Not long after we moved to the bush our son came over for a visit. He took his driving licence this year and has both driven on right and left hand side so we did not worry too much about that part. Sydney on the other hand can be a handful to drive in but he fixed it and came up to us in one day. We met up in Kempsey and the last part Mick went with him in the rental so he could point out the parts of the track where you have to be more careful. So on sons first trip he saw lots of cows, wallabies, dragons and goannas on the road.

Since he staid for ca three weeks he got to join in many of our activities.

Skinny dipping in the creek for instance. A real treat not many people can do today. In the 70 and 80:ies bathing naked anywhere was normal in Sweden but has fallen out of practice due to all the immigrants with odd religions.

Walking in the rainforest.

Filling the water tank, a chore that takes about an hour. 

Just hanging on the veranda (doing his work) in the warm weather, fighting the biting March flies, watching the wallabies jump by and meeting the cows. The cows at night can give you a scare. They look like aliens with their red eyes widely apart making you wonder what the hell that is!

The kookaburras insane laugh and out here they have a wide veriety of laughing. But then it is spring too.

Actually at one time the March Flies got to us so we hung up a mozzie net in the trees to be able to eat in peace.

Having a beer at the nearby pub (45 min away).

Filling the gas bottles at the General store.

Helping out picking the immediate garden clean from glass.

Chopping down trees and moving earth and composts.

Doing the laundry. Rubbing, rinsing, wringing and hanging. All by hand.

Looking at the possum and other odds and ends.

Finally the end came and it was time for him to drive down to The Big Smoke and fly home.

He said he like it out here. That warms our hearts.

We miss him and we call the guest room “sons room” at the moment.

How do we get daughter & family over now? Hmmm.

Christmas Day went by with the following happening. We had to fill the water cistern. We saw our first red belly slither in under the house. Another chore coming up: cleaning up under the house so you can safely work there. Skyping with daughter and her little modern family. We got a good long rain too, all evening and night.

We picked a road into the forest and this is what we saw.

It must be the fountain of the Stag horn ferns and epiphytes!

It was jaw dropping, overwhelming and breathtaking and we will never tell where we saw them.

Everything around the house and property needs a lot of tender loving care, even rough loving care. The trees for instance need a lot of pruning. Does that count for tender or rough when you saw off a branch? Well other things you can work on while waiting for the tea water to boil. The floor.

A slab house/cabin is a cabin built without nails or screws. Modern slab cabins have corrugated metal as roofs. These of course have screws. Our cabin is a bit more modern and is nailed or screwed in some places. A slab cabin is also built with green wood. When it dries it leaves small spaces.

So you can see out without windows if needed, or into the next room or through to the ground under the house if you want to know where you put that piece of furniture that did not fit in the the cabin.

Anyway, when I wait for the water to boil or something else I take an old kitchen knife and poke the spaces clean from earth. I manage maybe two or three meeters at a time. Over the years crap has collected there, gotten moist or even wet and composted into soil. Sometimes there is a shard of glass or a nail, screw or other small things also. So I poke it up and sweep, sort and throw where it belongs. Bit by bit.

I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. Insects for instance now have even better access to living with us.

We will put carpets on the floors come winter. Some wood is rotten and some is termite eaten.

The sellers have also hidden some planks under slabs of other wood.

We are still treasure hunting.