Once you get to a certain age, getting to know someone on a romantic level is hard. You have both already lived a lifetime. The damage, the hang-ups that can come from previous partners, and past experience can flow on into your blossoming relationship. It can feel like you have been sentenced to hard labour for a crime you didn’t commit. You have to decide early on if it going to be worth all that work, while still trying to be your best self, knowing that your new partner is likely making the same calculations in their head about you.
With these limitations in mind, it’s almost a parting of the sea level miracle when anyone over 40 finds someone that they are happy to spend quality time alone with. When you do actually find someone and they happen to be living in a different city, getting to spend a weekend together can take military-style planning and preparation.
You spend time online looking for any decent accommodation that sits somewhere in between your two home towns which if you live in a regional area can more often than not be some perfectly adequate roadside hotel or a room above a pub. All those options are fine but they don’t scream luxury or romance.
While doing my own search, I came across what felt like a mirage. The Dunedoo Shearing Huts. Located 10 minutes outside the NSW town on a working farm that runs cattle, sheep, and several different crops. The photos were beautiful but what sold me was the idea of isolation, the stunning views of the property, the electric fireplace in the main bedroom, and the idea of looking at a real night sky. For those who don’t get out of the city much and think it’s the same sky they look at every night, trust me when I tell you, it’s not.
The property has been owned and run by four generations of the Watts family. The shearers’ huts, erected in the early 1950s when the current homestead was built, are constructed of the same local bricks. Lucy came to meet me when we first arrived and couldn’t have been more welcoming but in a way that didn’t feel at all intrusive. She made time to have a chat with me even though I knew they were harvesting and nothing was too much trouble.
As I stepped into the kitchen what struck me most was that I have never stayed somewhere so well set up. Not only a BBQ and every kitchen item you could need,
including a coffee maker but a fridge full of beautiful fresh food, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, farm eggs, and even a welcome present with a beautiful bottle of wine and a box full of cards painted by a local artist who I discovered only after arriving home was our host, Lucy. I went to lay down on the bed to relax for a minute after the drive and it felt like I was laying on a cloud.
For the next two days, we slept late and indulged. We filled our bellies and our souls in a way you can only do miles from any distractions. We spoke about our past and hinted at what the future might look like in that tentative way you do when things are new. We laid a blanket out on the grass under the full moon in the warm night air. My thoughts drifted to the fact that tomorrow is promised to no one. If I knew my lifespan was limited, would I be happy that this is how I was spending my time? In surroundings that relax me, with a man who does the same. The answer was a resounding yes.
Breakout box – Dunedoo Shearers Huts can be found on Air B and B. https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/21753081
On tour with the kid 
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