Australia – Brave New World of Blogging

Magical Hidden Trails by Horseback

There’s always magic when you go with Laura, Christian and their crew.

Whether its your first ride ever with them :

Hidden Trails……

A seven day ride up north,

Duracks, pastoralists, the Kimberley’s and me

A round about Victoria’s mystical Wonnangatta ride;

Wonnangatta.

Or beautiful brumby territory; the Bogongs;

(you’ll be glad to know there isn’t a blog, 😝

There is a facebook album with the story on each photo –

sorry, but if you interested – open the photos individually and you will

‘get the picture, so to speak ‘ 😝

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6191761317509588&type=3

Or down in the Howqua ;

regardless of how many time you go.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.9346216082064080&type=3

And then there is

THIS TIME.

Where we had:

Amazing weather.

Amazing people.

Amazing horses.

In other words,

nothing has changed.

Riding with https://www.hiddentrails.com.au/

ALWAYS AMAZING.

And this time was no exception.

So come along ‘for the ride’

and enjoy the photos (credit to the entire gang for these)

It all began in Mansfield,

where friends from S Australia, NSW and Victoria

united over dinner and morning coffee

and off we went to Mirimbah

to meet our horses

and the Most Amazing Crew of People.

We rode up hills.

which went up, up and up

To reveal fantastic views

We stopped:

the horses drank and

we listened to the sound of water

We rode,

we looked,

we listened to Matt’s explanations

We went to the top of the world

and then had one last look….

Because things may look different through the horse’s eye

We sat around

Sometimes unsure – a foot in each camp is probably safest

We had, as always, amazing food, fabulous fires, heaps of laughs,

And for three wonderful nights,

we had

another day to look forward to.

Like this one

Moments of conversation, contemplation, anticipation

And just like that, it was time to leave.

Even the horses knew that.

and we hurried for those last memories to be made

There is a ps 🤣

a mini reunion which saw us last to leave The Anvil, after midnight,

just as the rain arrived and we walked home, wet, happy, tired, tipsy

with such such special memories of a fabulous week.

And all thanks to http://www.hiddentrails.com.au/

Teamsters Ride : Barellan NSW

I was invited to enjoy

“a unique slice of Bush Heritage

and ride alongside a wagon,

creating unforgettable memories.”

As the brochure continued

“ the sound of the chains, the creaking wheels,

and guidance from expert horsemen will give you

a sense of freedom and camaraderie like no other.”

How could I resist?

I Didn’t – resist that is. 😉

Rather, I paid and packed.

the road…

And Drove, and drove and drove somewhere,

to where the land is flat, flat, flat

and the soil is red, red, red.

And the people are great, great, great.

Australian Saddle Safaris,

aka Brad, Michaela and their crew are Fantastic hosts

and their horses are equally great.

And so we settled in ……

Met the crew:

Both big and small….

Found the ‘kitchen’ and the fabulous chef….

with special meals offered along the way….

Even had a room with a view 🥰

And so to Day One

There is always a mix of emotions on this day.

(Memories of other ‘day one’s’ come to mind : https://leepowrie.com/2019/03/21/morocco-ride-day-one/)

Personally, I am usually nervous

wondering who will look to the heavens

when someone (almost always me🤣)

has an unplanned dismount!

No one did – lift their eyes to the heavens,

and while for me it, it was a close thing,

it was only that –

Close.

Very Close. 😉

The horses and riders meet and need to work out how the gears work,

where is the brake;

ah there,

now,

does it actually work? 😜

Meanwhile, the horses, bless them, have not read the brochure.

They do not know it is a leisurely 100km walk; a gentle time warp.

But they DO know there are

donkeys,

bullocks,

draught horses and the absolute Final Straw –

CAMELS

To begin with, they lulled us into our comfort zone.

We walked behind the creaking, squeaking carts for a good junk of time.

with them apparently quietly absorbing the scene;

with them apparently nonchalant about the whole ‘affair’

Confident, therefore,

that we were all on the same page,

We planned to pass ‘the mob’.

The plan being to do it quietly,

in a disciplined, controlled manner.

A bit like ‘the movies’ 🤣

And just like that,

our beautiful steeds,

whether on a lead rope, or ‘free wheeling’

reminded us they didn’t care at all about

any advertising brochures, time warp, slow paced walk.

All they cared about was getting away from those CAMELS,

those dragon breathing,

fire generating, smelly monsters,

surely out to destroy us all?

