But the best magic of all was the magic that made Hush invisible.
This fabulous journey of learning we are taking together continues in the most delightful of ways – the Australian bush is a truly magical place, full of wonder and discovery, not only for all the amazing creatures that live there, but discovery of what it just might be that we went looking for in the first place…
The event that took place on the beach in the Coorong was a three hour, jam packed crash course for many of life’s lessons – working together as a team, keeping cool in times of crisis, making good decisions, clear communication and just a little bit of good luck. With no photos taken during probably one of the most stressful off-road situations ever, here is the summary penned just a few hours following the successful un-bogging: (it was posted to Facebook, but just in case you missed it)…
Paul, we just got our car AND our camper trailer bogged to the gunwale on weird angle towards the sea, below the high tide mark, on a remote 2m wide beach in the Coorong, South Australia, at 3 in the afternoon, 3 hours before high tide… and got everything out, safe, 2 hours later, not broken or lost, with less than a single metre between our trailer and the surgey, Angry, Current-ridden Southern Ocean.
We. Are. A. Team.
Love you xx
#coldbeernevertastedSOgood
From this, the magic cranked into full gear at Fort O’Hare just outside Dartmoor, Victoria, on the banks of the Glenelg River, where Major Mitchell camped in 1858 on his epic Australia Felix tour of our magnificent country. Huge river gums, koalas, Apple the rainbow lorikeet, a tawny frogmouth, gang gang and yellow tailed black cockatoos, superb fairy wrens, magpies, kookaburras, social huntsmen, corellas, banana loving possums, crimson rosellas, black faced cuckoo shrikes, wood ducks, white faced herons… wow.
The head of the Glenelg River is in The Grampians so it wasn’t surprising that it was there that we found the best magic of all… “the magic that made Hush invisible”…. hiking in those ancient sandstones, we are now fully in our transition phase… invisible… exploring Australia to find what it just might be that makes us ‘visible’ again…sometime… but not too soon… just like Hush and Grandma Poss.
We planned to head south to the Great Ocean Road but the weather had different ideas and so we turned north, right into Wail on the banks of the Wimmera River – what was intended as a pit stop to avoid inclement weather, became another serve of magic with the Silo Art Tour. The most unique art gallery lead us on a wonderful jaunt of discovery through rural Victoria, including a coffee at Emma’s Garage in Cooper’s Crossing (home of The Flying Doctors).
Being so close to the coveted High Country – with Aunty Emma and Uncle Aaron’s farm right in the middle – determined our next course. A stopover at the beautiful Burnewang North, followed by pure heaven in the High Country out of Mansfield at Sheepyard Flat on the banks on the sparkling clear, pebbled-bedded Howqua River….
“So later that day, they left the bush where they’d always been to find what it was that would make Hush seen…”
Adelaide to Melbourne
