April in Tatura continued

Six weeks in Tatura and they seem to have flown by, as life working as Vet always seems to. They decided they wanted me for another 2 weeks whilst Phil's back completely healed and he eased back in and this was good news for me as I was enjoying the new friendships and enjoying small town life too! Accepting now that everyone drove about in 4x4s, that rat bait poisonings, dogs being run over by their owner’s Utes or attacked by grass seeds made up the bulk of work. Actually the work was not so much Oz vs England but Rural vs Urban in the contrasts of the variety of cases. I continue to see new stuff not unique to Australia and happily learn more than I'd expected.

With work busy it's harder to be motivated to go place at weekends, after a rather damp weekend in Melbourne the following one is fine. After a lazy Saturday on Sunday I borrow Bella, Cassie's dog to take with me to Whroo- a forest with an old gold mine. It's a beautiful setting, deserted now but once a town of 10 000 during the gold rush. There's a couple and a child with a metal detector trying their luck but I'm content with the sunshine coming through the gum trees and a canine companion. Finding it proved more difficult than it should have and I was inclined to blame my map for missing off a major road.  The bitumen road gave way to less and less likely looking dust tracks, surrounded by identical forest. Luckily I strayed onto some people's property (in the absolute depths of the forest and they very kindly directed me the right way!)
On the way back I stopped briefly at Rushworth- another short-lived prosperious gold town but still with a small population today.
The following weekend I moved out of Jill's after 4 weeks of house-sitting and has some necesary chores to do. On Sunday I'd planned to go to Kyabram and visit the fauna park there. Pat who I was back staying with again mentioned that she'd not been for years so I took her along too. Unfortunately 10 minutes in there was a very heavy storm and we got soaked!