Byron’s family owns a jewelry store with a few locations in Sydney, appropriately named Bunda. It’s primarily run by his Uncle Ben, who is the jewelry designer, but his grandmother comes in to work some days as well. Today we drove into the city with her, experienced Sydney traffic, and saw the jewelry store while the employees were more than helpful at making sure we were comfortable and even planned part of our day.
We only had an hour or so before we had to catch a train out of the city to spend some time at Uncle Ben’s house, so we strolled around Darling Harbor and had lunch in Chinatown.
The three hour train ride took us past rolling hills, farms, and little towns until we got to Fitzroy Falls where Ben and his three young kids were waiting for us.
Ben drove us farther away from “town” and the general store, past more rolling hills and woods until he pulled down a windy dirt road that eventually ended in front of a cute cottage-styled house. We were warned to respect the wildlife out there as they had lost a cat to a snake and had some run ins with leeches and various other critters. Aside from the wildlife, the property was beautiful and had frog ponds, lemon trees, and lots of trails for dirt biking.
The family prepared a huge Australian lamb and potato dinner which we devoured. The rest of the evening involved chasing the littlest boy and getting him to go back to bed while corralling the little Rottweiler puppy to try to avoid the inevitable accident on the carpet. It felt good to be a part of the chaos and feel like we were back at home as just part of the fam’.
