Home Sweet Home on the Faulkner Family Farm

Faulkner Family Farm

I’ve made this “list” during my trip, a list of places where I could see myself living after I complete
The Loong Way Home.  Without disclosing all the places, I will say that every single location is a hustling and bustling city with the outdoors close by.  They are great bases for exploring the surrounding region, rather than places I would settle down permanently.  Up until now, I’ve been so driven, determined, and motivated pedaling, wrapped up in my travels, I didn’t really see myself settling down in the near future.  There are too many places to cycle and explore in this world that have captivated my attention! That is the mentality I’ve had for the first 6 months of my trip, until now, when suddenly that has all changed.

Recently I reached the Australian countryside, visited some friends on a farm, and I’m overcome with unexpected nostalgia.  I feel as though I’m home, when in fact I’m about 15,000 kilometers from a place that I call home.  Perhaps it is because I’ve had about 10 rest days in the last two weeks, which is the most “settled” I’ve felt during my entire trip. I didn’t realize how much I needed some time off the bike until I came to Mudgee.  Now I have to hop on the saddle again and for the first time I have a lump in my throat, the kind you have when you are on the verge of tears.  I’m sad and upset that I have to leave.  On the farm yesterday morning I was surprised to hear my own words out of my mouth.  “Stu, I could do this; I could settle down and live on a farm and take care of the cows and animals and be the happiest wife, mom, and/or farm girl in the world”.  Usually I’m so overwhelmed by all the place I want to travel and cycle that I can’t sit still.  But here I was on a beautiful farm in Southeast Australia, outside a town called Mudgee, completely content and ready to settle down.  On my first morning, I woke up to gorgeous lush farm fields with cows grazing, the sound of crickets chirping, and the smell of crisp fresh air.  I had no desire to do anything other than just relax and enjoy my surroundings and the Faulkner family.

Always a good laught wtih Stu and Spud in the Pyrenees on the TBT Tour de France trip

Our little reunion, all dressed up!

Mudgee wasn’t even on my itinerary, but a Thomson Bike Tour client of mine from 2011 wouldn’t stop pestering me on Facebook if I didn’t work his little town into my tour of Australia.  It’s a quaint little town of 10,000 people, three and a half hours northwest of Sydney.  The Faulkner family moved here four years ago when they decided to leave Avalon, an northern upscale beach suburb of Sydney.  Tending to a farm was a totally foreign idea to Stu who used to be a stockbroker, but he and Kersti, decided to leave the city life to settle in Australian’s countryside and raise their family of four.  Just shy of a week’s visit with the Faulkner’s in both the Victorian Alps and back home in Mudgee, I feel like I had become part of their family.  There is definitely something magical about Mudgee and being on a farm that feels so peaceful and appealing to me. They have 250 acres of land with chickens, cattle, cabins, and a lake.  Their house is extremely calm and peaceful, even with four active kids.

Taking the 4x4 for a test drive

Their unique belted boutique cows

After returning from our big bike race in the Victorian Alps, I spent my first day at the Faulkner’s completely relaxing.  I was craving some down time.   I didn’t move from their kitchen counter all day, catching up on emails, route planning, and talking with Kersti as she worked around the house. There was familiar feel to their house that reminded me of my childhood.  As kids, we spent the majority of our time after school outside playing in the yard.  After school and homework, Stu and Kersti’s kids were jumping on the trampoline, swimming in the pool, playing catch in the yard, and running around the hills. Stu came home that afternoon and brought me out on the tractor to see the land and his cattle.  His cows are a special “belted” variety called, hence the saying on the bike kit that he made for us makes sense, “Get Belted”, Peppertree Farm, Mudgee, Australia.   Just as much as I enjoyed my tour of the farm, I appreciated our talks.  Stu and I had a bit of history from our riding in the Pyrenees, which made for some great conversations about life in general.  Lots of times on my trip, the conversation revolves around my biking, and although I like to share my experiences, it is great to have “normal” conversations.  It gave me the opportunity to reflect and realize that my outlook on life has changed recently due to my travels.  

My second day at the Faulkner’s was totally different. At 7 am that morning, with a coffee in his hand, Stu woke me up. There was no time to rest and relax, as there was lots of work to be done and little did I know, I was a crucial part of tackling it all!  I thought he joking thinking he was pestering me with his normal humor.  Foolishly I took a shower to freshen up and put on one of my two outfits I have and went to have breakfast with the family.  Rather than good morning, Stu looked at me and said, “Mel, we are going to have to give you some old clothes, if those cows charge you or get any of this medicine on you, it will ruin those clothes.” I tried not to look surprised, but inside I was petrified. Was he seriously going to have me help me round the cows to give them an injection? I know nothing about cows and don’t think I’ve ever touched one in real life. Yesterday we talked to the livestock vet when he visited, and I knew he had some calves with an eye infection, but I didn’t think that I was going to be involved in treating them!  Not having any “old clothes” wasn’t a good enough excuse to get me out of the work.  Kersti lent me some old clothes and with another coffee in a travel mug, Stu and I set off on the tractor with a bunch of vitamin injections and tubes.

