted to get somewhere with good Telstra reception so we could watch the Formula 1 qualifying live 🙂
The first goal has had a 50% success rate! we visited the Koala hospital and went on the guided tour, seeing the Koalas that are being prepared for release and also those that are no longer capable of supporting themselves in the wild. Sadly we’ve yet to see a Koala in the wild as such but we did pick up some tips on how to spot them at the hospital !

One of the Koalas being prepared for releasing into the wild, at the Koala Hospital

Alongside the hospital is an old, by Australian standards, house, the “Roto House” which has been restored and houses a museum tracing the history of the family that built the house and lived in it. We’ve visited a number of these “Historical museums” in Australia and the majority consist primarily of donated collections of Victoriana that the museums have accepted and feel they need to display even though it has a tenuous, at best, connection with the place in question. Often the “exhibits”, particularly the larger ones, just seem to be left outside to slowly rust or rot away. The “Roto House” seems to have avoided this trap for the most part and the artifacts and exhibits show the history of the family and are pretty much limited to items that have a direct connection. It gives a real insight into the specific family members that lived there during the house’s relatively brief history around the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Our second goal of the day was met with a better than expected result when it turned out the camp site has free unlimited WiFi throughout the site, enabling us to watch the Sky coverage rather than the Channel 10 coverage on the Sky Go app. An excellent qualifying result it was too with Massa getting pole !
Tomorrow we’re thinking of heading to Harrington for some guaranteed Telstra although there’s a site in the Crowdy Bay NP (Kylie’s Camp) which looks nicer but may not have Telstra.