It is the second time I visited here, but to be honest with you, I still can’t quite get where exactly Fairview is located on the earth. All I know is, this place is half an hour drive from Tumbarumba township on one end and on the other end, it about another 40 minutes from Tarcutta. We had tried both ways so far. This Saturday we came in through a big pine forest over the mountain and luckily saw some emus crossing by. My perception is, it doesn’t really matter which way you go, you will always have to pass by a phase of the road which is unsealed and definitely would make you eventually realise, “oh, this is the COUNTRY”.

But there is one thing that I certainly know well, and that is, “FAIRVIEW HAS IT ALL” – beautiful mountain view, never-end green landscape scattered with black cattle with white face, two horses Jumbo and Mary, son and mother, old dog Blix, cats Tom and Urki, a little creek plus a self-built dam, a huge shed, so many old trees and a garden that I would never be able to explore all parts of it, beautiful house with French doors everywhere opening to a fantastic view from every angle, a large collection of the pieces and bits of art, paintings, sculptures and other items collected from all over the world. I even got to play Chopin on a grand piano in a house with open fire place.

In the morning, I got up early, went out and breath in the very first puff of the fresh air offered by the country mountain, listening to sound of creek water hitting the rocks and going between all the branches of bushes. My husband played with Jumbo and tried to feed him with a piece of apple (it didn’t turn out terribly successful) and he seemed really enjoy filling the wood into the fire place. I picked some lemons at the side of the house the other day. We four people prepared the dinner and made every night’s meal a big feast. We sat around table and fire hours and hours eating, chatting, playing with Tom, watching DVD. I slept at the night listening to the rain and imagining what the weather would look like the next day. We went to hunting that afternoon, well not so much hunting, I should say shooting. Everybody got their shot with two different riffles. That paper box with a white piece of paper as the target got hit with many little bullet holes at the last, and everybody was happy. And we went for a drive through the little bush again in a 1977′s Ford. Gods know where we were, but I don’t think there was anybody really worrying about running out of the petrol. We drove and drove and eventually drove back to “Fairview”.

I just constantly got amazed with the changing colours and lightings of Fairview and its surrounding view. I believe that none of modern technology (camera or video camera) would even make it close to what I have really seen over these 4 days. Human’s eyes are the best. They can’t play back, but they collect everything we see and leave them into our mind. And that memory, probably is going to last as long as we would like to last or till one day we can not.

That’s why at the end of the trip, I feel compelled to write a separate post about this beautiful property, not just a few lines of words mentioning about it, as it just won’t be enough.

Fairview is the very core of this whole trip, and it is a reflection of June and Marv’s many years effort after their retirement. I see it and I can see through people’s souls. It is an exciting collection and wonderful celebration of people’s youth, their dream about the lifestyle they pursue, the family history back to several generations down the track, their life experience about the world, and their passion about the life itself.

I think one day I would really love to go back.