I feel like a complete dreamy idealist by saying this but I was taken back by yesterdays day trip adventure to Bulahdelah with my step dad - Leon. A small country town about an hour-ish drive from Newcastle, with picturesque green rolling hills, where everyone has a horse, works in a saw mill or dairy farm, home phones are still cool and house visits with tea/cake is compulsory. Or if you're Leon's long time friend, Spider then you're the only hippie/musician in town who dragged a caravan to a secluded spot in the forest out of town and solo built a semi self-sufficient cabin. Pretty cool huh.

For most of the day, Leon and I stopped in to visit his cousins and siblings. I even got a complete run-down of the two timber mills there. The last time I was around that way was when I was a little girl - I have some great memories playing around the family farm and creeks with my sister and brother in my rainbow rain boots. Even though it's been such a long time in between visits it was so lovely to be welcomed in with such warm arms.

To give you a bit of background info, my step dad, Leon, grew up in Bulahdelah. His great grandfather, Dan Dorney was one of the first settlers in the area and from what I learnt on our drive home, involving me curiously harassing him with question after question about life on the farm back then, like having to kill your own cows because of drought. For him growing up on a dairy farm in the early 50's with very little money was a  much harder life than most/I can imagine. There's a couple of sayings there "As country people, we shoot our own dogs" - harsh but it just means that we have to take responsibility for our animals and our actions.

I was really taken a back to learn what it was like back then and what has changed since for the town, with the only industries/businesses there in Bulahdelah (dairy/meat farms and logging) struggling big time because of overseas wood importing. Regardless what my own personal environmental and animal stance is, these businesses in Bulahdelah are the historic foundations of the town and sole life support and lively hood for the families that live there and generations presiding.

After my weekend I've decided to go on a road trip, travel, get the hell out of my home town and learn as much as I can from actually doing things and not just reading about it. And this means having a break from Emma Soup and closing my store. It seems crazy that I haven't gone away for more than a couple of nights in the last three and a half years since I opened the Emma Soup shop, let alone ever lived somewhere else. May seem sudden but sometimes you just know what you should do. Now, time to have a sale and down size!