Early start, car to the airport, paid for the overweight baggage, flight to Townsville. Penny met us at the airport in Townsville as about 1pm. Penny and her husband, Eric, lived in the UK in the same village as Jamie when Jamie was a young child. They have three children who are about the same age as us, all of whom live in Brisbane. Penny and Eric been over a few times since they moved back to Australia, so we have seen them fairly recently and have been really looking forward to seeing them on this trip.
We loaded the luggage into Penny’s car and she has even organised a baby seat for Toby. As well as their house in Townsville, they also have a cattle farm about an hour drive away and it is here that we headed.
Wow, what a journey! We travelled on the long, straight roads through the sugar cane fields, gazing idly out of the window as the landscape changed from the dry urban views of Townsville to the much greener area to the north. This is a tropical area on the east coast, in the north of Queensland, so is has dry winters with temperatures about 25 degrees Celsius (which is now) and very hot summers with vast amounts of rainfall. The style of the houses is unique to this area, mostly on stilts to keep the houses cool and dry in the summers.
Arriving at the farm, it is easy to see why Penny loves it here. There is something incredibly calming here. It’s a simple house, relaxed, but with everything that is needed. Penny brought food and wine with us and everything else is here, including a napping Eric. We settled in for a while, then Penny and Eric took us out on the buggy for a tour of the farm. They had various jobs to do with the cows and we took in the environment.
As the sun set, we headed out to a huge pile of bamboo that they had been collecting from around their land. There are lots of bamboo trees that create shade for the cows in the summer, but the broken bits of bamboo have to be collected so that they don’t hurt the cows hooves. We lit the pile and the dry wood became a great bonfire. We opened a beer each (this Australian beer is growing on me; a little too fizzy, but the variety is great and it does taste of something!) and watched the flames. As the fire burnt down, Eric pointed out the constellations and the Milky Way. It’s remarkably dark here so the stars are amazing.
Returning to the house, Eric found a lovely wooden high chair for Toby and Penny prepared steak and salads for us all. Mmm. Eric has even brought gin and tonic for us! A lovely evening, with interesting conversation and great food. Life is great!
