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Source: ONE News
There's nothing like a weekend in the country to make you feel like a real city slicker.
My friend Lydia and I ooze city at the best of times so throw us on a CountryLink train to Dungog and we're bound to look like divas.
Clutching our takeaway lattes, we hop on board our first class carriage at Hornsby station, pull out our glossy fashion mags and recline, settled for the three-hour ride to the NSW Hunter region.
The route is scenic and the rhythm of the train is therapeutic. Gosford shoots past, Newcastle, then Maitland, and finally Dungog.
We grab our gear and make our way from seats 39 and 40 to the main compartment of the train.
A couple of hours later the train rolls to a stop at the sparse station. I peek out the door and can see black coals scattered on the tracks. I reach for the handle to open the door but Lydia stops me.
"Wait till we get to the station before you open the door!" she warns me.
Good point, I've seen people get all sorts of things jammed in train doors - bags, hair, fingers.
An older gentleman sees us waiting, gets up from his seat and comes to tell us we can open the door because the green light is on.
Lydia confidently tells him we're waiting for the train to arrive at the platform - a safe and secure point to disembark without loosing a limb.
The friendly passenger chuckles and, despite our gasps at this risk-taking behaviour, he opens the door to reveal the ground below.
Turns out we have reached our destination at the Dungog Shire - only half of the station is paved, there are no timetables, no swearing school kids and no seats dotted with chunks of chewed up gum.
We cautiously step down on to the tracks in our rubber thongs, pull on our shades and walk the length of the platform in search of our host for the weekend.
Denise Gale owns and operates Camelot, a lavender and alpaca farm at Wallarobba, midway between Dungog and Paterson, all on her own.
As part of a special deal with CountryLink she picks up guests in her white 4-wheel-drive - sporting purple racing stripes down the sides - and takes them on the 20-minute drive to her 81-hectare property.
Over the 18km ride Denise says she planted 20,000 English lavender plants on her farm 12 years ago for "something different".
But over the last couple of years she has shrunk the "vista of lavender" in favour of rare breeds of farm animals.
"It's so important not to let these breeds of animals die out," she says.
She has white park cattle (the world's oldest breed of cow), endangered large black pigs, and silver grey dorking chickens.
As Lydia and I guessed, lavender - the colour, the scent, the flowers - dominate.
On the farm sits a lavender cafe, painted in purple, where Denise serves us fresh lavender scones with homemade strawberry jam and cream. We sip English breakfast tea and wipe the crumbs with purple napkins.
Denise dons her purple gumboots and takes us on a walk around the property to meet and greet the animals.
Still in our thongs, Lydia and I tip toe around the paddocks, trying not to look too prissy, but still avoid as much of the animal poop as we can.
The grass around the lama paddock gets a bit thicker and Denise issues a snake warning.
"I don't want to scare you," she says, while Lydia breaks into a sweat despite the cool breeze.
"We do have them here, if you see one just walk away."
Easy. As long as a snake doesn't mistake our exposed toes for bite-sized treats.
Denise is proud of the local food and wine scene. She chaperones Lydia and me to a couple of local wineries and an olive grove where she picks up the homemade osso buco that we we'll eat for dinner.
We stay in the four-bedroom guest house, that has room to sleep eight. Just the two of us - in separate rooms.
We wonder what Denise makes of our romantic girls' weekend on the farm.
After a quiet night in soaking up classic 90s flicks on the TV and watching donkeys graze outside, Lydia and I wake up feeling fresh.
Denise takes us on a drive to check out the massive Chichester Dam, sitting at the top of the Williams River catchment.
The sun beating through the windscreen lulls Lydia and me to sleep - it seems the country air has unwound our highly strung selves. We board the train back to the city feeling all groggy.
But the country calm starts slipping as soon as we leave the dusty Dungog platform.
We will miss Denise and the farm at Dungog but every time we lather up with purple soap or open our sock drawer to a whiff of lavender potpourri we'll remember - recalling the country and how city we are.
