Fifteen minutes off the highway

Forty minutes west of Lithgow and fifteen minutes off the highway, a bathtub sits beside a gum on the highest point of the farm. Technically, it’s just one paddock. The hills and clumps of dense Stringybark gums make it hard to tell, but if you spend a day following the fence your footprints will plot a perfect rectangle.

The cabin faces west atop the second highest rise. If you sleep in the loft during the summer you will wake to the tick of the tin roof expanding in the morning heat. Down the ladder, the bifold doors open almost entirely on three sides and any small breeze will snake through the skeleton of the cabin, which is constructed from salvaged railroad sleepers and hardwoods from demolished bridges further west.

From the back doorstep, the Ute can roll in neutral almost all the way down to the edge of the dam where there is a shed that houses two canoes and a short pier from which you can launch them. Toward the centre there is an island retreat for the geese. If you keep paddling, the dam turns narrow and winds beneath the foliage of willows that flank both banks and fall dolefully, almost to the water. Usually you will become snagged on a lurking tree root. That is a good place to drop in a line.
If it has not been fished for a while, the trout are large and good and by the afternoon there are enough to be taken back to the cabin, where the veranda squints into the sunset.

After dinner you can walk along the ridge that connects the cabin to the bathtub. There is a track cut into the grass by the cattle and occasionally an old cow will still be looking for shade under the gum. The bathtub is there to serve as a drinking trough but it’s never filled with water, only bark fallen from above. It is one of those old, deep ones, with a high sloping backrest and ornate brass legs.

When reclined in the tub and soaking in the last rays of light offered to the farm, it is best to face east and drink wine. You can usually find an old cowpat to rest your glass while watching the late light turn weeds to lavender in distant fields.
Eventually all the fields sink into shadow until only the Blue Mountains are left glowing yellow on the horizon. During that fleeting after-burn of day, you can see troops of kangaroos only when they move, and hear only the humming chatter of finches. When night finally shivers through the long grass and claps the leaves above, you cut back down to the cabin, kicking up moths and crickets as you go.