Today we said goodbye to Newdegate. When we arrived here we had planned to stay 4 weeks and now 7 weeks later we say farewell. When we arrived the paddocks where bare, dry and grey. The dams empty, now as we are leaving the place has undergone a massive transformation. The paddocks now have a green cover, the animals look happy and the dams are full all curtosy of 20 mm of rain. Not alot, but oh what a difference it makes out here. What a time we have had and what an invaluable experience it has given us all.
For myself I learnt what it was like to live in a remote community and the difficulties associated with that. For example the 25 minute drive to go to the nearest store and postoffice (thats one way). The isolation of the nearest farm being another 30 kms up the road. The organisation required to get the children to school,sports and play dates on time. The need to be resourceful, you cant just nick to the corner store. The difficulties of living and working in a drought. Using every and I mean every drop of water to get the most out of it. To make food from scratch and grow all your own meat and produce. Setting a shopping budget in this area is so hard as the prices are so inflated compared to city areas. The cheapest loaf of bread $4.20 and you got it out of the freezer not of the shelf, $3.25 for 2 litres of milk and treats well thats exactly what they are as they cost somewhere around that of a gold bullion.
The kids learnt very quickly that they needed to get along. They where the only friends each other had out there. They learnt the importance of chores and pulling your weight to earn your keep. They also learnt to make the most out of their environment. Without realising they where educating themselves. They helped daily with the feeding of the sheep, using math to work out quantities, they made statues from old steel objects so to giving themselves an art class in sculpture, Learning about farming practises associated with a sheep and grain farming learning farming history. Rounding up the sheep running around behind them and making sure they dont break away was like a phys ed session in football or basketball defending.
John extended his knowledge of farming and farming practises. He learnt new skills in dam cleaning, tractor driving, seeding, mulesing and bull dozer driving.
We all gained a new appereciation for farmers especially in a drought.
So now we take all the new found experience and say goodbye, looking forward to new challenges and new adventures.
We only travel 100km when we come into the town of Lake Grace I pop into the local IGA and grab the essentials for lunch and as a little moving on gift a few sugary treats. The kids eyes popped half out of their heads as I passed them a chocolate paddlepop each. It had been along time between treats. We had enough fuel to continue on to Katanning so with a spring in our step, the sun shining and a smile on our faces we drive on. Katanning here we come!
If we had known that only 240kms down the road was this fantastic town we would have made the effort to come once a week. There are real shops, Woolworths, bakerys, Toy shop, and so much more. There is also a minature railway and the most amazing playground ever!
The playground was designed to keep children active and out of trouble. The slides where multi story, everything was adult size and huge, check out the photos. The kids had a ball, I thought I would try out one of these big slides and screamed like a little girl all the way down. It was massive and you dont realise how high up your going until you get to the top. I would love to see playgrounds like this back in Victoria but that would never happen.
Time is now ticking on and it will be dark in a couple of hours, so back in the car. Destination Albany.
