Well we’re on the road again, but this time we’re going a lot further than Port Macquarie—we’re on our way to the Gold Coast, Queensland.
Since it is about an eight-hour trip we decided we would like to stop at Coff's Harbour on the way (just over halfway).
Dale and I left our house on the Central Coast at 9am on Friday, 1st June—not too early and not too late. Because it was a working day, the highway was deserted except for a small amount of traffic in the towns we passed through on the way to Coff's Harbour. We stopped at a small town on the Myall River, Bullahdelah, for a bite to eat and something to drink. While we were there, we looked around a couple of the local arts and crafts/café shops that were there and then were on the road again.
The traffic picked up somewhat when we reached Coff's as it is a relatively large city and the time was approximately 2:30pm—mothers driving to schools to pick their kids up, etc. On our way into town we passed a sign that indicated that the Coff's Harbour Butterfly House was on the next turn to the left. After a quick discussion, we decided that a trip to the Butterfly House was a good idea as it was still reasonably early in the day.
We paid our $12 each per adult and entered the hothouse that housed the butterflies. The air within the hothouse is kept at a constant humid temperature as these are the conditions the butterflies live in out in the wild.
There were several butterfly species flying around the area; large ones with blue or green/yellow wings, smaller ones with blue spots, green stripes or orange spots on black wings, and small ones with yellow wings or orange and black wings. They were all lovely.
If you stood still long enough they would land on you, especially if you had red clothing on.
We stayed in the hothouse for about ¾ of an hour and listened in as an employee told other visitors all about the butterflies' life spans, species, etc. Upon exiting, we bought a sandwich and a drink each from the Butterfly House café and sat outside listening and watching the birds.
Back to the car again and down to our accommodation for the night, The Dolphin Sands Holiday Park.