Back to the Real World!

Sorry for the long absence from blogging, but we decided to stay away for another few days. We were having such a blissfully, relaxing time that we weren't ready to come home!

The caravan was absolutely fabulous, but the only complaint I had is that the air conditioning was too cold!!

People often ask us why we travel 700km to Renmark every January for our annual holiday. It's a long way to go but so worth it once you get there. Emma took a photo out the car window while we were going across the Hay Plains and as you can see there's not much to look at. There's hardly a tree or any stock on the paddocks. Then you come across this wonderful oasis, the Murray River!

While I'm driving I like to imagine what the lives of the farmers wives who live on these huge properties is like. They have to deal with isolation, terrible drought at the moment, helping their husbands with the farm work and trying to keep their husbands from getting too depressed. Normally their paddocks would be full of big, wool-producing Merino wethers, but due to this unending drought, they have de-stocked their properties as there is no feed for the animals.

We had an unscheduled overnight stop in Hay on the way home when the u-bolts on the boat trailer broke about 70km west of the town. Farmer Phil did a patch up job on the side of the road and then we travelled into Hay at about 60km/h where we got some new bolts the next morning to fix it properly.

Since coming home we've been busy getting the house and yard back into order. The lawn had gone berserk and it took a few cuts to get it down low enough. Farmer Phil had the bright idea to clean the shed out which took us 2 days! I should've taken a photo of all the junk strewn across the back lawn. We did 3 trips to the tip, so now the shed is very tidy!

Ryan and Emma go back to boarding school next weekend and we've still got to re-label all their sheets, towels and clothes, and cover their books etc. I don't even know if their uniforms still fit them!