Port Macquarie NSW September 2, 2015

Port Macquarie NSW September 2, 2015

One of the Commandants of the penal settlement was a Captain Innes. He returned to the district as a retired soldier and built a mansion on his grant of 2000 odd acres overlooking a (then) freshwater lake, which was later renamed by the Governor as Innes Lake in his honour. The house was made from local materials including a million odd hand-made bricks and hand split Bush Casuarina roofing shingles. It rivalled any of the grand homes in Sydney at the time, such as Elizabeth Bay house, Vaucluse House and the government houses.

The family lived in it right through to the late 1800s, when it left their ownership. It was already falling into disuse and ruin, but a fire in the early 1900s sealed it's fate . Basically then, it has been a ruin, overrun by the rain forest since that time.

I came here as a10 year old in about 1960 and I can only remember some stones and a lot of jungle. I do remember we travelled up from Laurieton via the Innes Lakes dirt road that appears not to exist now. Anyhow, you can now only get in with a guided tour run by the National Parks people, and then only on a Wednesday. The local community seem to have had a resurgence of interest in the ruins, which have been cleared of vegetation again, boardwalks constructed and some signage erected.

The house itself has a few walls still standing, but most of it has fallen over. One of the problems with the house is that it wasn't built on proper foundations and the bricks were not fired properly. There is a much later wall as part of a wine store added by proper masons from Scotland who made their own bricks.

An Owl Hole. The room held the grain and feed for the horses. The owls were supposed to fly in and eat the rats and mice.
Lake Innes House.Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

Flemish Bond wall.
Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

Lake Innes House. Port Macquarie NSW

After that we went to have some lunch at the rainforest centre, which others had said was excellent and they weren't wrong. We didn't actually 'do' the rainforest, rather we went back over the road to look at another old house 'Roto'. Built in 1890, it is a timber building, which happily has been saved and fully restored by the National Park's people. It looks great from the outside and even though the inside is in excellent condition and beautifully furnished in the dining room, it is really not much more than a walk-through.

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW

Judy. Steps of Roto House. Port Macquarie NSW 

Following on from these, we continued the theme by going to the Historical Museum in town. Apart from the usual bits and pieces, they have a few items from the Innes House, such as the toilet bowl (probably the only one in existence from the time) and Annabelle Innes Widows weeds. They also have a scale model of the House as it may have looked in its heyday.

Model of the Innes Lake House. Museum, Port Macquarie NSW

Finally, we came back via Lighthouse Point, where I snapped a picture of the actual lighthouse and the beach where carries the same name

 Lighthouse Beach NSW

 Lighthouse Beach NSW

Whale watching! Lighthouse Beach NSW