Where, What, How and Why.....

 First let me wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  We spent Christmas in Toowoomba with my mum and family and New Year at our sons place, "Evergreen".  Christmas lunch was at a local hotel and New Year's Eve simply spent shooting the breeze over a giant cheese platter and drinks.

But what I really want to tell you about in this post is the time we spent leading up to Christmas and after we left Byron Bay.

From Byron we decided to spend a night with my sister and her husband at Beaudesert.  As are many properties in this area, their farm is devoted to horse training.  They have gallopers and trotters and spend long hours getting the horses ready for racing.  Their day begins at 5.00 am when they feed up and they come in around lunch after they have given all the horses a good work-out.  They head back over to the stables around 3.00 pm for another round of feeding. Sometimes they simply swim the horses in the dam for exercise that is a very strenuous work-out for the horses.  The photo below shows how they do this.  The horses only need 2-3 times around the pontoon. Robyn and Neil have employed another couple to lighten the workload a little and this couple just love it! 

We love visiting Rob and Neil and always look forward to the next visit.

From Beaudesert we turned the car and van west towards Leyburn where our longtime friends were waiting.  On our way to their place we stopped at Glengallon Homestead for our lunch break.  It is a place that we have driven past many times but always said "next time we will stop".  So it has taken me 63 years but I finally got there.  The homestead and surrounding property has had a colourful history with many owners and many upturns and downturns.  It is on prime Darling Downs land that supports a vast array of primary production but in its heyday it was a sheep grazing property.  Sadly the homestead fell into a bad state of disrepair and was almost on the point of no return when a committee was set up in Warwick to start restoration of this grand old homestead.  People were asked to donate and my mother tells me that she was one of the ones who donated and is now a life long member.  One of the first jobs was to re-roof and my brother-in-law was given this job.  The original roof was slate and Marc told me that when  he started removing the slate to make way for the iron roof he was told to stop.  The building was heritage listed and nothing could be removed.  He had to place the iron roof over the slate.  The building still needs further restoration but to bring it back to its former glory will take many more years and hard work.

We arrived into Leyburn late that afternoon and settled into Michael and Wendys shed "Bar" for a great night of catching up.  The following day Wendy and I drove into Toowoomba for some last minute Christmas shopping and window shopping.  We also caught up with another old friend for some more news exchange.  We had lunch at Wendy's favourite restaurant and were home in time for a quick nanny nap before heading to the local winery for Micheals birthday party.  I forgot to get photos but, take it from me this winery is spectacular and their wine is pretty damn good too.  The cellar door looks out over the vineyard and beyond and we have vowed to return here for possibly New Year's Eve 2021. We will just have to wait and see.

We didn't want to stay too long with Michael and Wendy as they were preparing to head north to Mackay, with their Caravan for Christmas and New Year.  We will undoubtably catch up with them during 2021 as they begin the big lap.

We were trying to decide where to head too next when I remembered my Aunty telling me that they had a fantastic holiday at the Bunya Mountains, so Bunya Mountains it is.  More about that in the next post.