Monday, September 20, 2010

Relaxed, Hippy Vibes

Last weekend was Dan and my first wedding anniversary and we decided to take a weekend off from life in general.

No renovating, no housework, no friends - no anything-that-is-familiar or a typical part of our life.

In fact, we decided to leave Queensland altogether and revisit our mutual-favourite region of Australia, the Northern New South Wales Hinterland.

Dan booked us into a farmstay near Tyalgum, which was advertised as 'pet-friendly and gay-friendly.

As he put it, it looked like 'our kind of place' - we both love staying in places like this. We get to take our dog AND stay with people we invariably find to be friendly, accommodating and easy to talk to and share a glass of wine with.

In fact, half the reason we advertise our own holiday-rental as 'pet-friendly' is because we know that the people who rent it are invariably more relaxed and easier to deal with.

This time, we stayed at the home of Pete and Chris, and shared the home with another couple - also celebrating their wedding anniversary.

Between us, we had four dogs - a border collie, a kelpie, a Belgian shepherd and a pug.

We also spent quite a considerable amount of time between us out the back drinking wine and chatting.

This was the view from the house.

Tala Farm View (2 of 1) copy

See that Mountain in the distance? Dan and I climbed the nobbly nose bit on the left on Saturday.

It was pretty steep. In fact, in parts, there were chains to help you get up and down.

We both used them with the descent (pictured below), but on the way up - motivated perhaps by desire to get to the top after 1.5 hours of climbing, or the fact there was a queue to get onto the chains - Dan and I both crawled up the rock face like spiders, chain-free. It was great.

Mount Warning2 (2 of 1) copy

For the rest of the weekend, we explored the region and Chris and Pete's property. Croquet was clearly a popular past-time.

Croquet Balls (2 of 1) copy

This is one of Pete and Chris's dogs, Joey. I gotta admit, I don't usually go in for kelpies, but this one won me over. Sharp as a tack, and quite lovely. Dan bribed him with a piece of sausage so I could take this photo.

Joey2 (2 of 1) copy

We ended up revisiting a lot of our favourite little towns, places we last visited a year ago on our 'Minimoon' - the week-long roadtrip we took after our wedding.

The Northern NSW Hinterland is an unbelievably beautiful part of Australia.

I love the lush, verdant, overgrown scenery - it just reeks of abundance, tropical climate and relaxed hippy vibes....

Tumbulgum, Chillingham, Uki, Tyalgum - these are the towns we'd live in if we could make a living, living in such towns.

And you know what? Out of those four towns, turns out we've been pronouncing every single one of their names incorrectly.

"You two couldn't sound more like tourists," a local pointed out to us on the weekend.

I think we're OK with that.

Chillingham (2 of 1) copy

5 comments:

  1. omggg that view is GORGEOUS! sounds like the perfect weekend: friendly people & good wine! Happy anniversary! :)

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  2. What a cool thing to do for your anniversary. Lovely photos too. xx

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  3. I love the NSW Hinterland too. There are a few places you have mentioned that I haven't been to yet and I don't think I would ever pronounce their names correctly either. Looks like a great weekend. x

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  4. Well what a coinkidink! My Granddad's property backs onto and up Mt Warning and I have walked it with him on several occasions. He is in his 90's now and still walks it!

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  5. We did this walk! I remember those chains. In fact we did the slightly naughty version and camped up there for the night so we could watch the sunrise. We were walking up with backpacks late in the afternoon and everyone kept telling us we wouldn't make it back down before dark and shaking their heads - haha.

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