Cooranbong - We Be Farmers!

Cooranbong - 11th - 14th November

Continuing on our journey down south for Xmas & we're back with Karen & Steven on their beef cattle hobby farm near Newcastle.
We love coming here, it's so peaceful & Karen & Steven are such great hosts. They let us 'play' on the farm by helping to feed & work with the cows.

Their herd has increased since we were here last with about a dozen New babies born a few weeks prior. Two of the babies weren't doing very well &
struggling to feed. Steven put them & their mums in a seperate, small paddock to keep an eye on them & give them extra attention.
One calf was being ignored by its mum so wasn't getting fed enough. I had a go at hand feeding Him, it's not as easy as it looks! The other one must have fallen on its head as he seemed a bit 'special'. He couldn't find the mums teat & at one stage was sucking on the end of his mums tail! It was cute but sad all at once.

The Next Day we had a very special job to do....... It was time to castrate the male calves. It was a team effort & we all had our jobs to do. Gary was the gate keeper & tail lifter, he had to open & Close the gate holding the calf's head then hold the tail up out of the way while Steven put the rubber band round their goolies. I helped with the drenching of all of the cattle. Once they were secure in the gate thingy I sprayed a strip of the drenching liquid down the full length of their backs. This is to stop them getting worms & other nasties. It was quite a precision operation. We earned our cup of tea (or beer in Gary's case).

That night they cranked up their juke box while we played pool & pinball. We haven't laughed so much in such a long time. The jukebox was full of fantastic music from the 60's to the 80's. Gary loved competing against Steven on the pinball machine (even though Steven smashed him on every game) I also discovered a new yummy drink....Chambord & lemonade. Chambord is a black raspberry flavour liqueur. I think I had 3 or 4 glasses. That's a record for me!

We also did our now regular trip to the Sanitarium Shop to stock up on Weetbix. Gary has 2 Weetbix for breakfast every morning without fail & has done for pretty much his whole life. At around $1.50 a box at the Sanitarium Shop, why wouldn't you?

After a great weekend it was time to move on & get back to being city slickers.

Next stop ......... Lake Macquarie

Port Macquarie - Birthdays & Bubbles

Port Macquarie - 28th Oct - 11th Nov

We're back at Port Macquarie to see Chris & Graeme & Jo, Luke & Liam. Our site at the caravan Park is really good. We are on the rivers edge facing the breakwall so spend a lot of time watching the hundreds of people walking with prams, dogs, cups of coffee etc sometimes all at once! The breakwall is busy with people literally from Sunrise to well after sunset.



Melbourne Cup was on the Tuesday after we arrived. I went to a lovely Melbourne Cup lunch with Chris & Jo in a bistro walking distance from the caravan Park. (just about everything is walking distance from the caravan Park) The lunch was organised by a business networking group Jo belongs to. We didn't win anything but had a really nice time. Gary enjoyed some peace & quiet in the van.



It was Liams 5th birthday so Chris, Jo & I were busy preparing for his party. His birthday cake theme was one of his favourite movies .... Hotel Transylvania. Chris made his cake & Gary used his creativity & helped decorate it. They did a fantastic job, it looked great.

The Day of Liams party The temperature was about 36 degrees & windy. It was held in the park across the road from their house. They erected 4 gazebos so we had plenty of shade. Just as we started bringing the food out a huge gust of wind blew the gazebo down & plates, chairs & anything else not weighted down blew over. There was a mad scramble to hold up the remaining gazebos to stop them blowing over. Luckily, kids are oblivious to such things so Liam had a great party which is all that matters.

We watched Jo & her friends compete in 'Sand Mudder' on the beach next to the caravan Park. It took them about an hour to run along a track, climb up & over obstacles & through the water. It looked like great fun if you had even a moderate level of fitness (which Gary & I don't)






Michelle & Nixon came down for the weekend for Liams birthday.

We had a lovely breakfast at a hotel right next to the caravan Park before they were meant to drive 3 hours back to Newcastle. While there Michelle received a text saying there was a huge bushfire burning out of control so the main highway was closed & cars were being diverted through the hills. Unfortunately poor Michelle takes after her Aunty Jenny & was very nervous about driving that distance with the very real possibility of being diverted off the highway to an unfamiliar winding road. Michelle decided to stay one more night. Gary & I had no plans so we drove Michelle & Nixon home to Newcastle in their car. We stayed overnight then caught the 'country link' train back to Pt Macquarie. The 4 hour train ride was really good. It was like a Greyhound coach with very comfy high backed seats, toilets & snack bar that also served meals. It was a great trip, we enjoyed looking out the windows at the scenery & knitting teddies. A lady sitting behind us asked what we were knitting & then asked for the pattern as she had heard of Trauma Teddies & wanted to knit them too.

Its always great staying in Pt Macquarie getting to catch up with my family.

Next stop ..........Back in the farm at Cooranbong