Meeting My Cousin.

At the end of last year I flew to Tasmania to reconnect with my second cousin that I had not seen for fifty three years.Well this was wonderful and what a thrill. It all started when I went on ancestry .com as a beginner not knowing what I was doing. I found the family tree with a familiar name attached and sent a message. This eventually led to us talking on the phone. We had a lot to catch up on so I decided to take a trip over to visit. I had never been to Tasmania before. We are both New Zealanders and have lived in Australia for over thirty years now. I had been Carol's bridesmaid when I was ten years old and she was twenty as a bride. I wore a lovely deep copper gold bridesmaid dress, my hair done up in a bun on top of my head with a piece of the material from the dress wrapped around it. On the front of the dress at the base was a lace horse shoe which added a nice touch to the dress. My sister was the other bridesmaid in the same colour as me. There were two older bridesmaids who wore the same dress only in a brighter gold shade. The dresses complemented each other nicely. I still have the photograph of when I wore my bridesmaid's dress.

 When I arrived in Tasmania I recognised her immediately and we instantaneously hit it off. We discovered over the next few days how much we had in common. I stayed at her house underneath which was a self contained unit where I settled in for the next few days. The view from her place was amazing with the river and hills in the background. I did not want to leave.

We had a wonderful time together and Carol showed me the Gorge and we had a walk through the gardens, over the swinging bridge and enjoyed an iced chocolate at the coffee shop as the peacocks wandered around between the tables letting out their screeching cries.

We entertained some friends of hers from New Zealand and cooked them brunch before they departed on their flight to Queensland. 

Another day we visited a small place called Mole Creek. [conjures up tales from Beatrix Potter.] My neighbours had recently moved there and we saw their new house and garden and had a cup of tea.

 

We visited a winery and enjoyed a lovely lunch with of course wine as an accompaniment. 

The other reason for my visit was of course genealogy which we both love and have made family trees. So of course we did this on the computer in the evenings and tried to get back further and fix any queries that we had. We talked and learnt a lot about each others family and life which was very enlightening

The time went all too quickly and it was soon time to return home. Had an early flight to Melbourne and back to my usual routine. Would love to return or have Carol over for a visit. That will be another blog.

We had a great time in Tassie driving around the countryside seeing all the sights. We stopped on the way to Mole Creek for lunch at a nice coffee shop.

We visited Mole Creek to see my next door neighbour that had recently moved there .