Night train and Tumut

On Thursday evening we boarded the train to head up to Tumut where Josh's sister Abigail and her family live.
This is a night train and so we tried to sleep on the train as much as we could. Some were more successful at this than others... I was one of the more unlucky ones in this case. Its not a nice feeling knowing you have to sleep but not being able to. It was so cold on the train and I had one very tired 8 year old in my lap that I didn't want to wake with my tossing and turning in my seat.
Josh and I were both scolded by the conductor of the train for attempting to sleep in places that we weren't allowed to be. (I tried sleeping on an empty seat which was quickly filled by a new passenger and Josh tried sleeping between his seat and the next seat and the conductor said 'Don't sleep there! I wouldn't sleep there for all the tea in China!" - Which Josh found to be very funny as he had never heard of this saying before and thought it was such an odd this to say!)

Ready to board the train. We were already feeling
 the effects of our long day by now. 10pm nz time.

Josh's lovely sister picked us up from Wagga Wagga train station at 12:20am aus time after an 1hr 20min drive for her in the middle of the night. It was so fabulous to see her again and to watch the siblings re-unite after 5 years. 

We drove through the night hoping to see some wild-life but thankfully didn't as Abigail told us its very common to hit Kangaroos or Wombats on the road at night and they can do some serious damage to themselves and the car. 

We arrived in the little village of Tumut at about 2:30 am to a deceptively sleeping household only to be greeted by long lost cousins and a brother in law who all jumped out of bed to warmly greet us!

Eventually we all went to sleep for a few hours but as soon as the birds started their morning chorus I was too excited to see the birds making all the racket that we didn't stay in bed too long.

That morning Abigail went to the supermarket and basically bought the whole shop home to feed us all. Abigail and Dennis have five children ranging in age from 15-5. All our children have a little buddy each: Esmae and Salome (16 and 15), Davida and Phoebe (13 and 12), Seth and Fern (11 and 11) and Noa and Ezra (8 and 7). Lois at 5 years old is sadly the only one with a little playmate but is getting on just fine with her firery little temperament to help her along!

The Brinkmans are pretty well known in our extended family for their huge appetites and so together with us Leenhouwers we are getting through a hang of a lot of food!

Our first breakfast all together on Friday morning

The beautiful church that can be seen out the back door
of the Brinkmans house.

Esmae and Salome have really hit it off after
being face-time buddies for so long.

This morning Josh and I went for an early morning walk to try and catch a visual on all the birds making such a noisy racket outside. It was so fabulous! We saw a big flock of Cockatoo chasing each other and fighting for a spot in a small Jacaranda tree in someones back yard. I wondered if the owner of the house cursed that tree every morning as those birds were the noisiest and most raucous I've ever seen! No one could possibly sleep in that house while that was going on! There were pink Galahs grazing on the lawns and perched in trees and plenty of magpies having their say in that funny chortling way of theirs.
When we walked a little further to a wetland reserve that is close by we even saw a kookaburra which was so much bigger than I imagined! It was bigger than a Kereru!
Another thing we found fascinating were strange larve cases that are about the size of a man's finger that we found lying on the pathway or sticking up out of the ground after having emerged during the night and turned into a big moth. We found out they are Bogong moths that are about as big as a man's hand and migrate to the Australian alps and can live for two years. Apparently they are now days filled with arsenic due to the residue in the soil from farming. Which is then passed on to the little creatures that eat them. Oh humans...