Up Country

This past weekend, we headed “up country” at the invitation of our landlady, Maureen. She and her family live on an acreage outside of Daylesford. I’ve heard people like them referred to as “blockies” – they have rural land, but not a farm. I think that term is usually used to describe people who have left the city to live in the country. Daylesford, in an old gold mining area, appears to be a progressive little town that attracts a number of tourists from Melbourne. If Deadwood married Sonoma and they had spa babies, it would look like Daylesford. One of the major attractions is an old convent that has been turned into an art gallery. The order of nuns who ran the convent, and the once girls boarding school, were of the Presentation Order. It so happens that all three of the nuns in my family were Presentation Sisters so visiting here felt somewhat familiar.

My aunts: Sr. Agnes, Sr. Bonnie, Sr. Peter

 

We walked around Daylesford for a few hours, but we spent most of our hiking time in the bush around Maureen’s house. The land is highly varied with cattle and sheep fields, eucalyptus forests, and pine tree farms for lumber. I was hoping for a koala sighting but instead saw many birds and kangaroos.

  

On one of our hikes, Andy and I explored a part of Hepburn Reserve. It was really magical, standing inside the forest surrounded by so many trees that they filled your entire field of vision. Maureen had told us that one of her neighbors often created art in the forest and we were keen to see it up close. The dot painting is likely an homage to the indigenous people. "Dot painting consists of various paint colors like yellow (the sun), brown (the soil), red (desert sand) and white (the clouds and the sky). These are traditional Aboriginal colours. Dot paintings can be painted on anything though in aboriginal times they used to paint dot pictures on rocks, caves etc." (Wikipedia, 2013)

This natural beauty is created by the eucalyptus gum tree. The sap literally sparkled in the sun.

We also came across some interesting cairns, no doubt created by this same neighbor. We were inspired to create some of our own Goldsworthian art.

Speaking of cairns, we are off to Cairns, Queensland, later this week for 6 days at the Great Barrier Reef. I hope we'll have some spectacular fish pictures to post next week.