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Luigi & The Big Banana Nov 16, 2009

Monday November 16, 2009 – Port Macquarie

Luigi & The Big Banana

It’s pretty far to come all the way here in order to find someone from Edmonton but that’s what we’ve gone and done here in Port Macquarie. Port Mac, for short.

Luigi and his wife Angie own the Stunned Mullet restaurant. He’s originally from Edmonton (a St. Joe’s High School grad – just like Pat & Elaine) and he has lots of family still there, including his mom.

We played six degrees of separation but neither of us are actually related to Kevin Bacon. On the other hand, his friend Ben Guido and wife Carla Franseschetti are lawyers in Edmonton that I know so I’ll make sure to pass on a big hello from him when I get back.

Meantime, the meals at his restaurant are delicious – the wasabi mashed potatoes are a big favourite, for sure!

We earned the nice meal – today was our longest day in the car by far as we started to encounter major traffic on the two-way non-divided highway coming south from Byron Bay. New South Wales is the most populous state and most of the population appear to have been driving slow moving campers in front of me today, I’ll tell you that for sure.

We had a delightful surprise early on, mind you, when we spotted the Big Prawn at Ballina. I took a photo, of course, of the Big Prawn & the Little Shrimpie.

As penance for being allowed to put that last line in the blog, she made me stop at the Ferry Park Gallery in the Clarence Valley, as her wool & yarn store antennae started twitching. Mittens are on the way for Robbie & Sierra. Sure hope it snows some there in Silicon Valley so they get a chance to use them.

Our picnic lunch was at the park in Wooloongala. With a name like that, it will not be much of a surprise for you to hear that there are 2 (count ‘em 2) Sikh temples in Wooloongala. The one on the hill and, of course, the one in the valley; the one that I wouldn’t set foot in if my name was Howie Singh.

I’d been hyperventilating all day to this point, excited to reach Coffs Harbour and the famed Coffs Harbour Big Banana. And just after lunch, there it was, in all its yellow glory. I had a banana smoothie; bought a banana; put it in my pocket; was indeed happy to see you; and then went a bit snap happy (okay – how many photos of a big banana do you really need?).

Thing is, from my research I think that this will be the final big thing that we will come across in our time here in Australia so I really wanted to make the most of it.

We chose Port Mac as our stopover for the night solely because it was about halfway from Byron Bay to Sydney – where we will be tomorrow night for our last few days in Australia. As it happens, Port Mac is a lovely little city with a beautiful boardwalk by the lagoon and sound, which empty into and meet up with the ocean at the end of the boardwalk.

People have painstakingly painted their own message, motif, or design on each rock lining the boardwalk and the Sunset Walk is well named – quite stunning.

Turns out that serendipity took us to the North Point apartment hotel (where we have an unbelievably huge and luxurious apartment for the evening and where Danny, the resident manager, was delighted to hear that we were from Edmonton and then insisted that we simply HAD to go see his friend Luigi who owned the Stunned Mullet ‘cause Luigi is also from Edmonton.

Small world, eh? Even if you aren’t related to Kevin Bacon.