The first days

Where we attended church one Sunday

The sheer beauty of Australia is astounding. Of course, we saw a very small part of it. Mostly we stayed in Victoria with a quick hop and foray into New South Wales. As we racked up kilometers in the car, or on foot, it felt like we saw heaps of Aussieland.

I thought for sure and for certain we had conquered a lot of territory by way of sight-seeing; just in the first few days. As we looked over the map for where we were to go later in the week, I realized that I had seen the smallest fraction of a percent of this beautiful land.

Coming from the frosty nip of winter and walking out into the green of summer shrouded in shy, flirty fog was a delight. The true effect of Aussie summer hadn’t sunk in yet as the hot, drying sun was held at bay for another day. Hubs’ Aussie parents, as he affectionately calls them, picked us up from the airport.

Aussie mom immediately greeted me with the biggest, warm hug and then a gorgeous smile and hello. In that moment, I felt as if I were a part of her family. I can’t thank her enough for making me feel so welcome and at ease. Aussie dad is a bit of a rascal and a big tease. Clearly, hubs has modeled part of himself after this guy.

As we wound and threaded our way through the tapestry-like maze of confusing intersections, roundabouts – while driving on the left side of the road, a thought stayed with me. How quickly I adapted to this gorgeous landscape and how it seemed as if I had been away for only a short time.

Since we had landed only mid-morning we had the opportunity pop up to meet the Aussie brother and his new wife. Over coffees and a bite of lunch the guys reminisced over their travels together five years earlier while we ladies enjoyed girl talk.

I had offered to hold the car down while the Aussie parents popped into the grocery store and hubs off to find some chocolate.  While I waited I’d put on a few Doterra essential oils such as OnGuard, gerenaium, balance and serenity as I waited in the car. (I adore the smell of essential oils and it’s always a fun experience whenever I use them.) They return and immediately Aussie mom asks about the oil of cloves scent. Startled, I’d forgotten, I confessed to my oil use and application; explaining that clove is used in the OnGuard blend. We learned that oil of cloves had been used a lot in Aussie Dad’s work in the eel factory back in the day. It was neat to find out that oil of cloves was used to sedate eels back then. We had an enjoyable talk about essential oils and how hubs and I use them daily.

We toured with the Aussie parents one day after the New Year to a few nearby small towns, had a wonderful iced coffee and lunch and met a delightful, cheerful (welcoming and talktative) woman with the blue sky in her eyes and her patient dog, a black and white collie mix. Next was a lookout tower with a gorgeous view for miles and miles. Who knew once upon a time there had been volcanic activity here? I certainly had never thought of Australia and volcanoes in the same sentence.

What a view

We had the pleasure to attend church in this historic blue stone building. Time has paused here at this picturesque country church. The architecture inside and out has a timeless grace. The Sunday service started with the bell ringing out, inviting us and others to a thought-provoking and good service. Aussie mom has a beautiful skill with the organ that we got to enjoy as we accompanied her, with somewhat in tune voices, in song. Hubs had to show me the upper deck railing he helped to reinforce on his last visit, five years ago. I’m pleased to say the railing is still sturdy.

Sheep and more sheep than I’ve ever seen, outside of movies. And all I really wanted to do was race my horse over these lands and enjoy God’s handiwork.

Heaps of sheep

 May your week be filled with DoTerra essential oils (for the cold & flu going around), hot tea and good friends.

Hubs just had to stop and check out this field art

Going Down Under

A serene gem of a hideway

First off, happy belated New Year’s! Yeah, I know, only almost a month late with that one. But really it couldn’t be helped. Being sixteen hours ahead of your accustomed time zone throws quite the wrench into blogging. What really twisted up all the motivation and excitement for blogging on the road was the size of my cell phone screen. Compared to my laptop it’s a wee bit smaller and typing more than a tweet’s allotted characters… I couldn’t decide if my thumbs wore out or the frustration of misspelling (from true error or simply tapping the wrong, miniscule letter) many, many times made the idea of bite-sized posts so appealing.

