Mountaintop

We just got back from one of the best holidays we’ve ever had. Our cabin was located at the top of a mountain ridge with a view all the way down the Paterson Valley. I honestly could watch that view for the rest of my life. The resort did a fantastic job of making you feel that you were in a remote location, yet providing lots of useful amenities. Every evening you could go to the local restaurant and eat amazing food and drink fabulous wine. Yet most of the time you were hardly aware there were other people around. Chris and I went on a couple of hikes where we got freaked out that we were seemingly the only ones for miles, and if one of us tripped or had an accident it would’ve been tough getting help.

Our cabin was amazing: two bedrooms, spa bath in the bathroom, open fire (which required me dusting off my fire lighting skills – I forgot what an art it is!), and a porch you could settle into for an hour or more and wonder where the time went. We walked, we saw, we ate, we slept, we read, and we watching only a little bit of telly. Rose loved it. She loved the walks, and seeing kangaroos. She also loved crawling around our cabin opening every door in the place. Her favorite was the bathroom (we don’t let her into ours at home) – she sat there opening and closing the drawers, hiding objects and finding them again.

It didn’t start out that way. Our drive to the Hunter Valley was miserable: pelting rain, ominous signs of flooding everywhere (“Hey, look at that pond…. with the trees in the middle and the row of fencing leading into it”) and increasing remoteness. And then we got to the road where the resort was located – it was closed. Due to flooding. A quick phone call and we had to re-route along a long unsealed and potholed road. Where the hell were we going? A long winding drive up the side of a mountain had us even more sceptical – were we going to be in a remote cabin somewhere where we couldn’t leave if the whole valley got flooded? My fertile imagination, fueled by 80s horror movies (chiefly “Evil Dead”) was on overdrive.

But, fortunately, that all ended when we arrived. The rest of the time felt like we were nestled in a very private, beautiful, fantastic part of the world. I didn’t spend a lot of time taking photos, but I’ve uploaded a few to flickr.

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