Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Camping at Grenville

At Easter we were very fortunate to be invited camping by good friends of ours, Adam and Jenny.

Jenny's extended family has a 1,000ha merino sheep property at Grenville. For the uninitiated, Grenville is just south of Buninyong which is just south of Ballarat.

We packed the camper with our belongings and headed out in convoy with Adam/Jenny and Phil/Kerrie. The three carloads of us would meet up with Jenny's parents and her sister and brother in law. 18 people in total.

I couldn't find my way back there unassisted. A combination of being over the other side of the Westgate Bridge and a whole bunch of country back roads meant I had no idea where I was nor where I was headed. Thank goodness Adam and Jenny were leading.

About 10 minutes from our destination we came across a bloke who had managed to get his 4WD twin cab ute stuck by going off road in an attempt to go around a tree that had fallen across the road. Lucky for him there were three strong blokes and a chainsaw to help him out!

Shortly after doing our good deed for the day we arrived at the farm and set to work establishing the camp site and putting up the camper. Thank goodness we elected not to bother with the annex this time. Job done in about 20 minutes :)

The property is not totally cleared, so there are several areas that are perfect for camping. We were nestled in among some gum trees and a great big spread of ferns. It was lovely.

Apart from breakfast, Jenny had put together a menu and catered for everybody. This made meal time very simple and communal. Jenny went as far as to bring a few house bricks and two tubs of clay from her back yard. What for, I hear you say? To build a wood fired pizza oven. And it worked a treat. Wood fired pizzas, in the bush from a newly constructed oven. Magnificent.

Jenny's father, Tim, is a keen shooter and was kind enough to teach Patrick how to shoot a rifle and shotgun as well as to reacquaint both Karen and myself with firearms. First was an afternoon of clay target shooting at which we all managed to hit some targets! Bonus. Over the course of the weekend we went spotlighting for rabbits using a .22 rifle. Karen and Patrick both tried their hand at rabbit shooting, however the offending rabbits were spared their lives on this occasion. While I didn't take a turn at shooting rabbits I did manage to catch 3 - barehanded. What a thrill!

During our visit we took a drive to Buninyong for lunch one day, rode our bikes around the property and the kids made their own fun just like we used to do as kids. It was a great way to spend the Easter break and for that we thank everybody for their hospitality and friendship, especially Jenny and family for inviting us to share Easter together.

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