Last weekend continued...

I mentioned that some of us went for a tour of the property on the Saturday afternoon. I don't know how many hectares the family owns but we saw a completely different part of the farm than we have on previous trips. 

DH and I were in the group who went with Dan...

There are lots of gates to open and close of this kind of property; mostly DH jumped out of the vehicle and opened them...but some were a bit tricky so Dan opened them.

 

Kilto is a property which raises cattle to be sold on to graziers who fatten cattle for market...so at times there are lots of calves on the property and we saw quite a few. Some of the calves were only a few days old.

The farm is so green at the moment...the result of unexpected winter rains.

Dan said he would have to stop and check the 'turkey nests'. My ears pricked up at the mention of turkeys...could my 'gardening Nemesis' the scrub turkey be a pest here too?? But no...

Out here the term 'turkey nest' refers to the earth dams used for storing water. The water is then gravity fed to open concrete tanks from which the stock drink.

So first there was a climb up the mounded earth, and then we could see the water. 

It was great getting the chance to see so much more of the property on this visit. 

Then it was back to the house to get ready for the party as guests would be arriving at 6pm.

A roast beef dinner with all the trimmings had been cooked in camp ovens and it was served from the tray of a ute. ( a utility truck with a flat bed) 

Here are some photos of the food being enjoyed. 

DsD1 was positively glowing in her lovely frock...the lady beside her in the top photo is her mum, who had worked hard to make the party a success. The middle photo is with her sisters and niece. 

Anthea was wearing an outfit that I had bought her...I called it her 'boho' look outfit...

Later in the evening the couple cut the cake which was made by DsD2. 

And look at the gifts table!

There were a LOT of envelopes in that blue box on the left as well as those intriguing big parcels. I bet DsD1 and Dan had lots of fun opening parcels and envelopes next day. I'll have to get them to tell us all about it when they're staying with us in Brisbane next month! 😉

On the Saturday...

This post is all about last Saturday...the day of DsD1 and Dan's engagement party. 

After breakfast we drove out to the property. Before we left town we saw the sign for the golf club. DH loves his golf, so we took a little detour to have a look.

Hmmm. It looked a bit quiet for a Saturday morning.

And the only group out on the course were these 'fellows'...

Yep! It looks like the kangaroos have full run of the golf club/course. 

And then it was time to head out to the farm; 60km with the last 10 km on dirt road.

The front gate to the property...

It's still a long drive to the buildings on the property...

The cattle found us to be interesting! 

I could just imagine this one saying, 'Password!'

This one didn't like the look of us and took off! Lol

The road into the property is a little rough in places, deeply rutted, steep and winding, but eventually we reached the buildings...

The main house with its beautiful garden...

Some of the outbuildings...

Dan and DsD1's little house...

Some of the lovely view from their house...

After lunch, friends and family worked to get things ready for the party...

Dan used farm equipment to manouvre the giant 'ice bucket' bathtub into place.

And in the mid ground of this next photo, helpers are filling the tub with ice.

And DsD1 set up her Lolly Bar.

Later on in the day there would be lots of children enjoying this feature; lots of 'sugar highs' 😆

Next post will feature photos of our tour around parts of the farm and also photos of the party. Just seems too much for one post. 

Family celebrations...

Last Friday most of the family headed off to Wandoan. We all had an engagement party to go to on Saturday night...what a wonderful excuse for the family to gather together. 

Two different cars but staying in touch through Facebook! Lol

Wandoan is a 6 hour drive from Brisbane, so we had a few breaks...

First stop was in Toowoomba at the Visitors Centre. Every year at this time, Toowoomba hosts the Carnival of Flowers, but with the 6 hour drive to Wandoan facing us, we knew there wasn't time to go around all the garden displays.  But the Info Centre had some lovely gardens for us to admire...

Because of the influx of visitors for the Carnival, the public toilets at the Info Centre were supplemented by a cute little temporary toilet block...

The next stop was in Dalby, where we lunched at the Coffee Club. 

The mid afternoon stop was in Chinchilla...

In recent years this pretty town has been flooded a few times, but was nice and dry at this time! 😉

Next stop was Wandoan, the town where DsD1 teaches.

5pm on a Friday and not much was happening...

We headed to the motel which was the meeting point for the weary travellers...but only DH, myself and our sister in law were actually staying at the motel.

