Himalayan Home - 11. HH Chapter 11

The next day, I was really restless, because I knew that my parents were on their way here, but wouldn’t arrive till tonight because they were having a full day layover in Singapore, so as not to be too tired when they arrive in Tasmania, so I tried to keep myself busy.

Because of the sudden changes, the meeting with the school in Launceston had been postponed, and this left me with a lot of extra time to spare, so I convinced Aunty Grace to take me to a few bike shops to see what is available, in the Mountain Bike range, and I was surprised at how expensive some of the bikes were.

“Don’t worry about the price dear, your parents want you to get a good quality bike that can withstand the hard workout that it is going to get next week,” Aunty Grace assured me when she saw my expression on my face, after looking at a price tag on one bike. After checking out three different bike shops, we returned to the first one at Kingston, where we bought a brand-new Polygon Siskui D7 Mountain Bike that cost $2,400.

Once we had checked out the bike in great detail, making sure that everything is working properly, and with a brand-new Bike helmet, and a few additions to the bike including a bike pump, puncture repair kit, a spare inner tube, and a water bottle with holding bracket, I informed Aunty that I would meet her at home, as I climbed onto my bike.

“But dear, that is nearly a four-kilometre trip from here!” Aunty Grace said to me, “Yes, and with all of the mountain trekking I have done in the past how many years, has me prepared for any long-distance riding,” I replied, and Aunty Grace smiled.

“Yes, that is true. Ride safely then nephew, and I will see you when you arrive home,” my aunt said to me, as I set off in the direction of Blackman Bay. When I arrived at my Aunt’s home, I was tired but felt good after a long ride, as I stored the bike away in the garage and had a long hot shower and changed.

Aunty Grace had lunch for me when I appeared and we chatted about the arrival of the family later in the evening, and although we knew that Dad would be arranging a Hire Car at the airport, we decided that we would go there to greet them on their arrival at 11pm tonight.

Having rested for the remainder of the afternoon, with a short stroll down to the river and back to watch the sunset, Aunty Grace and I had a late dinner and watched a movie on television, until it was time to head off to the airport to great our family, having checked before hand to see of the plane was due on time from Singapore, which it is.

Hobart isn’t exactly a huge international airport, so it didn’t take us long to park the car and have a short wander around the terminal, before going to the International Arrivals hall, arriving just at they announced the arrival of the Singapore flight.

Nearly forty-five minutes later, Mum, Dad and younger brother Kalden appeared from the Customs area, and they smiled broadly when they saw us waiting for them, and Kalden raced towards us and jumped into my arms.

‘I missed you Dechen,” Kalden said in Dzongkha language, “I missed you to little brother, and lets talk in English so that you can keep in practice, I said to Kalden in English, and he nodded his head in understanding, before I looked up to see my parents arrive, and Mum gave me a big hug.

“Take it easy Mum, I have only been gone for a week,” I said when Mum hugged me extra tight, and I heard Dad chuckle at this comment, “Hello Christopher and Anne, welcome back to Australia and Tasmania in particular,” my Aunty said to my parents.

“Thankyou sister, it is very good to be back again,” Mum replied as she hugged my aunty, “Let me take you to your hotel and you can arrange the hire car in the morning, once you have rested?” Aunty Grace suggested, “Yes, I think that would be a good idea thankyou Grace,” Dad responded.

Once we had dropped off the family at the hotel, Aunty Grace and I headed back to her place in Blackman Bay, and we went straight to bed, since it was almost 2am by that stage. We had arranged to meet at the farm house for afternoon tea at around 3pm, giving the family enough time to rest, before collecting the hire car and do some shopping, before heading off to Maydena.

When we arrived back at the farm later that day, having had a very late brunch, and I went for a bit of ride on my new bike, before we made the 90-minute road trip, and Mum was in the garden doing some weeding, while watching Kalden playing with his new toys, and by the sounds of it, Dad was on a ride on mower, doing the lawns around the house.

