An All Australian Gingerbread House

'I love a sunburnt country, 

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!'

 ©Dorothea Mackellar

I love it when Christmas comes around and I get to decorate a gingerbread house. I went to the Lakeside Gingerbread Extravaganza with big plans this year. I wanted an 'All Australian', outback style gingerbread house. 

Something ala 'I love a sunburnt country'. 

Something 'A home amongst the gumtrees'. 

I came up with this extravagant creation! 

Something with kangaroos, koalas and tree frogs.  I didn't want snowmen, or Christmas trees. There was no mistletoe in my vision.  I was OK with a Santa though, and party lights. They worked.

Definitely needed a veranda out the front...

Clothesline out the back...

And a old water tank...

The roof, well I was going 'corrugated iron' though 'solar panels' comes to mind too.
Can't be Aussie without some Australian bush, so an Eucalypt, an Acacia (can you spot it?!)...

And of course a windmill and some sheep (no Keegan, they are not a camp fire?!?)

The most taxing part was the windmill. After 15 minutes and a second set of helping hands, my friend Jess subtly suggested something a bit smaller. I resisted initially, only to realised she was completely right. Chocolate wafers and royal icing are just not quite like welds of steel. Two sticks high was just too much! So then I had it done in about 5 minutes...only for it to fall over and off the board, onto the road as I carried it out to my car. Oh, *#^$@#*! dear. Everything else survived the trip home. Phew!

My only faux pas, pointed out quite enthusiastically by my five year old, was the lack of candy canes. Oops. He was quite right.  It looks much more 'Christmasy' with candy canes (Sorry, no photos of that though).  I went with minimalist house decoration, partly because I spent so much time creating the other bits, but also because I couldn't think how best to decorate the house. Probably why I left the candy canes out really. Keegan did a great job 'hanging' them around the yard.It is still standing, and we might eat it the weekend before Christmas, unless it's been devoured prior!

When I hear the poem, it reminds me of a jumper my Mum knitted in the 80's. I think it had the popular 'I love a sunburnt country' verse knitted into it. It was very 80's too.

My Country

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.

The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
An orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.

 Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.

©Dorothea Mackellar