The Cubby House

Haven't you always wanted to visit somewhere called Running Stream? We did one better and stayed there this weekend at The Cubby House with John, Leanne, Noah and Charlie. The Cubby House was first visited by Jules, Rae and the children back in March of this year - the kids loved it so much that they insisted we go back so that I could see it too. It's a 1,000 acre farm with cows, sheep, goats, horses, chooks, ducks, dogs and most importantly 6 week old puppies who were fabulous babysitters!

Leanne and I drove up after work on the Thursday night and after one of the coldest nights of my life where I think I got a max of 3 hours sleep we woke to an equally freezing day. Too freezing for even Tom to want to go outside so we headed off on a road trip - first stop Foxwood Farm Cafe for apple and blackberry pies. The Cafe had a lovely warm fire inside and lots of peaceful looking customers so we decided that in spite of the sub zero temperatures we had to stay outside with our rabble! We then headed off in search of some milk to a town called Sofala that Leanne remembered visiting about 20 years ago with her parents and which is an old gold-mining town with a population of 206 and a fairly run down air. The general store was closed "due to an emergency" the sign said so we stopped at the local post office where they kindly explained that the owner of the general store is a member of the State Emergency Services and therefore has to drop everything when she receives a call, "and goodness knows what she does if she's in the middle of cooking fish and chips or a burger"??!! When I asked where the nearest place might be to buy milk they were most bemused by my response of "I don't know" in regard to which direction I was headed but all was fine after I'd bought 4 lollipops and did the adding up myself.

The boys arrived at 11pm on Friday night armed with coats, hats, gloves and lots of indoor activities for the kids and we woke up on Saturday morning to the most glorious spring day with not a cloud in the sky. By this stage the kids had discovered the puppies so we sat on the grass in front of the house soaking up the sun. The owners of the farm are amazing hosts and the kids were allowed to help dig up potatoes, carrots and turnips from the veggie patch, they were taken to feed the sheep, went for a truck ride around the property including afternoon tea with homemade chocolate muffins and the farmers children were equally hospitable sharing bikes, taking the kids to feed the horses, playing with them and the puppies, putting on a magic show and a recorder recital and generally ensuring that we all had an amazing time. I think we'll be going back there!