Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue #23.1 January/February 2020 i Australian Country

It’s lunch time at Anthony and Wendy Hoy’s home behind their jewellery showroom in the NSW southern tablelands town of Braidwood and Anthony rustles up something he prepared a little earlier — a plate of sandwiches that would do the CWA proud. All the country favourites are there — curried egg and lettuce, leftover roast lamb and chutney and an offering he reveals is a Hoy family staple, the Vegemite and walnut combo. Who even knew that was a thing? A quick internet search reveals it even has a name, the zebra sandwich. Try it before you dismiss it, folks. Turns out it’s a winner, practically makes use of pantry staples and delivers earthy flavours in a tasty package with just a hint of surprise. It’s not too great a…

If it’s not a rude question, how on earth did Robert Aernout, the son of a Dutch-Indonesian tea planter, end up as Australia’s foremost purveyor of antique lamps? Like most good stories, there are numerous twists and turns before reaching the conclusion. The first of what he modestly dismisses as a “few different careers” was when he trained as a fitter and turner in the Netherlands. Then he did an apprenticeship in hotel management and worked for a wine company, which just happened to have offices near the New Zealand embassy, which is how he came to migrate to New Zealand where he worked for Watties canneries. Then he moved to Australia and gained employment with Masterfoods and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, before owning and operating a video franchise.…

Vicki Jones blames her parents for her peripatetic lifestyle. Both enjoyed airline careers — her father with TAA and her mother with ANA — before her dad took a job as the chief electoral officer for what was then the Australian-administered Territory of Papua New Guinea and moved his family to Port Moresby. Vicki and her four older sisters went to boarding school on the mainland, initially in Warwick in south-eastern Queensland and later to Somerville House in Brisbane. “We moved to Queensland in 1974 just prior to PNG’s independence,” Vicki says. “But the die was cast and I was well on the way to becoming a bit of a gypsy. It was the best childhood imaginable. We rode bikes to the beach and did Kokoda and, at the time,…

Marist White Night Photography MSP Photography, Rockhampton A wave of white washed over the Marist College oval in Emerald, central Queensland, as more than 200 guests dressed in glamorous white attire to experience the unexpected at the inaugural P&F fundraiser, aptly named Marist White Night. Guests teamed up against one another for a round-robin, Wimbledon-style games of competitive badminton, croquet and quoits. A very serious human-sized Jenga competition saw blocks reaching for the stars. The highest points were achieved by a group of local mining engineers, for obvious reasons. Food, music and refreshments transported guests to another time. They picnicked on blankets during the lawn games, which were followed by a seated dining experience under a canopy of fairy lights. All food was prepared on-site by the school’s hospitality team.…

It seemed like a good idea at the time. In a wave of post-WWII euphoria, the Queensland government bought vast areas of central-western Queensland, on which, in partnership with the Queensland British Food Corporation, they planned to grow sorghum, barley and wheat to feed pigs for export to the severely rationed folks back in the UK. The plan was to transform the “empty” grazing acres around Emerald, Capella and Springsure into paddocks of waving grain that would fatten pigs and cattle on the stubble. While the scheme prospered initially, by the early ’50s, it foundered under the combined onslaught of rain, mice and mismanagement and the grand dream suddenly turned to dust. Britain’s loss turned into Australia’s gain, as the Queensland government then decided to offload the land by ballot.…

Balneotherapy, or taking a bath in mineral-laden mud or water, is an ancient practice. Remains of bathing rooms in the palace of Knossos dating to 1700BC indicate that the Greeks knew the value of a good soak in the tub. The early Egyptians also enjoyed water therapy and Cleopatra is renowned for visiting the Dead Sea to enjoy mud wraps and bathing in the mineral-rich waters. The Romans took it to the next level, building massive public baths from one end of the empire to the other. In Japan, the onsen has been part of the fabric of social life at both outdoor and indoor facilities since the sixth century. It’s not just peoplewho like to bathe, as the Yunoyama onsen is known as the deer onsen because eight-century hunters…

While much has been said and written about the impact of drought and bushfires on our rural communities, scant attention has been paid to the impact it is having on the younger generation, the farmers of the future. An attempt was made to address that situation recently when a group of 88 young people aged from 15 to 25 and representing 57 affected communities was selected to represent the face of the future at the three-day UNICEF NSW Youth Drought Summit. Held at Lake Macquarie on the NSW central coast, the summit delegates included a contingent from Scots All Saints College in Bathurst. The students, who passed a rigorous application process, were Will Thomas from Tullamore, Holly Stokes from Nyngan, Felicity Webb from Oberon and Harriett Mitchell from Bourke. The…