As each carload arrived at the motel, the facilities of our room came in very handy for everyone.

DsD1 and her fiancé Dan live 60 km away on a cattle property and they came into town to pick up a few items and to lend DH and I one of their four wheel drive vehicles...

You see, some of that 60km of road to the farm is gravel and there are many parts where cars have to ford water...'Carlotta Camry' would not be able to do the drive safely.

So we used this car to do the 120km round trip on both Friday night and Saturday...nice and high off the ground. ( mind you, it was filthy with mud when we'd finished using it!) 

So when baby was fed and changed our convoy of 4 vehicles set out on the 60km drive for our family dinner on the Friday night.

DsD1 had asked everyone to bring something for the meal. She mentioned that she would provide spaghetti, so I offered to make a batch of my pasta sauce. Apparently she was expecting 27 of us to be having dinner together, so it was a rather large batch that I took. 

My little granddaughter had some of the sauce...

She ate the whole bowl full! 

It was quite cold outside; nevertheless most of the family moved outside...

In the photo above, we are actually sitting around a fire pit but we were still cold. Eventually DH, our SiL and I took our leave ready to drive the 60km back to town. We left the others to bed down in their tents or swags on the floor, on the property. More about our 'country break' in later posts. 

Cowaramup...

On the way to Margaret River, we had a short stop in Cowaramup. What a sense of fun this town has? There are 42 life sized cow statues spread throughout the town. 

Everywhere you turn in the Main Street, you see cows!

The statues were erected in 2012 as a tourist attraction.

And a bit more trivia...in 2014, the town won a spot in the Guiness Book of records for having the most people dressed as cows gathered together. Delightfully quirky people I think! 

We had a little wander around the shops...lots of lovely handcrafted items to look at. DH suggested I look in the newsagent for the latest Handmade magazine. I had been checking shops in Perth, looking for this issue as I had rather liked a pattern that Anorina Morris had had published. I really didn't expect to find the mag in such a tiny town...but I was wrong!!!

That's Anorina's cushion on the front cover!

We were actually driving out of town when a statue high up on a pole caught my eye...?

We turned up a side street and found ourselves in a large park. And there in the middle...

It's a golden cow! Lol

Checking it out on the 'net' I found out that it had been an entry in a cow sculpture competition. According to the website, the statue is often nicknamed 'Rump on a Stump' 😳. 

The park is known as Pioneer Park and is delightful.

There are other sculptures too of course...a tribute to the pioneers...

And beautiful parrots didn't even look up from their feeding as we walked through!

Lovely, lovely creatures. 

I'd never heard of Cowaramup before that day, but I'm so glad we stopped and had a look around. 

Busselton...

On our drive from Bunbury to Margaret River, our first stop was at Busselton...another gorgeous town on the west coast of Western Australia. 

DH had read about a little train that runs on the rather large jetty at Busselton. So after finding a park for the car,  that's where we headed. 

'Extending 1.8 km over the protected waters of Geographe Bay, the heritage listed jetty is the longest timber-piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere....Construction...began in 1865, beginning as a mere 161 metres...Extensions were added over the next 90 years creating the remarkable 1.8 km length.'

This port was closed in 1973 and then of course government funded maintenance ceased. For many years it was hard work and private funding worked to restore the jetty and build the aquarium and other structures on the jetty. Eventually funding was received by the Western Australian state government. 

http://www.busseltonjetty.com.au/the-jetty/about-the-jetty/

Donations for the upkeep are still gratefully received...loved this pelican sculpture.

Tourists pay to walk on the jetty but we had decided to 'splash out' and buy tickets for the ride on the little train.

It was a cold day so the plastic blinds were down on the front and left side of each carriage...

The train goes very slowly...thank goodness! 

The jetty curves...

Every now and then we passed areas that must have been side moorings perhaps...

Here we are at the point where the train stops...there's more jetty after that building and we were given about 20 minutes to check out the end of the jetty...

We took some photos...wasn't it bleak looking out here? And yet it had been sunny at the other end of the jetty.

These photos were taken on the other side of the shop and aquarium.

Looking back to Busselton seafront...

We watched the little train 'engine' change ends ready for the return journey...😉

Facing out to sea...

DH was still taking photos...

But it was time to take a seat for the ride back to shore. It was lots of fun and so much history!