Back to School Term 4

Wow, I can't believe how fast the year is flying by, term 4 already. Now as you probably already know I was lucky enough to head to the coast for the holidays. After that my family and I headed north up the coast for a couple of days and then they got to come see my stomping ground :) Almost 3000km and a week and a half later I returned to the property with my family in tow.

My bosses pulled out all the stops for them, bringing out the golden carriage (clunky old toyota) and taking them on a partial grand tour of the property.

They were even lucky enough to take part in a bit of pig chasing

and the pulling a bore, something that even I hadn't done. Speaking of which they themselves hadn't pulled a bore in a few years and as of the end of this week have pulled three (two of which were the same bore, painful).

Now we are only a week into school and already I have run away to the coast again for the weekend. It has been such a hard week too (sarcasm intended). We had the children's teachers come out on Monday afternoon and leave on Tuesday afternoon.

On the Monday afternoon after the normal smoko routine with visitors the grand tour began again. However this time the boys had taken the toyota out with them to pull a bore (the one that had to be done again). We took the teachers out to the Gorge Dam which is the best swimming place because of its clear water. The kids after much begging were allowed to swim :) On the way to the Gorge dam we stopped in at the bore the fellas were working on to tell them where we were headed so yet again visitors got the witness the pulling of a bore. It seems to be turning into quite a tour point.

On the Tuesday morning we wrangled a very reluctant Boss H into taking us up to the mazes that are right on the edge of the great divide. So out came the golden chariot to cart us all up there. Of 'cause we couldn't just go for fun, we did the lick / molasses run at the same time. So the old toyota truck came along for part of the trip too, with its molasses tank on the back.

Until this week I hadn't seen the mazes and undoubtedly being directionally challenged as I am would never find them again myself but I would love to go up there again. The mazes are rock formations on the property where the rock has cracked and nearly pealed away from the hill leaving huge deep cracks in the rock. You can walk around through them exploring passages and crevices in the rock. The kids loved exploring as did the teachers. In that area there is also a lot of ant hills which  are fascinating creations.

We headed back down to the house for smoko. Then the kids finally got to spend some time with their teachers in the schoolroom completing reading tests, spelling tests or just plain having fun like Mr Preppy and Mr T. Unfortunately the teachers had to head back early afternoon so that they would make it back to the school before dark. Their company was enjoyed by all and the emails coming back are reporting that they also had an amazing time