Not one, but three different injections

He showed me how to drive the 4x4 cart, so I went up ahead and shut off the gates so the cows wouldn’t escape to an outlying paddock (a pasture in American English).  There was a group of about 15 young calves who had an eye infection and needed some vitamin injections. We had to herd them into a special area and one by one close them in a mechanical head lock to give them an injection and put ointment in their eyes.  Stu gave me a quick demo making it look so easy and then it was my turn.  I’m a pretty big wimp when it comes to caring for animals.  Maybe if I were a mom I would be a bit tougher and have more experience with things like shots, but I don’t like to cause any harm or pain to others.  I felt bad for the cows getting them in a headlock position let alone giving them 3 injections.  If I didn’t put the headlock down correctly they’d run through and join the other cows and we’d have to start all over again.  If the headlock was too high they start frothing at the mouth, too low and I can’t reach them for a shot.  This was hard work!  In order to inject them right you had to pull out their skin and get the needle running parallel to their collarbone.  Their skin was so think it was hard to get the needle to penetrate and Stu laugh as my style looked like I was aggressively stabbing them.  I talked to the poor little guys the entire time I was with them and apologized for my actions, but to tell you the truth, they didn’t seem as disturbed as I was distraught by the whole experience. 

In the end I got pretty good and I whipped through the last 5 cows like it was nobody’s business, but I do have to admit that I’m much better in the kitchen than I am out in the field, although I enjoyed being out there. There’s something about the wide open space and the peaceful stillness on a farm that it is calming.  It’s like time has stopped out here, and the chaos and commotion of a big city so far removed.  You get completely wrapped up and absorbed in life’s simplicity on a farm. Not to mention, Kersti and Stu took really good care of me, so I felt like I was right at home. 

My school visit, even Stu and little Eaddie joined us

That afternoon I had a really nice visit at the kid’s local school.  Three of their four children go to the same primary school in town, so we combined their classes and I talked with them.  In the evenings, Spud came over for dinner and we had a lot of good laughs telling stories from the weekend and the Pyrenees bike tour.  The following morning sadly, it was time for me to leave.  With the kids in school, both Kersti and Stu were able to ride with me for the first 50 kilometers of my trip to Sydney.  I was reluctant to say goodbye, it had been such a great visit and so refreshing and different from my normal routine on my bike.  I had been Stu’s ride leader for one week in the Pyrenees, and granted you get to know someone really well when you spend 6 to 8 hours with them on the bike and your evenings back at the hotel wining and dining, but I never would have thought that such a strong relationship would have developed from our time together with Thomson Bike Tour.  I hope they take me up on my offer to come back and baby-sit for their kids while they go off on holiday, I’d love any reason to go back and be on their farm again in the future!

My escorts for the first 50 to Sydney

And Just Like That They're Gone!

Visiting The Catlins down south on the South Island, New Zealand 

My parent’s visit almost feels surreal now. They’ve come and gone and it feels’d like we never had been apart nor skipped a beat.  From the start of my trip planning, I was hoping my parents would visit me at some point along my route.  Ever since I can remember them talking about their retirement years, they wanted to visit New Zealand and Australia.  Therefore, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have them come while I was riding the south island of New Zealand and through parts of Australia.

The logistics of meeting up were a bit complicated and caused for some headaches.  It is hard to plan a detailed itinerary and solidify specific dates when you travel by bike. I had a rough idea where I would be at different times of the year, but in order to meet them it meant sticking to a specific route, specific day and place to find each other.  It just so happened that Cromwell, New Zealand was where we met up after not seeing each other for a year.  That morning, I left a message with the receptionist at the hotel we reserved for them to come and find me on route 8 heading south towards Cromwell. I knew they were in a gray Toyota Corolla, but the rental cars in New Zealand are either Toyota Corolla’s or Rav 4s.  In the early afternoon, between a long sparse stretch of road, I heard a honk from an oncoming car.  This car continued to honk and soon there was a hand waving profusely out the window.  Ta Dah! Magically they had found me!

Part of the perk of having Mom and Dad along was that they could relieve me of some extra weight 

We spent the next 5 days together exploring the far south of the south island by car rather than bike.  For me, it was a nice break from riding, and a true delight to have some familiar company.  It’s one thing to visit family and friends on familiar territory, but it’s a completely different story for both of us to be out of familiar territory traveling.  My parents have done a fair bit of traveling prior to kids, and as a family we did a lot of road trips on the west coast of the United States.  They were abroad a few times to visit some of us who decided to study abroad in college and then most recently, they traveled to Barcelona a couple of times while I was living there.  This trip however, marked a new type of travel for my parents due to the unique nature of accompanying someone traveling on bike.  For my dad, who likes to have everything planned, it was difficult to fathom not pre-booking hotels and flights or having a day-by-day itinerary.   Six months into my trip, this style of traveling has become my reality, but I had to change my mindset slightly when I was with them. 

