Easter Yum Cha and Chocolate Bilbys

This year, Anzac day fell on Easter Monday and Aussies got a 5-day bank holiday weekend so I decided to take Betsy on her first real road-trip and headed to Sydney to celebrate Easter with a Sydney-city-girl- now-Irish-country-girl friend and her very hospitable mates in their beautiful home. Easter Sunday morning I was presented with a chocolate bilby and that night I was asked to house-sit soon for a week. Easy decision.

The bilby is an endangered native species and there is a rather clever 'Protect the Bilby' awareness campaign here that is replacing the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby. Rabbits are also rather unpopular here... I will say no more on that subject to spare the feelings of my bunny-loving friends.

My Mammy's traditional roast lamb Easter dinner is an institution at home. I actually prefer it to Christmas dinner and this is the first time, ever, I have missed it. But apparently, this year there was no roast lamb dinner in Ramstown (no pun!) anyway.

Instead, my two new Sydney friends took me for some excellent Yum Cha in Market City and a stroll around Sydney harbour. Great food, great company, great city. Just what a girl needs after one too many glasses of merlot the night before.

On the way back to Pappinbarra, I took the scenic route and couldn't believe how much the landscape reminded me of home. It was wonderful to be on the open road again. I love driving here. Everyone cruises along and there's no aggression, no hassle. There is a very prominent 'fatigue awareness' campaign and every hour or so there are excellent rest-stops providing free coffee and facilities. The police were out in force and with 'double demerits' (points) and nobody, not even me, broke the speed limit. At the end of the 5 days there were relatively few road deaths reported – and the radio stations did keep a morbid running tally.

All in all, a rather unconventional but thoroughly enjoyable Easter and I have to say that fatigue-awareness campaign combined with the 'Protect the Bilby' campaign has started my old campaign synapses firing again....