I was flicking through the travel section of the Sunday Telegraph yesterday when I saw an article by a travel influencer called Helena Bradbury, who has more than 84,000 followers on Instagram.
Flipping heck. Go her!
Helena started her blog back in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, writing about her pre-pandemic holiday experiences.
Now she travels the world doing it for a living. Wouldn’t that be nice!
She has a lovely Instagram page, filled with fabulous photos like this …
Oh to be a lithe, young travel influencer …
And then I thought, hang on, maybe there are people who’d be interested in following the adventures of a chonky, middle-aged traveller.
What do you think? Should I give it a go?
I wrote something about my Wine & Canapes cruise on Sydney Harbour Tall Ships and whipped up an Instagram post with a gallery of photos to accompany it.
I would not say it’s my finest work, but it’s a start. (I have no idea how I accidentally put a faint black fog behind the words, not a fan, must try harder next time.)
I was on a roll, so I decided to post a series of photos on the Drinks Digest Instagram page after only posting stories for at least a year …
And then I shuffled through my Nan’s old photos and posted a “weekend away” one on the Ruby & Peggy page …
Bless my nan, she wrote little notes on the back of most of the photos. The one above said “Barraba Homestead”. The woman on the left is my great-grandmother Ruby, and I think the little kid on the far left with the hat is my nan.
I was thrown a little by her note, because Barraba is near Tamworth, which seemed a bit of a distance for my nan to have travelled from her Cessnock heartland. Then I discovered Barraba Lane in Quorrobolong and the pieces started to come together.
I found something on the NSW Government’s planning portal, with a map showing the former location of Barraba Homestead, it’s the little red square.
I don’t exactly know why, but seeing it on the map made me feel a bit giddy. It made me yearn for a time machine.
The planning document told me Barraba Homestead was built in 1830-1831 by William Carter.
When it was sold to George Thomas Palmer in 1834 the newspaper advertisement for the sale read: “A most superior Estate known by the name of Baraba, formerly the property of William Carter, Esq., distant from the Green Hills by a bush road, only sixteen miles and by the main road twenty five miles from Maitland and nearly adjoining Elalang, the Estate of Robert Crawford Esq., This Farm comprises 1280 acres of rich soil, admirably adapted to agricultural and dairy purposes. The improvements are most extensive consisting of an excellent verandah house of six rooms, four of them 21 feet in length with under-ground cellar, detached offices, a most substantial barn with mill-house adjoining, about one hundred feet in length, with flagged cellar, underneath, intended for the salting of provisions … a stable with loose box, sufficient to accommodate ten horses; good dairy, of two rooms; tobacco house, also of two rooms.”
In 1906 Barraba Homestead was owned by the McDonald family, who I’m guessing were related to my nan and her mum. I wish I knew more, like why they were there, who took that photo more than 100 years ago and why.
I have so many questions about all those early photos and where they found the money to take and develop them.
I loved looking through the old photos again and I’m going to try and post them more frequently, even if just to ensure a digital record of them, since they’re so fragile and so precious to me.
There are some awesome ones of my nan’s teenaged hijinks – stay tuned.
None of the Instagram posts have done particularly well – as you can see from the likes – but I enjoyed putting them together … and a woman who yearns to be a travel influencer has to start somewhere.
When I wasn’t posting on social media I was taking things pretty easy for me. I went for a walk and had brekkie with friends, I voted in the council election, I went out for pomegranate margaritas and dinner with DD’s lovely neighbours to Lovat in Newport (a few of the dishes we ordered are pictured above), I had brekkie with DD at Relish in North Avalon, I went home and did the grocery shopping and made pulled beef soft tacos with roasted corn salsa for dinner …
All in all, pretty chilled in Alana world.
How about you?
Song of the day: Kylie Minogue “Step back in time”
housegoeshome 
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