Country Life and Canberra - Bawley Point, Australia
Bawley Point, Australia
Our charge through Victoria ended as we crossed the Murray River and arrived in Albury. We drove out to the farm at Jindera where we were greeted by Mark's dad John. The girls were straight into the mulberry tree, blood red fingers, mouths and splattered clothes. Hard to resist all those sweet, dark fruit. John's wife Lien cooked a Vietnamese feast of delicious spring rolls, steamed prawns and fried rice. We ate on the back deck, looking over the dry grassy hills to the sound of cockatoos, kookaburras and the bellowing of the newly purchased young steers, calling for their mothers. We slept in the caravan where, like that syndrome where a person can end up loving their captor, I have become quite comfortable. The mattress with it's fold not quite in the middle, I lay pushed up against the bench seat panel and cosy in our canvas cocoon. How many times have I banged my head on the curved metal bar. It's familiar and it feels something like home. John was up early, trying to tempt us with fish for breakfast but we settled on omelettes and more mulberry smoothies for the girls. Mark's sister Kylie returned from working the night shift, a happily uneventful Saturday nights work for a firefighter. As is his way, Mark removed the back sliding glass door from it's tracks and started planing the sill while John fiddled about with the roller mechanism and got it working. I wandered around sneaking photos, the girls played with the dogs and went back up the ladder in the mulberry tree. Our next stop was Tumut, driving through the dry, yellow grassed hills of our high country to arrive at the neat timber mill town. We set up in the caravan park by the fast flowing Tumut River under tall Poplar Trees. Mark's mum Cathy was soon on the scene, unable to wait a minute longer to see her beloved granddaughters. Cathy was in town, visiting her sister Sarah and we all went up and had dinner at their house. Of course the girls were all very happy to be reunited with their Nana. Next stop Canberra where we stayed with our friends Glen and Sally and their daughter Ashlee. Glen is an architect who was smart enough to marry an accountant and they have their own successful business. We caught up with more architect friends and their families Erica and Adrian, and Richard and Sharon and we talked and talked while the kids all ran around the hotel garden. We took the girls for their first visit to Parliament House, all wide open spaces and grand gestures but currently devoid of any great decision makers. (They're all on holidays of course). Mark recounted his days working in the stone yard selecting granite that was used to clad the building and delivering it to the building site in 1985. The National Library was showing an excellent exhibition of old maps. Nina and Andie were quite interested to see the development of the maps as discovery and exploration saw Australia morph into the familiar shape we know so well. Lucy on the other hand, was not the least bit interested and squirmed, cried and attempted to grab and place her sticky little hands on the precious scrolls. We left before security threw us out and went to do something that really signifies the end of our journey and return to reality; buy school shoes. I congratulated myself on my savvy move, avoiding the nightmare of school shoe purchase at Warringah Mall near home, where you must take a number and join a scrum of harried mothers to fight for the last remaining pair of Clarks. Mission completed and we went out to visit the new National Arboretum. I didn't know how to say the word (Arbor-eat-um) let alone what it meant but now I can tell you that this one is a huge project of one hundred forests of rare, threatened and symbolic tree species, planted over 250 hectares, on a hillside that looks out over the city. It's a wonderful gesture that was first envisaged in the Griffin plan for Canberra and has finally been brought to life. It's only been open for a year so most of the trees are tiny but in time it will be an absolute treasure. There's a large information centre building with a soaring, curved timber roof, a beautiful Bonsai collection and more importantly for our lot, a fabulous playground of acorn shaped pods forming a haven of climbing, sliding and loud shrieking. Driving down the Clyde Mountain and through the tall, green forests we drove into Batemans Bay then south for a short way to Moruya. Following the dirt road out towards Araluen we came to our next stop in the beautiful Deua River valley; Chris and Monika's. Chris is an old friend from Mt Gambier who also studied interior design and architecture with me. They live in a little cottage with their three girls on a two acre property surrounded by forest. On one hand their environment is idyllic; chooks and ducks and kids running free, swimming in the river and climbing trees. On the other they are flooded in by the river at least three times a year, sometimes for weeks at a time. Everything must be ferried across to their house by canoe. They need to make their own electricity which they have done with a costly set-up of solar panels, wind and battery storage and Chris's job of cutting and collecting firewood is never-ending. Anyway, they certainly don't complain about a thing and have been living there for seven years in bliss. After happy greetings all round, much jumping from Otto the young Kelpie/ Blue Heeler cross, Chris showed us to our campsite, complete with thunderbox ensuite facilities. He assured me that he had cleared out the red-backs and snakes and it was ready to go. Chris and Monika are both a riot of funny stories that kept me laughing for the next two days. The girls were in heaven, playing in the dirt, making elaborate dishes from mud, leaves, flowers and berries. Some of the neighbours came over for a vegetarian feast and we each had to declare whether or not our dish was gluten, lactose, egg or nut free. Mark was fine with it all but did offer that the meal would have been improved with a bit of chicken. It's a very relaxing environment, waking to the sound of the rooster crowing, visiting the "room with a view", fresh ground coffee made by Chris. The only thing that made me nervous was never knowing what embarrassing story he was going to drag up from his long and detailed memory bank. We could have stayed longer but Chris and Moni did keep mentioning the issue of visitors who outstayed their welcome so we left before we became bad smells. Onwards, up the coast to Bawley Point where we are now camped under the Coral Trees in another friends backyard.