Reflections on Milford and Bellingen

I have sometimes mused on how as adults we, quite unconsciously, make a home base for ourselves that is similar to our childhood home.  I grew up in Milford NJ, a small town on the Delaware River.  Our house was on acreage just outside town situated on a hill with a long driveway, woodland and lots of fruit trees.  Now on the other side of the world I find myself in Bellingen NSW, a small town on the Bellinger River.  Our house is on acreage just outside town situated on a hill with a long driveway in a forest and lots of fruit trees.  On my mother’s first visit in 1988, she remarked how much our home in Bellingen reminded her of our place in Milford.

Main Street Milford

The entrance to Honeysuckle Lane.  The building on the left use to be the public library.  My favourite place to go.

Main Street Bellingen

Our house on the hill

However instead of 3.5 acres of freehold land as in Milford we are on 640 acres of shared co-operative land.  Instead of apple, cherry, pear and chestnut trees we have orange, lemon, mandarin, mango, guava, lychee, coffee and macadamia trees.

Mandarins which will be ready to eat in May

Our mango tree but no fruit this year

We had a great lychee crop this year

Ripe coffee beans ready to be processed

Hopefully we will get some macadamia nuts this year if the cockatoos don't eat them all first

Instead of a pine forest with grackles providing a deafening cacophony in the evening and white tail deer timidly grazing on the edges, we have a sub-tropical rainforest with yellow tailed black cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets making a racket during the day and frogs croaking all night while wallabies timidly graze on the edge of the forest.

Yellow tailed black cockatoo

Colourful Rainbow lorikeet

Wallaby or as our daughter use to call the 'wobblelies'

 As a child I would spend hours exploring the woods, climbing along the shale cliffs of the Narrows and playing in the Quequacamisicon Creek (which now seems to be called Hakihokake Creek) searching for salamanders.  As an adult I spend hours walking through the rain forest marvelling at the 30m trees and taking refreshing dips in the swimming hole at Boggy Creek while hoping to see the resident platypus.

A bush track near our house

The swimming hole at Boggy Creek

So have I come full circle with an Antipodean twist?  In any event I feel extremely fortunate to have had a life spent in such beautiful places.

A view of our house from the dam