PACIFIC BAY RESORT COFFS HARBOUR

Last month we went to Pacific Bay Resort in Coffs Harbour with Daryl and Julie.  I have always loved Coffs since I had a family holiday there when I was 12.  When we lived in Grafton and came shopping in Coffs it was like entering a different world with the banana plantations covering the hills, resorts, shopping centres and car sale yards.  To me it was like the big city.

 We had a little walk every morning over to the lovely reception/restaurant area for breakfast. The weather was just beautiful and it was lovely to sit in the sun on the enclosed deck over the pond and eat our sumptuous hotel breakfast.  I LOVE hotel breakfasts.

 Our rooms were in the high rise block on the left about 3 floors down from the top.  The only 'drawback' was that no sun came into our room at this time of year.  But we hardly spent any of the daylight hours in our room.  Our balcony overlooked the lake (it was originally a creek but the Resort have two weirs which have ponded the creek on its flow out to the sea), we overlooked the golf course and over trees could see the waves as they crashed up onto Diggers Headland, and then out to see.  I looked every morning for whales but didn't see any from our balcony.

It was a short walk down to the beach.  The beach is unpatrolled and a bit rough.  The northern end of the beach was pebbly.  I found some interesting little shells though.  And as Red Rock, just a few kilometres north, is strewn with red rocks (serpentine) Diggers Beach is strewn with yellow rocks.

The view from the path to the beach.  The little island in the pond is the 9th hole of the golf course.,  Jeff and Daryl had a couple of games of golf and said the course was quite challenging.

 When Jeff and Daryl drove north to play golf at Safety Beach Julie and I spent 3 hours by the pool.  The sun was beautiful and the pool was heated to 25c.  We had a lovely swim followed by lunch at the restaurant. Fruit for lunch!!!  Orange and Almond cake with mised berry coulis and apple and rhubarb crumble.  Both were decorated with rosewater pearls, strawberries and star fruit.

 The lovely pool area.  When Julie and I appeared in the pool area two lovely wood ducks decided it was time to vacate the pool!!!  I'm sure they were enjoying the warm water.

 This hillside in the background used to be covered in bananas just 15 years ago.  As the children of the banana growers grow up they don't want to work on the plantations anymore and the old folks are too old for such physical work so they hand over some land to their children to build their house on (with magnificent ocean views) and the children pursue other careers, and the plantations are removed. Sad.


On our last morning we had breakfast at the Coffs Harbour Yachet Club. Just lovely.

 This cycad in the gardens had an amazing flower.  I had never seen one in flower before.

 Julie and I sat in the golf cart after breakfast one morning hoping the fellows might came out and drive us back to our building, but they didn't.

Dessert in the restaurant one night was English Breakfast Panacotta and was served in a tea cup.  It was lovely.