In a new home

We are more or settled in our new home now. The boxes in the main living areas of the house are unpacked, although there are still lots of boxes in the spare room and garage. I'm looking forward to spending some time next week arranging my plants and buying some vegetable seedlings for the garden, although I will probably need to plant them in pots because there isn't any real place in the garden for them. People here are very garden-proud so I don't want to upset the landlord by disturbing things too much.

Today we experienced a bit of rural Australian "culture". We travelled about an hour west to the Australian Camp Oven Festival at Millmerran. There were an amazing number of people there, with huge camper vans and caravans complete with satellite dishes on top so as not to miss the important TV events.

It was pretty hot, over 30 even though it's only early October, so we tried to stay out of the sun as much as we could. Entertainment included music of both kinds (country and Western), yodelling, plus a display of sheep dog skills herding ducks instead of sheep.









There were all kinds of activities related to rural Australia in general, including blacksmithing.

An extensive display of old machinery included pumps of all shapes and sizes, and vintage cars.

And of course, the feature of the day was camp ovens, with cooking demonstrations and competitions, camp ovens of all sizes for sale, and of course food of various kinds cooked in camp ovens. The damper was delicious!

All in all it was a fascinating and fun example of a rural Australian festival.