Updates and Upgrades!
The shower and toilet block arriving
A peak at the bathroom
Our vege garden
The Old Homestead campsite
Dear City Cousin,
Christmas is so close I can glimpse the prawns and smell the roast pork. The day could be a stinker so our campers might find the extended Brosnan family duck diving in the pump water hole.
There hasn’t been much rain, but at least the little we’ve had has greened the place up so the grass isn’t crunchy underfoot. And while the river is shallow, there’s enough water to float about, trailing hands and feet, to cool off. There’s talk of rain over the next few days, so all power to Huey.
The vegetable garden is prolific again, with cucumbers for days, and when the tomatoes ripen, the frantic search for simple and tasty cherry tomato chutney recipes will reach a fever pitch.
The cucumber vine has escaped its boxed boundary and is reaching into the paddock and across the lawn. After bemoaning to a food-savvy friend that Bernie and I can’t eat our body weight in cucumbers each day, and Bernie is resisting my threats to start chopping it back, he directed me to the Cornersmith kitchen book called Food Saver’s A – Z, which is now on order.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m good at cooking, or even enjoy it, but I do hate waste and I like eating preserves, so I’ll be sterilising jars to make bread and butter pickles later today.
Our campsites are booked out for Christmas so campers might also find themselves with straight-off-the-vine cucumbers and tomatoes for their salads.
Enough about Christmas, I have exciting news! A couple of years ago we sold the old Brosnan home to a family who had been searching for a removal home built to the original Queenslander designs, and they found ours. Their dream was to locate it on top of a hill on their lush Mary River property and restore it to its former beauty, It was a lovely outcome for the old home which was seasoned by years of Brosnan occupation, including Bernie and his seven siblings whose bedrooms were allocations within the enclosed verandas.
When the house departed, we planned to retain the garden, the timber car shed, the stable and horse yard, the concrete slab and the existing service infrastructure to create a spot for groups to gather and camp with power, water and facilities on their site. But I needed to find a toilet and shower that would suit the site’s homestead vibe.
And I did! Or at least my daughter found it on Marketplace, and we bought it. It’s now on site, ready to be plumbed, maybe tomorrow. We are in the midst of our approval process to locate some accommodation on site as well, but in the meantime, it’s our first powered site with facilities, perfect for school groups, scouts, bushwalkers, paragliders, horse groups – or just friends looking for a country getaway.
It's time to head inside and get pickling, so wishing you all a safe and fun festive season and we look forward to your visits in 2024.
Much love, your Wynola Country Cousin
Looking down to the road from the Old Homestead site
Plenty of room for groups!