A Reminder of The Little House on the Prairie

Had we not joined the family trip to Melbourne initiated by Sam's family, we would not have thought of visiting Lucy in Tasmania. It would be unlikely in 2019 since we last met each other barely eight months ago in West Malaysia (Read here).

Locating Lucy's house turned out to be harder than we expected even with the aid of our Garmin GPS device. We were first let to one end of a huge expanse of farmland. Recognizing that we were lost, we asked a local for direction to our actual destination. He had no clue of the address and was of no help. In the end, we switched on our Waze App. It instantly directed us to another location about five kilometers away. At the new destination, there was still no sign of a habitable house in sight. Our final resort was to make a phone call to the host's hand phone to seek help. It turned out we were in fact just at one corner of her farmland and she told us she caught sight of our vehicle. Immediately, we were led safely to her residence. From this experience, we realized that GPS which locks into an address may not necessarily lead you spot on to a house built in a huge piece of farmland.

Our instant reflect upon seeing her house was a reminder of the TV drama series "Little House on the Prairie" popular during the late 70's to mid 80's..

The house built on the top of a hill is accessible
via a 180 m long ascending straight road
tee-off from the main road. 

Casts of Little House on the Parries.

The farm land is blessed with a man-made mini dam that is supplied with stream water all year round. Lucy's husband, David is proud of the quality of the water - a platypus has decided to stay put and use it as its permanent home. John has been adamant in getting us to visit the dam to see for ourselves this shy creature. We did see it through the binocular but it instantly vanished the moment we tried to get near to the dam.

Some time after we came back from the Tasmania tour, Lucy whatsApp us on 29 April a video captured by David. To make up for our inability to see the big platypus, John wanted us to see the video. The big platypus has finally produced a baby platypus!

David was keen for us to see his farm. Almost as soon as we settled down upon our arrival to his house on 31 March, he ushered us to join him for a guided tour. He is well versed with every inch of the soil and every plant and tree. He took great pain to explain to us almost all types of vegetation we came across.

Pointing to the trees that he will harvest and sell one days 
for the timbers.

His greatest asset as he claimed is the Manuka trees grown in his farm. He confidently declared that his farm will be producing Manuka honey by the end of the year. He even invited us to come back to taste this world renowned brand of honey.

Talking about Manuka honey, David was clearly "annoyed" that New Zealand has "hijacked" the Manuka honey branding. He believes as many Tasmanians do that it is Tasmania which has the unique right to market Manuka honey because the honey harvesting and production was first documented in Tasmania!  

Some of his Manuka tress in his farm.

David's favorite companion, Bronte, the cattle dog.

Wombat's burrow in the farm.

The farm produces quality grass. David offers his land for cattle grazing for a fee and any excess grass is made into baled silage for sale.

Barriers of electric wires installed by John to keep
animals off the silage.

Lucy and David had proven to be great hosts and we enjoyed every moment of our stay in Burnie. But Lucy's mom clearly was not happy and she was keen to come back to Malaysia and Singapore to have a break from the cold weather.

1985 vs 2019

P/S Further update on baby platypus received on 26 May 2019