You can only imagine our delight and surprise to receive a message from Aman, one of our volunteering friends from India, who was only an hour away from Melbourne, volunteering on a small homestead.

With a couple of days spare we headed out to stay with his host, Carla, do some work on her farm and catch up with Aman. Funny how chance meetings occur, we only thought that we would meet up with him in his surrogate home of Seattle, USA.

Rolling up our sleeves to chop wood, weed the gardenS (capital s means plural) and spread mulch and of course some long chats only made better through our entertaining host Carla, who lives in this generally quiet part of Fryerstown, if there is even a noisy part to this rural village.

How lucky to catch up with Aman, make a new friend, Carla, learn some new skills and see some of natures beauty from the heights of the nearby mountains.