Buchan Farmstay

 The farm house.

 Relics on the side of the barn.

A farmer overlooking his land.

 Going to feed the birds.. notice the three following me.. with Hoodini outside the fence.

Mother and duckling.

 More critters.

Kookaburra on the clothes line. They have an amazing call.

View from the farm.

Mary and Dennis's farm next door.

Steve, me, Trevor, Grace, Mary and Dennis.

Sheep crossing.

 The woods, or bush as they call it.

 Tree ferns.

Lucy and the Snowy River Gorge.

Lucy at the base of the 200 year old mountain grey gum tree.

The rebuilt Buchan Caves Hotel, Restaurant and Bar.

December 23-27^th.

Lucy and I had decided to spend Christmas at Mary and Dennis's farm in Buchan, as neither of us had any family here and we're not much into the Christmas spirit. We had stayed there in the spring of 2016 and really loved the place and the location. So we drove the five hours from Melbourne to Buchan on the 23^rd. We arrived late in the afternoon and met up with Mary and Dennis. They had invited us for a pre-Christmas dinner with a couple of other people. We had a great evening chatting, eating and having a couple of drinks.

The next day was cool and hung out at the farm enjoying the beautiful surroundings. Late in the afternoon we drove into the town of Buchan to see if we could get some groceries and grab a bite to eat. The town had pretty much shut up for Christmas but the Buchan Caves Hotel was open. The original 100 year old hotel had burned down a few years back and the community had rallied to raise enough funds to open the new one, which opened in December 2016. It is brand new inside and out and is very nice. It has both a pub with a pool table and a restaurant that serves good food.

We asked at the bar about the restaurant and they said it was open, but a tall, well built man where shorts and a t-shirt and covered with tattoos said we needed to stay for a beer, as no visit would be complete without a drink in the bar. So I ordered a Carlton Draught and we sat at the bar. The man asked what we were doing in the area and then he saw Lucy's sweatshirt that said 'Underwater Ho..' He couldn't see the rest of the word because of a fold in the material. He thought it said hotel and asked what that was. He was amazed when she said underwater hockey. That prompted a conversation about the sport. He introduced himself as Ray. I asked him if he lived here and what he did. He said he was the village policeman. So, it turns out the police had ordered me to have a drink in the pub! We had a good talk with him about hockey, rugby and policing the town. The owner of the pub joined in too. His name was Bricky and he didn't believe there were such sports. As well as being the owner, he is the town plumber and he owns a farm up the road. We ordered our dinners while I had another beer. When it was ready we went into the restaurant to eat it. We returned to the pub for another beer, but sadly Ray had left for the evening.

On Christmas day we went for a long drive that Mary and Dennis had recommended. We drove about sixty kilometres north of Buchan on a sealed road to the hamlet of Gelantipy before turning right on Basin Road. This was a narrow dirt track that meandered through farms and into the north west corner of the Snowy River National Park. We had to stop at one point as a farmer on an ATV shepherded his flock of sheep across the road. Eventually we found the hiking trail that led to the Gorge Lookout. We walked for about three kilometres to the very beautiful overlook of the Snowy River Gorge. We saw no one on the road or the hike. I love the solitude of the Australian bush, the forests of eucalyptus trees and the songs of the birds.

On Boxing Day the temperatures went way up to 35 degrees. We were woken up on the last day by the herd of twenty black beef cattle who had wandered up from the paddocks lower in the valley to the side of the farm to seek shade, and were mooing repeatedly. We hung out in the shade and enjoyed the views from the farm, the smells of the farm and the songs of the kookaburra. Dennis and Mary had asked if I could feed their two chooks (chickens) and two ducks for a couple of days. The female duck was locked up in a cage with one very young duckling as if it where running around in the yard it would be snatched by a crow, a magpie or a kookaburra. It was fun feeding them because the one chicken was a Hoodini and wandered all around the farm, whereas the other two remained locked in one paddock and for some reason had not learned to escape. When Lucy and I started the walk towards the barn, Hoodini would follow and the other two would race along beside us as we walked. It was really cute to see and I have a video I will share eventually. The duckling was tiny and the mother was a bit stressed by me bringing in the food.

We headed into town late in the morning to see what we could buy for dinner and to explore the town a bit. I also hoped to meet up with policeman Ray, but no such luck. We didn't buy anything and decided to come back to the pub for dinner, which we did. We had another chat with Brick the owner of the pub and had dinner and played one game of pool.

We cleaned up and moved out on the 27^th and then spent most of the day driving back to Melbourne. We stopped about half way for a meal and then continued on.