COOMBER BROS Coomber Bros has been supplying customers with quality giftware and handcrafted jewellery since 1919. This gorgeous pink sapphire and diamond ring is set in 18-carat white gold. The company also specialises in cattle- and horse-brand jewellery. coomberbros.com.au THOMAS COOK The hard-wearing Thomas Cook women’s Chelsea boots in black, $169.95, feature a leather upper, lining and footbed, with a rubber sole and burnishing on toes and heels. thomascook.com.au BURT’S BEES Burt’s Bees Micellar facial towelettes, $9.99 for a pack of 30, cleanse and tone as they remove make-up. Made from repurposed cotton that’s smooth on the skin, the wipes contain rose water for soft fragrance and to protect and soothe irritated skin. burtsbees.com.au SOLEILO STORE Paula Ryan’s range of casual wear suits our relaxed lifestyle. The black and white…

Thanks for being in touch. We welcome your feedback. We appreciate your thoughts and in each issue, one correspondent wins a prize. Email Kirsty at kmckenzie@umco.com.au or write to us at Australian Country, Locked Bag 154, North Ryde NSW 1670. We reserve the right to edit lengthy letters before publication. Our favourite correspondent next issue will win a three-pack of Minimum low-intervention organic wines made by the Purbrick family on the Goulburn River. Just send us your thoughts on the magazine and its stories to be in the running to win this wonderful prize.…

FEBRUARY 22 (VIC) TREE OF STRINGS AT CLOUDEHILL Grab your picnic rug, fold-up chair and your friends and head to Cloudehill Gardens in the Dandenong Ranges for an evening of chamber music. The Evergreen Ensemble will present Tree of Strings, the evocative music of Ireland, both traditional and baroque. Regulars on ABC Radio National, this brilliant period-instrument ensemble often appears with the Pinchgut Opera group. This recital will feature the celebrated singer/harpist Claire Patti. facebook. com/events/2350674118580138/ MARCH 7-8 (VIC) TWELFTH NIGHT AT CLOUDEHILL Cloudehill’s twilight event series closes with a grand finale of Shakespeare during the long weekend in March. Ozact returns this year to perform that most brilliant of Shakespeare’s comedies Twelfth Night. This is a bustling kaleidoscope of mistaken identities, larger-than-life characters, swashbuckling duels and flashing wit. facebook.com/…

Bill Gebhardt is a part of history in South Australia’s mid-north. He lives on Mokota, a farm that’s been in his family for five generations. Following tradition, Bill and his wife, Peg, handed over the original Mount Cone homestead to Bill’s son, William. Bill and Peg still live on the property and share the land they continue working, with William and his family. Bill’s a local face in Burra’s small community, where he’s also a member of council, just like his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him. “My son, Will, is living in the house where I was born and raised,” Bill says. “We’ve all lived there, my son, me and my father. Dad was the one who built the place. I’d never shifted until six years ago…

They say you have to go away to appreciate what you have at home. For Peter and Roberta Doneley, who live on Dunraven station near Barcaldine in Queensland’s central-west, it was a group tour to WA’s Kimberley that prompted them to open their home to tourism. “We had a fantastic trip and saw lots of amazing things,” Roberta recalls. “But there was an underlying sense that even though we were travelling through stations, we weren’t actually learning much about the way the places were run — the nitty gritty details such as carrying capacities, how the livestock were managed and how the owners were dealing with challenges. We remembered having stayed on farm B&Bs in New Zealand and how fondly we recalled the owners showing us around and sharing their…

It may be hard to imagine now, but when Anne Ward arrived at Gayton, her newly minted husband, Mark, was inordinately proud that there was wheat growing up to the front verandah. Anne suggested that a garden might be nice and, at the time, constructing a fence with a radius of about 10 metres from what was then a ripple-iron cottage with an outdoor loo and copper for doing the laundry seemed a massive commitment. The garden, however, grow’d like Topsy and these days covers a showpiece hectare around the considerably extended homestead. Gayton was originally part of a post-WWII soldier settler land subdivision near Canowindra in the NSW central-west. Part of the property is blessed to be on the Belubula River “green gold”, a strip of self-watering river flat…

So that’s it. In the split second that it takes for the auctioneer’s hammer to fall, my childhood home now belongs to another family. How is it even possible to feel so emotionally attached to a place where I haven’t lived for close on 50 years? Family history, I guess, overladen with nostalgia and a good measure of gratitude. When my grandparents, Septimus and Edith McKenzie, drew a soldier settler block in the Aramac district in 1930, they were so excited that they named their newborn Alistair Roderick Alexander (ARA McK). They moved all their goods and chattels on the back of a dray to their new home. And that dray is still standing, albeit a bit the worse for wear, in one of the paddocks. Fiercely proud of their…

... we again showcase the amazing diversity of the Australian countryside with stories from the coast to the outback. We start in Victoria, where we visit Virginia and Bernie McIntosh at their beautiful Romswood peony farm in the Macedon Ranges. Then we head to Gippsland, where George Manis and his partner, Robert Buchan, have restored a gorgeous cottage and garden in Korumburra. Next stop is Echuca and historic Wharparilla homestead on the banks of the Murray River. In NSW, we revisit artist Leeanne Crisp and her partner, chef and sculptor Janet Jeffs, at their home and studios in the shearing shed and barn on Ballalaba, near Braidwood. We detour to the south coast where Christina Kennedy has devoted more than two decades to creating a sensational native garden on Horse…