For sure and for certain I had thought that there would be coffee cafes aplenty, those jewels of a city that sell amazing, if not at a minimum, decent coffee. Where the wi-fi would be plenty and easily logged on to. Hmm. Partly due to our travels and partly due to the lack of being native, cafes were aplenty but the coffee not so much and the wifi was like a rare sun dog. Clearly, we didn’t venture far off enough off the main roads to find those hidden gems.

Since hubs has been Down Under before his phone was gifted with the little chip of all-knowing goodness and data allowance. Mine was a paper weight in my purse, kept alive (turned on) for any quick, inspired photo that I hoped wasn’t blurry. So I apologize that the posts haven’t been weekly like I had envisioned and sparse. One, I’ll admit it, I got one posted. Yikes.

Of course, going to Australia means you fly. I like flying; I don’t get too stressed out once we’re passed the whole take-off and landing phases. What you don’t realize is when the tickets indicate you’ll be flying for 10 plus hours, they’re serious. Silly me, I thought ‘oh, I drive seven hours one way going home so this won’t be too bad.’ Ha. Ha. Ha.

Mt. Fuji as we passed by

The difference between driving and flying is that you commandeer the vehicle and can make it stop for a nice long stretch and/or walking break. Flying, well, you’re basically cargo that pays good money. And stretching has to be done carefully so you’re not punching hubs near the eye with your elbow or tripping a stewardess. At least I packed an eye patch thingie and ear plugs so sleep could at least be tempted, if I didn’t pass out from sheer exhaustion first.

Aussie farmland as we began the descent

When we woke from a decent sleep, on the last flight of our journey, on Aussie time, there were few clouds so we could see Australia from above. The outback has a certain appeal from the air but very empty. Unfortunately we didn’t think to get our camera out until we were close to landing. It was pretty cool to fly down the middle of Australia and see it change the farther we went.

Hubs and me with the friend's dog, Flash. Photo credit: Stuart

 

That first step outside the airport, it looks like any other city. As we drove with our friends, the landscape was ‘wow.’ We truly were Down Under.

 

Countryside view. Note how the trees are farmed around.

May your week be filled with family, friends and thoughts of summer time.

Farmers on holiday

For the next three weeks or so, I’ll be posting more bite-sized posts as I’m on the road!

Hubs and I flew to Victoria, Australia to visit a few of his friends and for a bit of holiday (vacation) for us as well. Saturday we landed in Melbourne and we spent New Year’s in Geelong (pronounced juh-long) down by the waterfront to watch the fireworks. We got to see the Sidney fireworks on local tv, it was a neat thing for us anyways.

A cousin took us to the golf course in Daylesford and we got to see some kangaroos chilling on hole nine, taking in the sights. We stayed at Bellinzona, a quite nice hotel-b&b cross with a fabulous breakfast. The cousin’s son took us for an ‘easy’ hike in the Wombat national preserve (or park, I can’t remember). It ended up with more vertical climbing than expected and somehow we missed all of the turns for the short route. It’s not marked in-depth but we did get to see a couple of wallabies. I managed to get 12+k steps in so we did about 5.5 miles (the whole day but the trail was about 3 miles). You can say I was a bit winded and tired at the end of that day.

Farmer friends have given us tours of their area and a close-up look at their paddocks (fields). Large paddocks, 660 ac, gently roll off into the distance while the ‘small’ paddocks, 160ac, are tucked away in the bush and occasional cactus.

By the time I crack my eyes open the sun is long already up in the sky and very quickly warms up. Today the high, in the Boort area, is 43C and very windy. Needless to say I’m sticking to the shade and AC if at all possible. It’s a bit warm for me and too sunny for this Scandinavian heritage with a winter tan.  I did splurge and buy SPF50 sunscreen to coat myself with before stepping foot outside. It’s like perfume but better, nice and smooth with a light greasy finish. I was hoping for a matte look but no such luck.

This week we’re off to see and tour the Great Ocean road and hopefully see some koalas. Maybe penguins too?

I haven’t figured out the trick to posting photos from my phone to the blog all the while on my phone. Hopefully I can get the link from Instagram here and you can see some photos via that option.
https://www.instagram.com/thehyphenatedfarmerswife/

Catch ya later!