They deserve an award for being such flexible travelers and coming all the way from Oregon to find me on my bike

From New Zealand to The Great Ocean Road, we covered a lot of territory together

It seemed that almost anywhere we went in New Zealand there was some holiday, event, festival, or race, which made finding a hotel challenging.  Traveling with a tent you rarely think about fully booked accommodation.  Thankfully we never failed to find a hotel which always seemed luxurious to me!  In fact, I was able to restock my supply of tea, coffee, and toiletries!  We ate at small cafes for lunch and usually tried the local ice cream for a mid-afternoon snack and dined in nice restaurants during the evening.  The meals were a nice change from my supermarket picnics and basic cooked dinners at the campgrounds.  The sounds of snores replaced the melody of nighttime bugs and small rodents so I felt right at home.

Queenstown, New Zealand

When we said good-bye to each other in Queenstown, New Zealand, I went on my way to a school visit then up and over to the west coast, completing my loop of the south.  They drove off through the interior and around to the northeast to complete their figure eight itinerary.  My parents flew over to Melbourne about a week before I did and had some time to explore the area.  Upon my arrival we started the Great Ocean Road, only this time I was on my bike and not a passenger in their car.  Of course it took me much longer to cycle the distance to the hotel than them, but we had designated lunch and rest stops to meet up and they found me several times along the road and cheered me on from the car.  I even cheated for those days and rode with 2 bags rather than 5! It is hard for me to ride without any weight because I wobble all over the place and feel naked!

It’s funny how time apart makes you reflect more on the things you observe.  In my “normal” life, I see my family twice a year and talk weekly on Skype, but a year had passed since I saw them last. With so many hours on the bike, I’m know myself better as a person than ever before. When they arrived, all of a sudden I could see certain traits and quarks of my own personality in each of them.

Pops and me,...two lively souls

There’s no question about it, I’m full of energy.  Intense, determined, or stubborn some might say. This comes my Dad.  At 72, he’s got the energy of a 30 year old!  During our time together, he was always the first one up, dressed, and ready-to-go.  He’d eaten, loaded the car, and studied the itinerary while my mom and I were still in our pajamas making coffee.  Back in Barcelona I was just like him.  By 9am I’ve gone for an hour swim or run, was at work, reviewed my lessons for the day, sent emails, and ready for my kids to walk in still half asleep.  We’ve got constant energy that keeps us on the go.  We are task-oriented and can accomplish anything we put our minds to because of our determination.  My dad and I also have the same exact taste buds and appetite.  Without consulting one another, we can study a menu and out of all the dishes, we order the exact same item. Usually there are two or three options that sound appealing and since my mom is so easy going, she agrees to share with us.  I don’t advise sharing with my dad or myself since we always have a huge appetite, we are “territorial” when it comes to sharing a meal. My dad and I eat almost half of each of the dishes ourselves and my poor mom goes with the flow and gets whatever is left!  And our sweet tooth is incredible….makes for lots of great ice cream stops along the road. 

Hair salon "Pritchard Ladies"....we did a pretty good job!

By no means is my mom lacking energy, after all, she was a full time “stay-at-home” mom of 5 extremely active kids.  However, she is more laid back and believe it or not, some of this has been passed down to me!  When you take me out of my normal daily routine, I can tone down the intensity and relax (promise)!  In fact, sometimes I disconnect and my mind wanders so much that I might get a bit spacey, i.e. missing road turns on my route and leave my passport.  For us, nothing is ever a huge problem. We can go with the flow and believe that things will just work out in the end.  This has been a saving grace on my trip, combined with my relentless energy.  From my mom, I also get my passion to create, use my hands artistically, and make things, from sewing, cooking, jewelry, and ceramics.  Before this trip, I never would have attempted to cut my hair myself, nor would I let my mom touch it.  Yet, together we figured out how to do it and she helped me out with my third hair cut, all done resourcefully with the mini scissors in my pocketknife and the utensils found in our hotel’s kitchenette.

Nothing beats a familiar home cooked meal

What I appreciate most from my parents in the simple values they instilled in me as I was growing up, which I also noticed on our trip.  There were some days where a trip to the supermarket for bread and cheese became a delicious picnic and when we cooked in our apartment, craving a familiar recipe from home.  Growing up in the Pritchard family we never had anything fancy or a need to consume and fall into the materialism trap.  The Pritchard kids found joy and pleasure in the basic things in life from home-cooked family meals, endless hours of entertainment outside in the yard playing together, and family holidays in the car to a lot of National Parks, monuments and regional sights.  I am forever grateful for these values because even on a bike with 3 bags of possessions and pedaling 100 km a day, I am the happiest young lady in the world!

My parents were real “troopers”, to make the effort to come all the way to the other side of the world to visit me.  They had to be completely flexible with their itinerary in order to accommodate my mode of transportation but ended up turning their trip into a 6-week holiday, doing the Australia and New Zealand trip I had heard about for years!  I have a few other visits along my route in Australia with friends, which I’m looking forward to.  It’s great to be able to meet up with people I haven’t seen for a while, a definite perk to traveling around the world especially with my global network of friends!