Travelling Hopefully - In Which Defeat is Acknowledged and a Retreat is Sounded

My head reeling from the sheer number of cows I had acknowledged (and the occasional smack around the head my mother had given me in a futile attempt to make me stop) we arrived in Berrima which is as pretty and unspoilt as you would expect a rural village whose local economy depends utterly on a combination of the tourist trade and a nearby gaol to be.  Quaint cafes lurked on the main street and by lurked I mean they hurled themselves in front of you screaming "Look how goddamn quaint we are!!" and artisan style shops selling locally produced (well it was produced, I assume it was local) jams and sauces and all of the other things that make us suspect that our nineteenth century forebears lived on a diet of condiments and wore hand made leather everywhere.

I'm a little suspicious about the leather.  The shop was there smelling amazing as leather shops do.  To drive home the point about this being rural and artisan there was a cowhide hanging on a fence as we walked in.  I do rather suspect, however, if a nineteenth century shopkeeper had attempted to charge the prices the current sellers were getting away with they would probably have been ridden out of town on a rail.  And I make no apology for that piece of cultural appropriation from the United States, if someone has a good idea emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.

No photography was allowed outside the gaol, which is a pity since it was rather a handsome facility.  For those of us who completely forgot to bring our cameras this wasn't a hardship but my mother stared forlornly at the front gate not taking pictures.  The gaol announced itself as a "training centre" a euphemism which made my father snort with contempt but which I, given the average recidivism level, found to be a reasonably fair claim.

The above few paragraphs make it look as though we were strolling casually through the streets of Berrima, popping in from time to time to not make a purchase of locally produced, artisan almond and kumquat jam while waxing lyrical on the quaintness of the cafes and the outrageous price of fetishwear nowadays.  In actual fact we staggered frost bitten and desperate from one patch of warmth to the next weeping when irate shopkeepers hurled us into the howling wilderness.  The tears froze on our cheeks and the various colds that each of us had managed to acquire held their own vigorous conversation between themselves while we considered self immolation as a way of keeping warm.

When we could decently claim we had "done" Berrima (about twenty eight seconds after our arrival) we fled back to the car and headed for the book barn.  Actually we just fled back to the car, we remembered the book barn later after the heater had thawed us out a bit.  There were cows on the way there but one look at my mother's face was sufficient to make me decide on discretion (cowcowcowcowcowcowcowcow).

The book barn was at a winery because, of course it was.  At a farm I guess you would have a book cellar.  There was a restaurant and a fire and surrounding this on three sides were books, which you could buy.  So I did.  Not all of them but a select one or two.  It seemed to be popular, or at least the restaurant part seemed to be popular, there weren't too many people looking at the books.  With books purchased and our blood defrosted we made a mad dash across the carpark for the shelter of the car and headed back to Berrima for lunch. 

There was a museum in Berrima that my mother had been quite keen to visit but by this stage we acknowledged that the cold had beaten us.  We fled back to our accommodation in Bundanoon and spent most of the rest of the day huddling around the fire wrapped in all the clothing we had brought with us.  The next morning I noticed to my surprise that both my parents had survived the night and we all decided to get the hell out of Dodge (more cultural appropriation, I am shameless).  I parted company with my progenitors at Moss Vale and hacked, wheezed, snivelled and dribbled my way home by train.

So that was the Southern Highlands, the scenery was beautiful, the food was good, the company was excellent but the next time my parents suggest that we go away together I'm going to suggest Bali or possibly the inside of a live volcano.  Which I suspect my parents might prefer to Bali.