When Dad saw that we had arrived he stopped work and came to greet us, and suggested that we all go inside for some afternoon tea, as he wanted to hear all about the plans for this mountain bike adventure that my friends and I and now my cousin Palden are going on.

The problem was, that I didn’t actually know much of the details, but thankfully it is after school hours, so I was able to call Lenn and with my phone on loud speaker, we were all able to hear what Lenn had arranged for our mountain bike adventure trip, describing everything that he had planned including the Railtrack ride, and also some mountain hiking.

Afterwards and with the permission of the people who have leased the farm, Dad took the whole family for a tour of the farm, to see what it looks like, and I was surprised that it was quite a mixture farming on the property, that included beef cattle, stone fruit, grape vineyards, olives and beef cattle.

During the tour, I chatted a lot to Palden about what to expect on our adventure trip, and told him all about the type of mountain bike that I had purchased especially for the trip, and he said he would probably wont be able to get an expensive mountain bike like mine, but he wont get a cheep and nasty one either.

After the tour, we headed back into Maydena to have a bit of a look around the town, before Aunty Grace and I headed back to Blackman Bay, even though my little brother didn’t want me to go, but I convinced him that I would be seeing him again in a few days’ time, when I return to with my school friends for our adventure.

The next few days passed fairly quickly and I had managed to catch up with Lenn and Giles a couple of time after school hours, and I learnt that they too had the same brand of mountain bikes as I do, which I was pleased about.

We had decided to get pup tents, for the couple of days that we would be actually camping, that way everyone had their own space for sleeping, and we also have a three-man tent that would be used for storing all of our supplies in, just in case the weather turned bad for us.

Two days before I was to join my cousin and friends for the start of our adventure, Aunty Grace announced that we would be going up to the farm a day earlier than planned, as Uncle Jake and Dad had been busy on a special project, which had me wondering what the heck they have been doing for the past few days, and luckily I had completed all of my packing and preparations for the trip, so all I had to do was add a couple extra things for the extra day and night, that I would be spending up at Maydena.

Once we had loaded up the vehicle with my camping gear, mountain bike and overnight bag, we headed to Maydena, and Aunty Grace said that she had no idea what Dad and Uncle Jake have been doing for the past four days. On arrival at the farm, we saw that Uncle Jake and Palden had already arrived, and we all met on the front verandah, before Palden helped me unload the car.

Once that was done, Dad, Uncle Jake, Palden and I climbed into the farm vehicle and we headed off to and area of the farm that we only briefly looked at last week, on the north western boundary to the State reserve, that consists of the Junee River as the boundary. Driving around to the Giants Table front gate, we continued north along Junee Road, which follows the Junee River, and after three kilometres, we came to a stop a small clearing just after the road turns in a westerly direction.

Climbing out of the vehicle, the first thing that I noticed was that the river seemed to have a high-water level than the larger Tyenna River, and this caused me to frown, and Uncle Jake chuckled at this. “I am glad that you are observant nephew, as that is why we are here,” Uncle Jake said to me, as Dad walked over to a small shed that was close to the boundary.

Unlocking and opening the double doors, Palden and I were both surprised to find four single and two double Kayaks inside, that looked to be brand new, and included helmets, PFD jackets and double paddles. “I’m confused, why are you showing us this, and why is there so much water in this smaller river?” I asked.

“That is part of what your uncle and I have been working on, very quietly for the past few days, Jake and I have been using the farm front end loader, to collect, transport and relocate a number of large rocks, from a small quarry that we have on the farm, to a few strategic locations on the Junee River, to create a number of small weirs.

They are not too big to attract attention, but enough to raise the water level high enough to allow all year-round kayaking for a distance of three kilometres, and not too high enough to make it impossible to get over the weirs with the kayaks and this includes some rocks under the Tyenna River bridge crossing near the old farm house and sheds, which is the last of the five weirs that we have established,” Dad informed us.

