After our wonderful day on the boat with Gloria and Alex, we spent a couple of days doing normal stuff. Wednesday (1-15-20) I did a couple of loads of wash in the morning. In the afternoon, Lou took us to Umina Beach where we played in the waves for a while. There was just enough surf to make it fun, but not dangerous. There are so many wonderful beaches in the area and I’m sure we’ll get to several of the over the next few weeks.
In the evening, we went to the Ourimba RSL Club in Lisarow to have dinner with Lou’s sister Marianne and her husband Alan. We arrived later than expected due to a road closure and a very long roundabout detour. The terrain all around the central coast is full of windy, twisty roads going up, over, and down hills. This detour, however, took us through some beautiful residential areas which I like because I’m a snoop and like seeing where and how people live.
It was nice catching up with Marianne and Alan. Unfortunately, Alan is in the early stages of dementia and has aged quite a bit since we last saw him 10 years ago. He is a shell of the large, vibrant, boisterous man I remember.
Dementia is such a devastating disease to both the victim and the loved ones around him or her. Marianne is doing the best she can for Alan. It was a nice dinner and great to see them.
Thursday was a very low-key day. The most activity I had was taking Banjo for a walk down to Brisbane Water. One of the things Lou asked us to bring with us was rain. It hasn’t rained for a very long time in this drought-stricken country. Well, we did bring rain and so starting today, and forecast for the next several days, is rain. This will be so helpful to the firefighters in trying to control the many bush fires still raging. The very thirsty ground will get some relief as will all the dying vegetation. Everything is brown and rather wilted. We also spent the day planning for our drive inland to visit Lou’s youngest sister Margaret. We go on Friday and will stay with Margaret and her two children, Daniel and Clare, until Wednesday. Lou always takes lots of food to Margaret’s and so we had shopped at Aldi’s yesterday, filling up a shopping cart with meats, pizza, veggies, desserts and other staples.
Friday morning, we packed up the car. Lou borrowed Gloria’s car, which is larger than Lou’s. It’s a good thing because we filled up every available space with food and luggage. Banjo was snuggled in between Christine and me in the second row of seats. Just as we left Lou’s, it started to rain. It was a good soaking rain and no one minded the rain at all. Blessed rain! We headed towards a Sydney suburb called Kellyville to pick up Lou’s brother Ray who was coming with us to Margaret’s. I said he’d better pack light because there isn’t any more room in the boot.
Just as we got on the freeway we became stuck in a backup. The delay was about 45 minutes. It was raining, so it was probably good that everyone was at a crawl. We eventually made it to Ray’s. His wife Roma popped in while we were there. Ray introduced us to the reptile and fish menagerie in their house. And then off we went heading for Rylstone.
Blue-tongued lizard 
Turtle 
Bearded lizard
The drive to Rylstone from Ray’s is about 3 hours, a little over 200 km (125 miles) but with weather conditions it took nearly 5 hours. Daniel had given Lou information on road closures due to the fires, but we weren’t really affected by that. What we were affected by was the weather. With the rainy weather, going up into the Blue Mountains meant fog, and very thick
fog. Visibility was extremely poor and Lou had to creep along with eyes locked on the center line to be sure he didn’t veer off the two-lane windy road. In going through the Blue Mountains, two national parks bordered the road, the Blue Ridge National Park on our left and the Wollemi National Park on our right. This area was totally blackened by the fire. Due to the fog, we couldn’t see much of the damage. In fog-free areas what we saw was the destructive power of fire. The earth was absolutely scorched bare, the tree trunks were entirely charred and there was either no foliage on the trees or it was totally burned and brown. We saw a few homes and outbuildings entirely burned, but it was amazing to see how many houses had been saved. The fire damaged trees at times were right up to the houses and you could see how the fire went right around the buildings. Firefighters and homeowners clearly worked very hard to save houses.
Scorched earth 
Charred trees 
Tree trunks are charcoal 
Scorched tree, but probably from fire a few years ago
We stopped for lunch at a place called the Fruit Bowl in Bilpin. This area is an apple-growing area. We saw many totally burned out orchards. The Fruit Bowl itself was spared, but the fire swept right over the building. It burned much of their orchard. At this time of the year the orchards are covered in nylon netting to protect the young growth on the trees. Those orchards not being totally burned looked very eerie with with partially burned netting hanging down around the trees like shrouds. It was kind of spooky.
Once over the Blue Mountains the fog cleared and we made much better time. But the fire devastation was seen everywhere. The Army has been called out to assist in felling trees. With the trees burned so badly, the danger of falling trees, especially along the roads, is very high.
We finally arrived at Margaret’s at 4:45 p.m. Margaret owns 16 acres having a house, guest cottage, the original cottage built on the property decades ago, a large shed and many other out buildings. There are goats and chickens galore. Margaret runs a farmstay guest house in the cottage in addition to driving a school bus and having a cleaning business. She is amazing in all that she does.
We met the goats and chooks. The goats are cared for by Clare and Margaret. Currently, some newly born kids are being bottle fed. As it was getting dusk, the kangaroos started showing up around the fields. Since the ponds are essentially dried up, Margaret has been setting out buckets of water for them and so they come up very close to the house. Of course, we were gaga over seeing kangaroos so close.
Ray, Lou and Daniel 
Brown Sugar 
Very interesting eyes
Clare feeding the goats 
Bottle feeding a young kid 
Bottle feeding the kids water
Margaret fixed a wonderful salmon dinner and we sat around the table afterwards with Daniel who showed us his gem collection. He buys gems from e-Bay for a dollar, some of which are probably very valuable. He’s got all sorts and sizes of gems including rubies, sapphires, topaz and emeralds. One day he’ll have his collection appraised. Seems like a good investment to me.
Ray and Daniel 
Proud grandpa showing off pictures
We’re very happy to be at Margaret’s. It will be an interesting few days.
Linda….what is a “chook” as you mentioned ?lmh
Hi Deeny: A chook is simply slang for a chicken. Christine had to ask Clare the same question.