Back home again! Home for us is the lands of the Terrameragal people of the Dharug nation, and we’re so grateful that we get to live, play and rest on these lands they’ve been on for tens of thousands of years.
Before we headed toward home, we headed further north from Coonabarabran to Pilliga Pottery. It’s a beautiful farmstay and pottery workshop about half an hour away from Coonabarabran. Today was initially just going to be a “drive home” day, but Debbie spotted this place and the chance to do a pottery class for a short time this morning! It’s a beautiful location at the end of a 10km dirt road. As we walked in, they have a shop filled with beautiful pottery creations – including some really amazing mugs (my weakness).
We sat down at a long table with Karen, who was our pottery teacher for the morning. She had a great dry sense of humour, and really involved the kids in the whole process and made it incredibly fun for them – and for us! We got to make our own little “treasure dish”, using a bunch of different techniques that Karen talked us through. There were plenty of different ways to decorate the dishes, and we each ended up with our own unique dish. They will take about 6 weeks to get to us – they obviously have to dry them and then fire them – so it will be a nice surprise in the mail in a bunch of weeks!
Before we left, we grabbed some homemade gelato from their little cafe on-site, which was delicious. And I browsed through all the amazing pottery that was in their little shop area – it was all handmade on site, and some of the pieces were just incredible. I ended up coming away with a couple of mugs, in a beautiful matching green & silver glaze.
We started the journey home – it was a bit over 5 and a half hours home, and so we broke it up with a few stops along the way. Our first stop was in Dunedoo, which was a suggestion from the Coonabarabran Visitor Information Centre – because we needed to try the pies for lunch! So one more takeaway lunch on the road was in order.
And then from Dunedoo, it was just a long slog of two stints of about 2 hours each. We followed the Golden Hwy as it headed west towards the Hunter so we could avoid coming back home across the Blue Mountains, and after a brief stop for some afternoon tea and petrol, we were on the M1 heading home.
Of course it’s great to be back in Sydney and back home – but it was yet again an amazing experience getting out to explore more of God’s creation outside of our little bubble. It brings us such joy as a family to be out and exploring, and we truly love that our kids find such joy in it as well!
Til next time? ✌🏻