“So you brought us out here to just show us what you have done,” Palden asked, “No son, the four of us are going to test out the new kayaks on the river,” Uncle Jake replied, which surprised us a bit, and ten minutes later, we had the four single kayaks on the edge of the river, and we were all wearing the PFD jackets and helmets.

After a bit of practice and instructions, and a few times of tipping over and getting wet, we headed off down-stream for the three-kilometre journey down the river, which dad said would take us about an hour to complete.

Palden and I both tipped over again, as we passed through the first and second weirs, but by the third one we were now getting enough skills to get through the weir, without getting wet again, which was good as the water was damn cold.

When we reached our destination of the Tyenna River Bridge, Mum and Aunty Grace were there towels to dry to dry off and hot soup and bread, to warm us up inside, and I was very happy with what we had managed to achieve today, and looking at my cousin, he too was happy with today’s activity.

After an enjoyable morning of Kayaking, and hot soup to warm us up, we took Uncle Jake’s vehicle to return the kayaks to their storage shed, and to collect the other vehicle, and returning to the main house, we just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

Lenn and Giles would be arriving at about 10 am the next day at our accommodation, so we Palden and I just took a short ride around Maydena on our new mountain bikes, just o get used to them, as we would be spending a fair amount of time on them over the next five days.

The first part of our adventure would be spending three days checking out all of the bike tracks in the Mountain bike park, returning back to our accommodation late in the afternoon each day.

Even though most of us ended up having a few falls and a few scraped knees and elbows, we all had an awesome time exploring the many different tracks. Very early on day four, Dad took us to the Mt Field National Park, at Russell Falls where we would be doing a bit of hiking on a number of different tracks in the area, as well as camping for a few nights, including one night at the Lake Nicolls Cabin.

Palden by now had got over his shyness with the other lads and was getting along well with Giles and Lenn, which I was pleased to see, and by the time it we had packed up camp and were waiting for Dad to collect us again, we were all great mates, and I was pleased to be able to get to know my cousin a lot better.

On our last night, which was at the accommodation in Maydena, we had dinner with my family at the farm house, and the lads were pleased to be able to have a home cooked meal after five days of camping food, and we all relaxed and had a good time, as we recalled our adventures to my parents, Uncle Jake and Aunty Grace, who had come for an overnight stay and would be taking me back to Blackman’s Bay for another week, as Uncle Jack’s illness had worsened why we had been away.

For that week of living back with my Aunty Grace, I kept in touch with my friends Lenn and Giles, why been updated twice a day on how Uncle Jake was going, which was not good. On the Friday afternoon, we learnt that Uncle Jake had been rushed to the Hospital in Hobart, as he was now in a critical condition, and two days later he passed away in his sleep, in the early hours of the morning, with Dad at his bedside at the time of his passing.

Before we had gone on our adventure, Dad and Uncle Jake had finalised the legal requirements for Palden to be in the car of my parents when his dad passed away, and on receiving he news of this happening, Aunty Grace drove me back to the farm, to be with my cousin, and I spent as much time as he would allow me, with him, just for company and for someone to be able to talk to.

On the day of the funeral, which was held in the Anglican church in New Norfolk, we were a little surprised by the large turnout off people, especially when the family had not posted a death or funeral notice in the newspaper.

That evening, with the whole family at the farm, Aunty Grace asked our parents what the families plans are now that Uncle Jake has passed away, and Dad announced that the we would be all returning to Bhutan, including Palden, who seemed pleased with the idea of travelling to a new country, with different culture and traditions.

I was glad to be returning home, as that is where I am the happiest, and I had already informed my parents that I did not wish to continue my education in Australia, and they had accepted my request, but said that they may look at other options, like attending a private school in the UK or in Switzerland, which although a surprise, I was thinking that this might be a better idea, but for now I was returning to my Himalayan Home.