Friday: Australian Day
To me it's one of public holidays when I can be off of work.
However Suze was very resentful about Australian Day when English people invaded and took the land from indigenous people
and openly celebrated their exploitation in this super modern and namely humanity era without shame or any acknowledgement.
A young free soul with lots of healthy opinions and ideas inspires me about many things actually I gather.
Anyway we went on a 3 day tour into Barrington Tops National Park.
Of course Eddie chose a very hard hike trail but at least we had very relaxing two days before and after.
We left home leisurely around 9 am and arrived at Vacy midday.
Now it seemed like a really short trip after several long road trips to Victoria and Queensland over the years.
It felt a really long distance for us when we came to other side of Barrington Tops area
first time around 10 years ago.
We followed their instructions faithfully to collect the keys for the accommodation before we got to our 3 day
home.
Their information printed in fine letters was jumbled in wrong orders which made us totally confused.
When Eddie was driving the right direction me and Suze had moments of suspicions and anxieties.
Later it turned out to be the right way I felt embarrassed.
I shamefully realized he deserved more credits and trusts according to what he had done for us so far..
Around 5 kilometre's drive from a small town called Vacy via a random and hazardous looking winding and narrow
road led us to our lodge which was far off on top of a hill overlooking high mountains, fields and farms.
It had a beauty in dry and desolate forms.
Our home was old and worn out standing on a barren hill along with dry brown coloured unkempt grasses
and a lot of patches of non greens.
Kitchen had a collection of old utensils stacked and they were quite generous to leave a complimentary
champagne, a Bree cheese, a cracker, a big bottle of juice and a milk along with lots of sauces.
I loved the view from our bed room which reminded me of our being on top of high hills
with widely spread mountains and farms far away.
I loved seeing long grown shaggy green and yellowish grasses from the balcony window doors
sitting at the old couches.
When we arrived there it was one scorching hot sunny day.
Soon we found small pretty faced kangaroos sat waiting for us to feed them at the balcony
which opened to a wild foreyard where a garden with benches and chairs arranged.
I've never experienced these docile behaviours of kangaroos with pretty cute faces so far.
In my experience kangaroos usually all stood still for a long time far away from you as if immobilized and then
suddenly hopped around to disappear somewhere else.
But they were not scared of humans we had chances to see joeys come out from their mom's pouch
and go back in there or eat milk from there etc.
We found a small glass jar filled with bird seeds(mixed grains) at the house for kangaroos.
First we were very cautious trying not to overfeed them.
They were looking into the living area from the balcony window doors early in the morning
or when we came back from outside or whenever as if waiting for the food.
I didn't know why they were hungry all the time.
Even though they were not big nor plump.
Suze was having a good time to socialize and connect with especially one mother roo and her joey.
Except feeding Kangaroos we had unusually a very relaxing day reading books listening to my favourite meditation
music.
At night I felt remarkably refreshed just by spending a day like that in a remote quiet place with my loved ones.
We had an absolute quietness there free from any kinds of human noises.
Saturday: Careys Peak
We knew it was a hard trail and plus we had to travel to reach there around one and half hours.
So we wanted to leave as earlier as possible but we made it at 7:30am.
When we finally started our walk it was already 9:30 am due to two things: one, buying petrol, two, we went
to a wrong way and had to come back.
It was from the beginning 90 degrees' of inclines which continued like that about 2 to 3 hours.
Car park at the entrance was full of cars and as soon as we started walking one by one people
who were running with light packs came running down passing us.
I thought it was a good place for the uphill training for runners.
I loved the paths mostly covered with fallen leaves strewn under the canopies of big green trees.
Eddie liked the freshy gum tree scents filled the mountain trails and so did I.
Suze was in pain soon after we started our hiking complaining about her back hurting.
She has a chronic scoliosis which worsened from the sleep the night before in a different bed probably.
She tried to wear a brave face but it was apparent she looked tired and already less enthusiastic about the hike.
3 hours passed and we were approaching higher part of huge mountains and the trails became relatively flat.
We could see our destination of the highest peak far away beyond the valleys at the other side of mountains.
We tried to look for a suitable spot for lunch.
Eddie knew there should be a camp site around there.
We couldn't find it.
It was around at the point of 1500 metres.
Eddie looked at the GPS and it would be 40 minutes or so to reach the summit.
But looking at the face of our poor daughter's we had to decide a good decision.
We turned around at that point and settled at a shady place under the trees for lunch on the way down.
Maybe we might come back once more to finish this track on a colder day.
We put out our two portable chairs and Eddie was standing cooking and eating the whole time.
Poor Eddie!
As it was a long distance we thought we wouldn't see any more hikers by the time we started walking down
but we met two big groups of people coming up to camp overnight.
We diligently walked back down and arrived at the parking lot at 3 pm and at our accommodation almost 5 pm
which was a good timing for cooking dinner and relaxing afterwards.
Dinner was good as usual and soon after Eddie fell asleep.
Me and Suze were reading books at the couch listening to the calming music.
Sunday: Hunter Valley
We left our 3 day home with a little sadness but mostly with a big satisfaction
in mid morning.
We decided to have a look at Hunter Valley areas on the way home since we were in real close neighbourhood.
Eddie never wanted to be in the wineries before with a good excuse of not liking wines etc.
We drove in the huge winery town consisting of numerous wineries, nurseries, or mixture of everything with restaurants
,cafes,hotels and other venues.
Especially well arranged extensive vineyards were impressive and beautiful.
Not surprisingly people here love wines and everything related wines and chocolates of course.
It was way bigger places than I expected.
Like I said to them I wanted to see something new whenever possible if it's ok with the course of my life.