Harvey

Today saw us take a trip to the pretty town of Harvey.Years ago when Megan and Daniel were only little we used to live near there and spent quite a bit of time around Harvey. It is a very pretty place. A very green place. There are lots of beautiful dairy cows there. Todays' visit was to catch up with my Uncle and take him out for lunch for his upcoming birthday. The three of us along with Mum and Dad went down there for the day. It was a lovely day, although stinking hot. We spent the majority of the day doing the aussie salute! The flies were shocking.

I will probably get into trouble for putting this one on the blog - oh well!

This is where we had lunch, Stirling Cottage. This particular cottage is a replica of the original cottage that was built in the mid 1800's.The original had fallen into major disrepair by the late 1960's, so on the 9th October 1994 the replica Stirling Cottage pictured above was opened to the public. I can't believe it, but I actually forgot to get a photo from the back of the cottage which has a deck that juts out over the Harvey River and is a nice spot to sit and eat lunch. As today was so stinking hot we chose to sit inside, in the cool, with the air conditioning.

The original Stirling Cottage was built by convicts and was home to many pioneering farming families including the family of May Gibbs, famous for her children's books of which Snugglepot and Cuddlepie is well known. May Gibbs and her family lived in the cottage in 1885 and 1886. It is thought that this is where May Gibbs created Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, whilst riding her pony through the surrounding bush, she would stop and do drawings and paintings of the bush around her.

I feel a bit funny posting pictures of the public toilets, but they are a cute idea.

Once again they are a replica, based on the original cottage's stables...

hence the colts for the boys and fillies for the ladies!

But you will be very pleased to know they were indeed very

modern inside!!

The above four photos I took of the paintings that have been done by local artists and they are at the entrance to the Harvey Visitors Centre and Moo Shoppe. The Moo Shoppe has all kinds of giftware and trinkets, not only to do with the local dairy cows, but also other Australian birds and animals. I crossed one Christmas present off the list whilst I was in there! Hard to believe it is only 39 days until Christmas!!

Both going down and coming back up the Coalfields Highway we got stuck behind oversize vehicles. This monster was the biggest one, he was so big he took up the whole entire highway. Luckily for us we weren't stuck behind him for too long before he and all his support vehicles (there were another 3 in front of him as well as the truck and van directly behind him) were able to pull into an area off the highway, and the long stream of traffic was able to get past.

I took sooo many photos today, I think I will come back tomorrow with part 2 which will show the lovely gardens surrounding Stirling Cottage and the Harvey river. In fact I think I will do it in three parts as I also took quite a few photos out at the Harvey Dam, that we also visited before heading for home. I didn't take any photos of our meals, because I always feel really self conscious doing that sort of thing, but get me out in the gardens and I snap away like crazy. Even though I didn't take any photos of the meals we all thoroughly enjoyed what we had to eat. And with that I am going to go and raid the fridge. None of us really felt like eating when we got home as we were still full from lunch and also it was just too hot, but I am starting to get a bit peckish now.

So Stirling Cottage at Harvey is well worth a visit and I will be back tomorrow with photos of the gardens.