6 People 6 Months

Spring in Breda These past few days have been so restful after our previously busy and sleepless ones. We've been staying with a lovely friend of Josh's - Klaske - who was been a wonderful mother figure to Josh through his childhood. She is the mother of Daniel - Josh's best friend in Holland. Klaske lives in Breda (pronounced Bray-daa) which is in the south of Holland. It's about an hour by train from Amsterdam. It's been wonderful watching Klaske and Josh reconnect after many years of not seeing each other - and Klaske has taken up right where she left off - taking care of us all so well. Her house is very cosy and modern - a three-story apartment type house in a maze of similar buildings which have that typical dutch look. Eating lunch today in Klaske's lounge Spring is well and truly on its way here with all the roadsides and verges (of which there are many) are lush, green and flourishing. There are many little creeks and canals everywhere amo...

Another night train journey. I didn't find this one terrible pleasant, unfortunately. I have found that I definitely am no good whatsoever at sleeping sitting in an uncomfortable chair. It wasn't just a fluke those other times. I seem to have a problem with some sort of sciatic nerve in my hip which makes it difficult to sit in one spot for long, and with the knowledge that I had two more days of no more sleep and being restrained in a chair ahead, it made me feel a bit frantic for sleep. The feeling got me to the point of being able to tell off two men on the train who got on at about 2am and started yacking away in the seat ahead of us. It was so irritating and woke up most of my girls and Josh, and brought me out of the little doze I must have been having. Then at 4am a bunch of rowdy kids starting opening crisp packets and climbing over seats and annoying each other. That was when I realized I should just give up and take a deep breath and begin the day calml...

The time came around too quickly for me to say goodbye to Australia - the country I had very quickly come to enjoy very much. If you are a nature lover you will really love Australia - there is always so much to see! Thank you to our lovely family for your generous hospitality, kindness and time you have taken to show us around your neck of the woods. Our memories and photos of our time in Australia will definitely spur us on to visit again as soon as we can. Howard showing us some Plantain bananas growing at Misty A Wallaby with her Joey- She was grazing outside on the lawn  The 4wd track we took to visit the original retreat site One of the amazing vegan breakfasts Evelyn cooked up for us! The view at the bottom of the drive at Howard and Evelyn's place. Looking down on the vege patch. Further on is the little cottage we stayed in. Howard and Evelyn drove us to Port Macquarie on the day we were to catch the train to Brisbane.  We vi...

The mountain was living up to it’s name when we woke up the next morning. Josh’s Uncle and Auntie on his mother's side live 7 hours on the train from Sydney and one hour in a car from a little town called Kempsey. Howard and Evelyn live and work at a health retreat and have been doing so for 16 years. It is a beautiful place set on a mountain of lush bush and soaring temperatures in the summer months. The retreat is focused on detoxing your body and educating on lifestyle change. Many people who come here are quite ill with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses but can go home with their body and mind well on the mend. We were given a gorgeous, comfortable little cottage to stay in which was luckily for us just recently vacated by the last group of volunteers. We all had a delicious sleep on cozy beds after that uncomfortable night on the train. After catching up over breakfast (a yummy cooked one!) we took a tour of the retreat. Howard then treated us to a steam bath (...

We were woken at about 6am by the bustle of people coming and going and the sun peaking up on the horizon. We had our first glimpse of the landscape which was gradually changing from the inland dry and brown hills and sparse gum to greener paddocks, cattle, and thicker stands of trees. The mist on the paddocks looked beautiful in the morning light. When we reached Sydney the train station was relatively quiet as it was Sunday. Josh found a map and after checking in our sleeping bags and my violin into a locker we set off on a ’15 min’ walk to the Opera house for our breakfast. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be only 15 mins but 45 minutes and it felt longer as we all were carrying our day bags which were heavy with our train gear and the food we had brought along for the next three meals. The city was also very quiet as most people were still tucked up in bed at 7:30 on a Sunday morning. Though we did pass a few people who look like they hadn’t been to bed at all yet – ...

Well the sad day finally arrived that we were to be off on the next leg of our journey not knowing when we might see our lovely family again.  On Saturday Abigail and Dennis drove us back to Wagga to catch our train later that evening. We sorted out the logistics of cars and numbers of people and Dennis sacrificed his few hours off so that the children could spend the last afternoon together. (Thank you Dennis!- Did you make work in time?)  Wagga Wagga train station We had to fill in 8 hours before we could get on the train so we went to a wee zoo, and a playground – how many will we visit in this trip we wondered! We walked around town to the supermarket to get some food for dinner and the train ride and ate it in the mall. It was quite a funny sight really – the eleven of us hanging out on a bench just by the supermarket eating carrots, cheese rolls, mandarins and donuts for dessert. It was getting close to Fern’s birthday and because we were going to spend al...

Only an hour away from Tumut where we are staying for one more day are the Snowy Mountains. They are a mountain range made of Karst rock which is pocketed with many caves. This is where we spent the day today. Another beautiful spot with barely any other people around despite the school holidays! We drove up past the lake/dam that we visited the other day and only another half an hour further and we were high enough to notice a diversity of plant life different than that lower down in the valley (gum and more gum) and road markers for visibility in heavy snowfall. Abigail managed to score us a great affordable deal to have a swim in the thermal pools (a geothermal pool lower in the valley that is 27 degrees year round), a cultural guide with two local Aboriginal DOC workers and then on to a guided walk through a gorgeous cave. Shane the cultural guide showed us how Aboriginal would make fire with sticks The Aboriginal park rangers who were from local tribes taught us how to ma...