From Queensland to Victoria

After my 4 day stay at Pad and Pauline's farm, it was time to head to my first Oz farm stay in Alexandra. I took the night train to Melbourne, sniffed out the city during the day and then headed up to Alexandra in the open arms of Marg and Tom. Both run a lovely B&B and have lots of animals to keep the visitors and helpers entertained. Tom was a building surveyor in his former life and now does all the work around the house such as building, planting, taking care of the animals and teaching helpers many useful things. Margaret, a former teacher and principal, takes care of the B&B and is the mother to all helpers and animals. Tom and Margaret are also foster parents to Dylan, a lively little chap of 11 years. Currently, there are 4 helper here; Scott and Tracey from Scottland and England, Kaz from Japan and me. We have lots of things to do around the house; Tom and the guys work on another house in Alexandra and Tracey and I work around the house. I learned how to prune fruit trees and to milk a cow by hand and by milking machine. Buttercup the cow seems satisfied with my milking ability. The food is lovely and plenty and rich (I think I gained some weight). Did I mention the animals? There are donkeys, cows, little lambs and little goats, lots of gees, ducks, chickens and three turkeys. Our newest addition is slim dusty, a little motherless lamb found by city workers. Slim dusty stays inside at night so it doesn't get eaten by the foxes. It gets milk about 4 times a day and it follows us around like a little puppy. Talking about puppy, there are also two little dogs, buddy and molly. I stayed here for one week...... it was hard to leave but I had other commitments in Melbourne.

Alexandra - Amber and Bernie

In Melbourne, I attended the local servas meeting which offered me the opportunity to meet some of the areas servas hosts and travellers. here, I stayed with Merle, a local servas hosts who showed me around the area, took my to play group at her daughters kindergarten and introduced me to meat pies; my first meat pie since arriving in NZ 8 months ago (meat pies are a specialty in NZ and Oz).

Alexandra - Beautiful turkeys

Friday, I am off to my next farm stay about 3 hours eats of Melbourne. Here,at Siroka Park Quarter Horsesi will visit with Colleen and Mark and hopefully learn as much about Quarter horses as I can handle.

Alexandra - Dinner at Margaret and Tom's

Alexandra - Happy animals

Alexandra - Our latest addition - Slim Dusty

Alexandra - Slim Dusty needs lots of love

Alexandra - The Cottage

Alexandra - with Amber and Bernie

Alexandra - with Amber and Bernie2

Melbourne - my servas host Merle

Siroka Park - Chocolate before foaling

Siroka Park - Stella and Tonka

Siroka Park - Stella and Tonka2