For a long time I have visited my family in Tura Beach, NSW over the Christmas and often Easter holidays.  This has always meant a long and arduous road trip from Melbourne, but one which we always tackle with excited anticipation, as we wheel our way up the Princes Highway from Melbourne. The seven hour trip has taken on many forms of torture over the years.

At first it was the thought of spending time with my then husband, whom I slowly came to despise as the years of our marriage dragged on. But I loved bringing the children up to this area, to be surrounded by my extended family and share in the joy of just hanging out together. We would cook, go to the beach and generally just exist together for the length of the holiday before school and work would mean we had to head back down the road to Melbourne and back to reality.  I used to cry every time we left.

We started coming up here some twenty odd years ago and even today, it still holds so much joy for me. My first husband has gone long ago, and now I still enjoy my treasured time spent with family away from my own reality.

Tilba, Tilba is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, NSW Australia.  Every since I’ve been coming to this part of the world, the little village intrigues me and allows me to fantasise what life in a tiny hamlet like it might have been like. When my children were little, we would go there and meander in and out all the cute craft shops, buy bits and pieces and end up with some very tired children sleeping on the way home.

As they got older, they would still like to visit Tilba on our annual holidays to the coast, but the excitement was less and it was more about what they could ‘scam’ from me from the day.  When I was parenting them on my own, this was often not more than a bowl of chips to share from the pub and a coffee for me.  But they didn’t care – they would dance around the jukebox at the back of the pub – find little hills to roll down and enjoy sampling the free cheese and honey at the local Tilba Cheese Factory.

When I once suggested I might retire there, they laughed and shouted ‘civilisation, Mum, you would be a long way from it!’ and, of course, they were right.  With little public transport, the nearest town is still halfway between nowhere and nowhere else, but the rolling hills and mist and silence was something that I craved then and still do at times.

This year, my babies are all grown up. One is holidaying overseas, one at home with her grown up life and the third was spending time with his girlfriend.  I am with family, but not my own children. I think it’s the first Easter we didn’t have an egg hunt, or six children milling around, just being ‘bored’. Life has taken a different pace and I’m not sure I love it yet.

The youngest of the brood, my niece was the only only who was keen to visit Tilba this year. So we headed off, just her and I, and had a really lovely day just hanging out. And low and behold, Tilba was having an Easter festival, there were people everywhere and lots of good old fashioned fun and I missed my young children, I missed my grown children too, as I think we would have sat in the pub and cheered the egg throwing competitors on as they laughed and splattered eggs all over the street. Maybe next year!