Going back a few years
I have had what would be considered a normal up bringing with my Dad, Mum and 3 brothers and a sister, growing up in several small country towns and then a regional city in Victoria. My first job was in a bank as a teller, through this job I met my husband, I went to a ‘Young Farmers’ Ball with a work mate and met my husband to be. We got married in 1984 about 2 years later and I moved to his farm, which we still live at. My husband is the 3rd generation of his family to live on this farm. This is pretty cool as we have photos of people that lived here on the farm going back to the early 1900’s.
Several years later in 1988 our first baby boy was born, 2nd baby boy in 1990 and 2rd baby boy in1993. We have 3 boys all teenagers who love farm life. The eldest is a qualified electrician, 2nd son is a apprentice mechanic and the 3rd is still at school and hoping to become a doctor or at least something medical.
Local Primary School Volunteer
During the 12 years that my children were at the local Primary School I helped as a volunteer, I started working in the garden as it was a mess, gradually I created more garden beds and everyone appreciated the effort especially the principal as it made the school appear so much better. I also helped with art & craft, reading, helped with excursions, was a member of Parents & Friends and helped with fundraising and organised sausage sizzles, cake stall etc
At the end of each year the school held a concert, most years I sewed costumes and painted the backdrops for the stage, I enjoyed these years enormously, I learnt so much and I was also appreciated, almost too much sometimes as I got asked to do anything and everything.
We live on a small farm which is 126 acres(50 hectares), my husband grew up here (he has never left home!) We have sheep and lambs and do some cropping. I have lived here since we were married 25 years ago, our kids appreciate growing up in the country and enjoy farm life, they are able to ride motorbikes, drive the paddock bomb, as soon as they can see out the windscreen, ride billy carts, we have the usual farm animals and more.
Earlier I said we are the third generation on this farm and we have photos going back to the early1900’s. In 2001 and 2002. I collected as many photos and information as I could and collated these and made a photo album for each generation. This involved getting most of the photos copied and enlarged as some of the original photos were very small as they were taken with old style cameras. Also I collected information from relatives that lived here.
For each photo I added a caption and any detail I could. This I enjoyed very much, although it was a lot of work and time consuming It was well worth preserving this unique information so it can be appreciated by the next generations.
About going camping
My first camping trip was after I was married, with the absolute basic equipment and slept in the back of a HZ station wagon at Lake Eildon.
Since our early days of camping we bought our first tent (canvas and about 10’ x 12’) and a bit more camping gear. We continued going camping mostly on rivers or creeks near the Murray River or in south NSW and also camped at a few lakes and I soon learnt how to fish.
Most of our camping trips were based around fishing on a river or lake, which out kids love, we took our eldest son camping when he was just 6 months old and that was a lot of work but still fun. They soon grew up and were into everything and soon got old enough to do everything for themselves.
Our First Big trip
In 2000 we went on ‘Our First Big Trip’ after a lot of planning we set off with a family from Melbourne on a great adventure. We left Victoria, went to Coober Pedy, Central Australia, went to Uluru, Olgas and then travelled around the Mereenie Loop to Alice Springs. Then we went up the Stuart Hwy to Mataranka, Katherine, Darwin, Kakadu and then we went south through Outback Queensland and New South Wales. What an amazing trip. More Details Here
On that trip we met a wonderful family from Sydney, we camped next to them at Ayers Rock campground. Our kids and their kids started playing cricket then we all got together. We travelled with them for 10 days. We made a great friendship we treasure and we promised we would go to The Kimberley in 2003.
In 2001 we met up again and we went to Fraser Island, what a spectacular place and so much to see. Mackenzie Lake is absolutely incredible, as well as Eli Creek, Indian Head and Champagne Pools. In 2002 we met in Noosa, another beautiful place, mainly to plan our 2003 trek to The Kimberley
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