Country Life

Ten years ago my best friend Andy did a teaching practicum in the "outback" of Australia. His host family was the McKays from Warren NSW, population 2000. This fall Andy's wife Jackie was messaging with Toni McKay and mentioned that Jenn and I are in Australia and wondered if we could travel out to the farm for a visit. We are so thankful for our great friends, Andy and Jackie, for introducing us to Toni, John, and their family. What an amazing "real" Aussie experience it was!

We traveled 600km by train and bus from Sydney to Warren. The setting sun over the dry brown fields of cattle and sheep country was a beautiful sight. Warren is a wheat and cotton growing region Temperatures this time of year should be over 30 but it was unusually cool for our visit. John took us on a tour of his 8000 acre farm. We drove through dry wheat, chickpea and cotton fields. Mobs of kangaroos were bouncing between patches of forest cover and stream beds. We even saw a family of exotic looking but native emus running along side the pickup. As we were driving John explained the challenges of farming in this part of Australia. Since the year 2000 Mother Nature has brought years of drought interspersed with seasonal floods. Water is the lifeline for the success of farm life here. There is simply less water to go around these days. Warren is a small but still thriving rural town with an active main street, a few pubs, and quaint schools. There is a real positive community feel here. Our host Toni knows everyone around town and it feels like a tight knit community. We experienced an Aussie summer tradition, a cricket match. We had a picnic dinner watching John and John Jr play cricket against a neighbouring town. We had a late night debate about which was worse, living with bears in Canada or snakes down under. Our Aussie host said they would rather live with snakes... They are so wrong. Toni killed a brown snake (deadly) in the yard only a few days before our arrival. We spent the afternoon fishing by the river (Jenn caught a big carp!) and enjoying the amazing hospitality of our new Aussie friends. Toni and John are two of the most welcoming, generous, kind, and fun people I have ever meet. It was a trip to remember.
Check out the video below. Scout is the McKay's pet kangaroo.