A family holiday with mates making 4 adults & 5 kids aged 5, 4, 4, 3, ½ & we head south east. Inverloch and a holiday house near the town & near the inlet & near the park & what more could you ask for? The thrill of little ones taking their shoes off to paddle in the water (“we’ll impose a knees-down rule”) and the thrill of little ones making it up for themselves as they all got nude & waded up to their chests and the thrill of the massive stingray foraging for scraps off the fishermen’s jetty and the roar of the kids not cooperatively heading home afterwards & the cook up in the new kitchen for all. The (big) kids all down in a bedroom of 4 single beds, whispers, stories, floating through the blackened doorway into the evening. Spending a full day in the park, chasing a footy, climbing on the playground, riding scooters, balance bikes, snoozing, feeding, roosting the footy into the distant canopy of an enormous Eucalypt, spending fruitless effort hurling pinecones at the footy, spending more fruitless effort attempting to climb the enormous Eucalypt, days of riding the mood and following our noses. Cooking up roast lamb & vegies, battening down for an alimightly storm, retrieving the washing from the line as the first large drops fell. Kids down amid whispers and laughs ("it's a fine line"). Night of self-saucing chocolate pudding and conversation and music.
Up in the pre-dawn storm, walking down to the park to find footy lying on the ground. Bingo.
Packing up the house for a dash across South Gippsland. Hovering in the Inverloch library, hot cross buns & donuts, into the car and on through the flooded Tarwin valley (sheets of water everywhere) and on to Toora. Water across the road into the farm. Mud, mud, mud. Welcome from farm family relations and the handover. Onto the quad bike, raining, mud flicking up, balancing 3 buckets of grain, alongside the flooded river, through the gates and into the bull paddock. Feeding 7 bulls here. 9 in the next paddock. The size of them. The bulk, the muscle, the power, the scrotum of each of them... Further instructions for cows, chooks, cats, 3-legged dog. Sheep & peacocks will look after themselves. Cooking up a curry. More self-saucing chocolate pudding. Indeed.
The rain, mud, gumboots on kids, boots on all round. Go for a walk, up the hill. Through the gates, through the puddles (squelch), dog limping along, breaking off the Eucalypt leaves, the smell, walking up, up & up & up, mud & more mud. A sheep skull. And the view as the cloud clears. The wind farm. The ocean. The Prom. Wind whipping at faces. Hooray. Museli bars to celebrate. And the down, down down, through mud, mud, mud. A full morning there & back again. The rolling on of the day and the interests. Quad bike out to feed the bulls again. Good for the adrenaline. Lunch at the waterfall. Conversations with strangers, photos taken, water loudly spilling, fizzing, floating by. Into Toora for supplies & a playground. Afternoon drifting by amid sleeps, rockwall climbs, swings, songs (goldilocks woke up & broke up the party…) and social roundabouts. Conversation. Nachos all round for dinner, photos, showers, bed time for little uns & music and grown up time. Guitar out and going well.
Up for weetbix and toast and the kittens and the 3-legged dog and the rain abating. A morning walk into the sheep paddock. No sheep keen to for a pat, leading us a merry dance and a merry walk up & over the hills of South Gippsland.
The laughter & the smiles & the songs. Two little boys. Hurricane. Happy holidays.
