Back at Kalyanka, the station that I am working on in Australia, teaching two bright young girls school and music. We are in very rural New South Wales, about a 10 hour drive North West of Sydney, on 120,000 acres. I live and eat with the family here, but have my own quarters about 300 meters from their house. Up until recently, I was on Christmas holiday and hired a car with sta (super travel accomplice) Kev and we drove around the country, well, as much as we could. Australia is a very large place.
The road trip was incredible and to account for all that I’ve seen and experienced would be quite the task.. so lets just say it was 6 weeks of taking in as much as possible… waking up every morning and deciding which adventures to embark on along the way up the expansive Australian coast. We would anticipate highlights, however it was often the unexpected that would become a wonderful experience, driving down the wrong road… or being held up by flooding or waiting out a tropical rainstorm.
After 6 weeks of extroversion, (seeing, doing, hiking, swimming etc) I’m back where it’s too hot to go outside for parts of the day, the perfect environment for working the mind, and being creative.
I am writing a new album. I have purchased a guitar, which is one of the new loves in my life… I really haven’t loved an instrument this much since the piano I had growing up. It’s a LAG electric / acoustic for the music geeks out there. I’m gonna call her Maggie. Maggie and I have quite a bit of work to do. We have the framework material for an album but there is much to develop still. This is a great experience for me, to devote so much time to one project.. and have the writing happen in a concentrated amount of time… in a very unique and inspiring setting.
I do not have the nuts and bolts of it all sorted, just focussing on the writing. My ‘recording studio’ is in the mail somewhere… my parents and sister took the time to sort through storage and find what I needed and ship it here. Many thanks to them for that!
photo above: running on Myall Beach, Cape Tribulation — our final destination!