The highway to Port Macquarie had a major upgrade after 1997, and it’s now an easy drive with straight level roads and frequent rest stops.

We headed straight for Taree, where we had morning tea and picked up lunch makings at the Manning Mall, as well as a pair of pyjamas for F since his were somehow inadvertently left at home.

I had sold the family on taking a look at Ellenborough Falls. Both our TomTom and Google maps wildly over-estimated the length of the drive. It was less than an hour to get up the escarpment (not two).

Once there the falls are certainly an impressive drop. The view from the bottom (down the Lower Falls trail) is much more impressive than from the lookout at the car park. The kids led the charge down the 650 or so steps – ignoring the couple of informational plaques along the way – to the boulder strewn valley floor 180m below the height of the cliff top. The slick rocks were a beacon for a bit of Boulder scrambling. 

After climbing up again we headed along the Knoll Trail, around the head of the valley to a viewing platform on the other side. This takes you past some impressively large tree specimens, termite mounds and over a nice arched wooden bridge. Photos of the falls from this side would be better in the morning, I think. Apparently the trail continues to the road and the general store in Elands.

Driving down the ecscarpment via Wauchope finished off our journey to Port Macquarie. We can recommend watching the sunset from the spa pool on the 1st floor of the Rydges hotel, and the excellent sushi at nearby Makimoto on Horton St (it seems to have moved here recently).