Port Macquarie

I have plans! Lots of plans! I plan to go to the states every year for at least six weeks...well that's not happening, thanks COVID. I had tickets purchased a room booked and a trip planned to go to Fiji. It was something I have wanted to do since the first time I saw the pictures of the little bungalows surrounded by ocean and connected by a boardwalk, yeah thanks for canceling that too COVID. I had plans to fly up to the Gold Coast in Queensland and just hang out for a few days, rooms booked and airfare purchased, and yes, COVID killed that too. Yes COVID happened to everyone, and my vacation, err...holiday plans were a small price to pay. Besides, I can't blame it all on COVID, my first trip back to the states in 2020 was cancelled because my husband decided to play basketball and ruptured both his patellar tendons,( no he's not a professional basketball player) and this happened to be on the day that me and a couple of my girlfriends were headed up to Sydney to spend the weekend for my girlfriends birthday...without the kids...or the husbands...So yeah, hubby, if you are reading this, you still owe me for that one. I may bring it up a few more or a few hundred more times. Don't worry, he can walk again now, he can take it. Yes, so needless to say, I was excited to finally be able to take my first real trip in Australia. By real I mean outside of a couple hundred kilometres from home. A truly different place from where we live...sorta.

I think we started packing the car at 7am... what to take? The drive was going to be 5 and a half hours. So this was a two fold problem, what to take to use when we got there and what to take to keep the kids entertained for 5.5 hours. Luckily my kids have been tried through the fire! When they were just 4 weeks old we were stationed in Key West Florida and had to evacuate hurricane Irma. That was 25 hours of driving. 8 hours the first day and 17 hours the next. Fortunately, I had my Mother in-law along to help us for that trip. Yes "Fortunately"...when do you want your Mother in-law around; the first few weeks after you have had your first children, who happen to be twins, and when you are running from a hurricane (that's until she takes one of the kids out of the car seat while the car is in motion). Just kidding! My Mother in-law is great, all the time... For this trip, we downloaded some movies on an iPad, threw some toys in the back seat, and hoped they would sleep most of the way. They didn't, but they didn't fight too much which made it bearable. If you are heading up from south of Sydney, take the toll road. It allows you to skip driving the surface streets of Sydney. If you need to stop for breakfast when heading back South, head to Maccas (McDonald's) just outside of town. It had a nice play area for the kids and yes the kids could actually use it. Back to the trip up...I told the kids we were going camping so when I asked a friend of ours to join us she asked me what I meant by camping. I said its a 3 bedroom two bath cottage with a full kitchen. Of course she thought that was hilarious and in retrospect, I agree, but I told the kids it was camping so that's what they called it. While we were in Port Macquarie, every time we got in the car to head back home (meaning back to the cottage), they would say they wanted to go camping. I am afraid I have ruined their camping experience for life...I can just imagine the first time we take them tent camping in Australia or anywhere they are gonna say "what's up with this crap Mom? Where is my bed and my shower". Oh well, what's done is done. Anyway back to Port Macquarie. We stayed at the Ultiqa Village Resort (as my friend pointed out, "the name tells you that its not camping"), there were 32 bungalows, and each bungalow was its own place, only connected to the adjacent bungalow via a carport. The bungalows had full kitchens and were well equipped with everything you need to cook, all you had to do was go grocery shopping. The grounds were very nice and very well taken care of. It felt tropical with palm trees and giant birds of paradise. It had its own little pond where the boys got a kick out of feeding the fish slices of bread. There were other features like a club house, with table tennis, an indoor pool, and a few other outdoor activities. We visited the Koala Hospital, a strawberry farm - Ricardoes Tomato and U pick Strawberry Farm, Billabong Zoo, we walked along the breakwall, played at Dumbo's play centre, shopped at the new K-mart at the Settlement City shopping centre, and while the kids were sleeping in the car we drove to some of the prettier beaches along the coast and took pictures. Nope, I didn't dip my toes in the water, I just ran out of the car, looked around and snapped some pictures. Never know when the little guys were gonna wake up. When they are sleep, they are sleep, you don't wake them up unless you have too. Y'all know what I'm talking about!

Overall it was a really good experience. Great place to take the family! The only reason I said it was sorta different from where we live is because Australia is a beautiful country, and some seaside cities tend to look and feel a lot like other seaside cities...but then again, what do I know. It was my first trip outside of a few hundred kilometres from my new home.

Ultiqa Village Resort

https://villageresort.com.au