AUSTRALIA I: LOOKING AFTER “DEAD” ALPACAS

We were on the move for about 7 weeks when mum decided it was the right time to settle down for a bit. Which according to her doesn´t necessarily mean going back home. So here we are, in Australia. At least on the way home and definitely the closest to New Zealand since the end of May when we left.

Mittagong is a small town 100 km south of Sydney in Southern Highlands and we are house-sitting here for a month. How did it happen? There is a special website, where mum found these two guys, Lynn and Ken, who were going to visit their friends and needed someone to take care of their small farm and animals. Now I have two cats, two dogs, eleven sheep and two alpacas.

I have to say it is probably the coolest place I have ever stayed at. The house is a bit old, but it has a central heating and plenty of rooms with mountains and mountains of various stuff to go through and explore – books, sculptures, toys (the owners have nine grand-kids) as well as two urns (poor Bandy and Malibu). I also have a child bed and a high chair again and for the first time in my life also a pram. All these things seem to make mum´s life much easier, my favorite one is definitely the pram though.

A little bit about the animals with the names, which possibly bring back memories of your last night out. Tia is a tiny silky and she has no idea what the road is (when I look at the size of her head, where her brain is supposed to be placed, I suspect she will NEVER know). Bailey is an attention seeking retriever who gets jealous pretty quickly. Sambucca is a huge, 10-kilo cat who sleeps a lot. Tekila is a little black cat who is more absent than present. Then there is Brewsky, an old staffy, who is not ours but he is with us all the time. When we arrived the first day, all these guys got pretty excited and me a bit scared. But I got used to soon and now they are my pets – I love to climb on them, pull their hair and poke their eyes. Not to mention eating delicious food from their bowls.

Then there are eleven sheep. In fact there are twelve since we got a new lamb couple of days ago. Their names ale Louis, Casserole and ten more which I can´t remember. They are pretty low-maintenance: every now and then I feed them food scraps and bread which they love. With the sheep live two alpacas, whose responsibility is to protect them from foxes. Lynn said they pretend to be dead most of the time but they haven´t been so far. I hope it won´t change in my presence.

Every day we take the dogs for a walk up The Gib. The Gib is how locals call Mount Gibraltar, a hill maybe two kilometers from our farm with nice views. It is uphill but the dogs are pulling us most of the time which I hope makes it easier for mum. Anyway, she needs some exercise. A supermarket is two kilometers downhill as well as the town center, which is quite nice. There is a nice little pond called Lake Alexander with a lot of different ducks which I like to chase. It will be much easier when I start walking without having to hold mum´s hand I guess.

Anyway, enough writing and back to practicing.

Your Annie

Some facts

When: 12. - 20. 7. 2017 Where: Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) - Sydney - Mittagong (Australia) How: plane, car

How long: 1 hr. 10 min. + 1 hr. How far: 6 615 + 100 = 6 715 km