Dennis and Denise headed off north today – they’re visiting spots along the coast, looking for the perfect place.  When they find their paradise, they’ll buy a house and settle down.

I thought that was a pretty amazing thing to do, and they thought what I was doing was pretty amazing, so the mutual admiration society was complete.  They left me with their email address and phone number, and strict instructions to stay in touch.  They also recommended I check out the breakwall at the beach – the rocks are painted!

It started out as an art competition in 1995, but anyone can paint a rock if they feel like it.  I went to check it out in the evening, but no sooner had I stepped out of Turtle Shell than I saw this:

Dennis and Denise had told me there were rabbits in the park, but this was the first time I’d seen one.  It was pretty relaxed, too – it was quite close to my door, and didn’t hop off once I opened it.  It just looked at me, twitched its ears for a bit, then went right back to eating.

I took a video to show just how relaxed it was:

 

I love when it just lies there and chews a single blade of grass.  Like the stereotype of the redneck with a grass stalk in their teeth.  As you can see from the fur, it doesn’t quite look like a wild rabbit.  Maybe it’s cross-bred with some kind of domestic variety?  Or even is a domestic variety?

After recording it for posterity, I headed off for the breakwall.  I parked on a hill above it, so I had a nice view on the walk down:

The actual breakwall:

See how there’s spots of colour among it?  This is from the beach:

Well, technically it’s that sandy-grassy area just before the beach, but close enough.  You can’t see it well on the camera, but there was a salty haze in the air and the waves were good enough to surf on – I saw some people doing it.  I took some video of the ocean, just because I could:

 

Lots of rocks were painted, and I took photos of the more interesting ones:

A lot of them were like the one above, just names and sometimes dates – some couples, some families, some commemorating something, like the ones below:

Some just seemed to be painted for the sake of it:

There were a few of these, too:

A pretty cute tribute to your pet, really.  There were also these kinds of tributes:

It’s quite sad if you look at the dates – a lot of people who have a rock in tribute were kids.  Some of them didn’t have dates at all:

One rock was just painted white and had a plaque set in it:

This one had a saying that I felt was relevant:

If you know Disney (and who doesn’t?), you may recognise these two:

I also found this among the rocks:

In case the nice sunset reflection is preventing you from reading it, it calls Port Macquarie the official bodyboarding capital of Australia, which…I didn’t even know that was a thing.  The sculpture itself is in honour of John ‘Eppo’ Eppelstun, a local who was a big name in the world of bodyboarding.

Some of the rocks were just pretty:

The breakwall curves around the beach and then heads back towards the city itself, so I followed the path along the water.  The sun was just starting to make the sky change colour, so I took a picture:

More family ones:

More pretty ones:

One of the prettier tribute ones, but still sad:

This was a birthday one:

I like the way they used the natural shape of the rock for this:

I’m pretty sure these are portraits of actual people, but it didn’t really say who they were:

This one is pretty relevant – it’s a quote from the Lorax, by Dr Seuss, and is about looking after the environment:

These ones were just funny – a trio of rocks that had been painted a solid colour and had alcohol labels stuck to them:

You’ll note the background colour is appropriate to the brand of alcohol.

Now, for random Zoidberg:

I’m not sure why this one has fake turf on top of it.  To make a comfier seat?

This seems to be in honour of a friend who went to the UK:

One rock had this random declaration painted on it:

I’m not sure why this person felt the need to immortalise their defence of the movie Braveheart, but there it is.

And a Batman symbol, because why not?

Finally, towards the end of the painted rocks, I found this inspirational one:

At this point, the sun was just starting to set:

Technically, it’s already set – the way the atmosphere refracts light means the sun is actually below our horizon when we perceive it to be just starting to sink below it.  And that’s your ‘probably useless but kind of interesting’ fact for the day.

The end of the walk stops in front of the Royal Hotel, established in 1887, which I took as a sign:

Unfortunately, the pub was very full – they had some music going, and I think it was popular – so I settled for a pre-dinner ice cream at the shop behind it.  Then I headed back to the car, but not before getting one last sunset photo:

And on the way back, I managed to spot a dolphin!  It wasn’t doing much – just popping up out of the water now and then, but I managed to get a brief video:

 

As you can hear, the twilight chorus of the birds was also in full force.  Then it was home to Turtle Shell for some real dinner!