When we were kids, we spent a few vacations on farms. We called them ‘farm holidays’ and they are a fond – if fading – memory of my childhood.
I seem to recall we did this at least three times, maybe more. I was probably under 10 at the time, and I’m sure the holidays occurred in the summer (around January) when school was out. We’d all pile into the car with supplies and drive what seemed like forever until we arrived, then spend a while (a week?) living on the farm, seeing how it worked and using it as a base for day trips.
I think the destinations were country New South Wales, Locations like Kempsey and Tamworth spring to mind, but maybe they were just towns we drove through on the way. The drives themselves were exciting, as Bernard and I would play games in the back seat and we’d often stop for lollies in small towns or at petrol stations. I recall getting a few smurfs at BP on one of these drives, which would date it to about 1980.
I think it was the earliest farm we stayed at that had pigs and a large homestead shaded by gum trees. I recall sleeping in a bunk bed in a room without any glass in the windows (just screens for insects). There was a massive storm one night and I was scared of the lightning! I rode on a tractor with a farmer as he did some chores, playing with pigs and horses, and ate sausages almost every meal.
We also visited a wheat farm. The fields seemed to go forever, and during that stay I went with some older boys while they hunted rabbits with a bow in a nearby grove (they never hit any). I desperately wanted to shoot the bow myself but didn’t have the strength to pull it back. My memories of this place are very dim. I don’t recall exactly where we stayed or for how long. Maybe it wasn’t an actual holiday but we were just visiting someone? Mostly I can just remember the wheat fields.
There was also one time we took out cat Louis with us! He was free in the car as we drove, but mostly sat in the back window behind Bernard and I. We stayed in an old homestead on a hill that time, and a river wound around. Louis had the range of the house and I think we even let him outside! I don’t really remember much farming at that stay; maybe mum and dad just rented the house like a sort of early outback Airbnb. This place came with a little boat we used to take out onto the river, and I can remember long hours playing on the water even amidst the threat of horse flies. I think we did fireworks there as well, which confuses me since it wouldn’t have been cracker night.
I think it was on that trip that I saw a kangaroo out the window of the house and ran outside to find it but it had already gone. I think it was also that trip I collected grasshoppers in my Bug Catcher and released them in the house 🙂
I can recall getting sick enough on one of these trips that I was taken to hospital, although that may have been when we visited Canberra in the late 70s. I can vividly recall one time staying in a motel (again, on the way or way back) that had an arcade and Bernard and I spent time playing Tempest and Galaxian while mum and dad went to the bar! That would have dated it to about 1981. I think we ate chinese at a restaurant at that motel, which seems unremarkable now but was quite an event for us in those years.
All these are fleeting memories, or possibly bits and pieces of different memories arranged incorrectly. Given how little I recall I have a profound fondness for these holidays. No-one else I knew used to do this (they’d go placed like Queensland or New Zealand) and I felt special as a result. I’m sure cost was one reason our family did such holidays, but maybe mum and dad just had the foresight to know that staying on a farm would be more of an adventure for boys of our age.
I did some research and this type of vacation is still very much in existence. They are called ‘Farm Stays’ now, and there are many websites catering to people interested in booking farmhouses or even staying on working farms. It’s nice to know families today can still have the same type of holiday we had over 35 years ago.
Bernard and I have booked out next Australian trip, and it will include a lazy drive from Queensland to Newcastle down the NSW coast. I suspect some of the places we drive through – Grafton, Taree, Kempsey – may hold long-forgotten memories of my youth. Maybe during that drive some of it will come back to me…
