My partner and I bought a caravan on line from a Ballarat address. We set off with some excitement, from our home in regional Queensland, to collect the van and bring it back through inland New South Wales and Victoria. Both from country backgrounds, and recent escapees from an increasingly hectic Brisbane, we had, as recently as last year, opted for regional peace and quiet, reduced debt, and part time work, over growth and capital gain in the big smoke.
On our trek to and from Ballarat we met others. The most memorable of these was a woman in a small road house in an even smaller town, not far from Stanthorpe. As she greeted us with a big smile and bare feet our minds summed her up in stereotypical ways.
Her story unfolded, however. She and her husband had been in this place - let's call the place Dry Gully - for ten years only. Before then they had a place in Sydney from where she commuted to Western Australia to teach miners how to lay cables under the sea. Our earlier picture of her stated to unravel, a bit like like a butterfly from a chrysalis, as had the life of this woman and her husband some years earlier.
The move to Dry Gully was set in train when her husband bought a farm - yes, at Dry Gully - in her absence. On returning to Sydney to be told this she informed him that she had just signed another three year contract in WA. So they put a manager on the farm. Upon returning to Sydney after another three month stint the hubby had sold his mechanics business and bought the road house at Dry Gully. At least this is the story and sequence as I remember it.
The long and the short of it is that they moved to Dry Gully to run the road house, and a mechanics work shop behind it; to milk cattle and raise sheep on the farm; and to have fun riding motor bikes and shooting rabbits together. And, you guessed it! They've never been happier ...
On our trek to and from Ballarat we met others. The most memorable of these was a woman in a small road house in an even smaller town, not far from Stanthorpe. As she greeted us with a big smile and bare feet our minds summed her up in stereotypical ways.
Her story unfolded, however. She and her husband had been in this place - let's call the place Dry Gully - for ten years only. Before then they had a place in Sydney from where she commuted to Western Australia to teach miners how to lay cables under the sea. Our earlier picture of her stated to unravel, a bit like like a butterfly from a chrysalis, as had the life of this woman and her husband some years earlier.
The move to Dry Gully was set in train when her husband bought a farm - yes, at Dry Gully - in her absence. On returning to Sydney to be told this she informed him that she had just signed another three year contract in WA. So they put a manager on the farm. Upon returning to Sydney after another three month stint the hubby had sold his mechanics business and bought the road house at Dry Gully. At least this is the story and sequence as I remember it.
The long and the short of it is that they moved to Dry Gully to run the road house, and a mechanics work shop behind it; to milk cattle and raise sheep on the farm; and to have fun riding motor bikes and shooting rabbits together. And, you guessed it! They've never been happier ...
Hi Pen
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. You're the first!