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Gosford to Antrim Farm and back

“You will never find time for anything. You must make it.”

Charles Buxton

Narara to Broke and back

Time for another run but time in the day was short and with the target area being well known for kangaroos on the country roads in dusk, I took the uninspiring motorway route and turned left to ride through the Hunter Valley which had some beautiful sights in itself before pulling into the gorgeous Antrim farm run by friendly and welcoming Barry and his wife www.antrimcabins.com

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I’ve stayed here before after spotting it while riding through the area nearly a year ago and this time, I’d booked a week-long stay here to work on creating an online training course with a difference. More on that later, but I resigned the first evening to simply sitting on the steps and watching the sun set over the hills with a beautiful yellow afterglow and a generously given slow white wine.

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I learned the next morning that a Hare Krishna was staying in the cabin behind me. I also learned over the next few days that Hare Krishna’s tend to begin their famous chant sinfully early at 4.30am while believing that the supposed beauty of the name and chant attracts people to their belief of the truth of their incarnation of God. At 4.30am each morning, I can personally confirm it attracted me to muttering sleepy words of the four-letter swearing variety more than any beauty.

None-the-less, I was grateful for the opportunity to get an early productive start to each day – after all, I was there to work, and the early start was something to embrace and utilise rather than something to try to ignore. I do tend to be sensitive to presence and most people would likely have slept through it. So, I embraced the early start to work each day.

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That evening around 3pm, distant but strong rumblings of thunder pushed through the air. It felt potent so I set the bike in a way that wind wouldn’t push it over and sure enough an hour later a wide strong billowing of wind announced the front of a sudden change in weather – then the rain fell hard. I stopped work and stood at the doorway for an hour watching the drastic and beautiful storm, a great way to have spent that hour. The cockatoos on the nearby power-lines were playing in the wind before they flew off.

After it passed, I listened to thunder literally travelling through the valleys. The movement of the thunder doesn’t translate to the video as it's a mono recording but you can hear the length of the sound and it was travelling from the right of my view to the left the entire time, amazing to hear sound moving across a landscape like that.

Following a few days of work, it was time to go for a good ride. There’s a café I know called Grey Gum Café halfway down Putty Road with barely anything but bush forest for 50 kilometres in any direction. It’s a great ride too, so what better place for lunch. I took off and rode the great curves and scenery on the northern end of Putty Road and enjoyed a rest while reading my book. The place is usually full of motorcyclists on the weekend, but being a Friday I was the only one.

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Then I rode back the same way stopping off at the Halfway House, a diner which burned down in 2009.

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Continued northwards – I find the curves much more fun at the northern end of Putty Road travelling north rather than south – and stopped off at Singleton for some supplies before riding back to the farm to get back to work after my fun day off.

During all this time I was working on scripts for training videos that I am preparing and as the week came closer to ending and the 40 pages of planning and scripting were completed, I allowed myself time to walk around the expansive and dynamic farmland while I recorded the descriptive elements I required for the training videos.

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If you look carefully at the right-side of the middle photo you'll see a bee hovering at one of the flowers.

With the final three descriptive videos completed on the last morning, I allowed myself a true relax knowing the first stage of this project was completed.

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So sitting on a bench watching the morning fog lift as I red a book enjoying a great coffee without the time-pulling of an incomplete task at hand allowed that beautiful clarity that comes with a quiet mind relaxing into the tangible realm around me while simulatneously not making any demands or requirements of it bringing a remarkable presence of birds flying past travelling slowly through the air and cows living each moment in the lucid environment I was a part of.

With that it was a morning visit from the chickens, a cursory look for the grumpy but lovable local goose and a friendly chat with Barry before riding south.

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If you're ever in the area of Hunter Valley, you should think about staying here. It is beautiful. www.antrimcabins.com

A great relaxed ride back and it was time to work.

Thanks for reading!


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