As is always the case in moments or such excitement,

no photographic evidence of the chaos.

We all grabbed hold of anything that seemed vaguely stable,

be it horse,

ground,

or each other 😉.

So a bit of imagination is required for this day one excitement

as we look at more relaxed ‘holding on’ photos 🙄🤣

Having survived day one, we carefully negotiated our way around ‘things’ and spent the next six days doing precisely as we anticipated.

Enjoying a unique slice of Bush Heritage,

riding alongside a wagon,

creating unforgettable memories with the sound of the chains,

the creaking wheels

and guidance from expert horsemen

giving us a sense of freedom and camaraderie like no other.

With grateful thanks to amazing new friends;

for the company,

the sharing,

the laughs,

the nervous moments

and for generously sharing your photos.

Evening Vibes

100km done and dusted – literally – red dust 😂🤣

Mt Goomboorian, Campdrafting

Now that we had mastered the art of cattle mustering

(in 2 easy lessons you understand 🙂 )

We moved on to ‘greener’ pastures.

In the bus, with horses in tow, we left our beautiful Mount and drove through Gympie, where once again we made a pit stop, this time, not at the bottle shop, but rather at the ‘bandaid’ shop (aka pharmacy) to attend some rather painful nether parts which one of us had acquired which offered as much mirth to the group as it offered pain to that region. 🙂

Task accomplished we stopped at the Best pie shop Ever.

Truely you can take my word for that.

And the chips were not half bad either.

34472437_1964606916891737_1293079412895383552_n (1) — The pies were delicious – with or without sauce

34529502_1964606980225064_4453608218089750528_n — The lovely Lisa salting our amazing chips

34466920_1845301282194546_2054192740672995328_n (1) — While some rested in the smoker’s lounge 🙂

and our lovely horses settled for their hay

If you down that way – the best lamb shank pies in town (and good coffee too)

Cots Camp,

near Widgee was our home for the next few days,

with such cute tents awaiting us and more lovely views.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — The local bar 🙂

34770803_2107543599570421_8665903432365768704_n — Our home –

The team here were Unbelievable

I really need to give a shout out to Rod, Ash, Jake and the rest of the crew.

Here we arrived, greenhorns every one of us, and with their welcome, and patience, we actually understood this camp drafting competition and learnt more or less:

(some of us much less, or perhaps I should one of us, much less – you can guess who that was. The others much more 🙂 )

Our amazing crew

Jake, an old soul in a young man as one team member described him. He was SO kind, patient and enthusiastic – a real treasure

Now for those of you who have no idea what campdrafting is, (I was one of those until a few months’ ago). Allow me to elucidate briefly.

In the days of large scale cattle mustering there was always the banter about who had the best horse, who rode the best, who could ‘tame a beast’ the best etc. And so a sport was created. I believe exclusive to Australia, called campdrafting.

In this, the competitor is in a ‘camp’ with several ‘beasts’ (aka cows) and on his horse he selects one and ‘dominates’ it by isolating it from the others and heading it towards the front end of the camp where there is a gate into a large arena. When the competitor is ready, he calls ‘gate’ and the gate is opened, the cow races out, as does the rider who then attempts to ‘steer’ the ‘beast’ around two pegs in a figure 8 and through another set of pegs (the gate) – all within 45 seconds.

Sounds easy? Well yes, when you see an expert, you hold your breath but they do make it look easy. None of us were experts!!!!!!! So just like us, you now understand what we are to do. I will attach below 2 videos, an expert (our lovely Helen) and a wanna be – yours truely for comparison purposes on condition no one laughs please.

And so our days were spent being taught to chose our ‘beast’; dominate our ‘beast’; turn our horses on a dime; stay in the ‘arc of vision’ of the cow –

not too far behind because all the ‘beast’ will hear is the sound of you chasing and it will go forward – Fast.

not too close or you will clip it and you and/or your horse and ‘the beast’ will go down – Hard.

so a bit like Goldilocks, just right.

35077316_1851765218214819_5711107700998275072_n — Serious discussion 🙂

Finally we move from the practice runs to the Real Arena – where we had surprise after surprise as our ‘beasts’ roared through the gate and straight across the arena to the opening at the other end, before any of us knew what had happened.

Our horses on the other hand, knew exactly what to expect and bounded across the arena at fast gallops chasing the cows. Our first rider, who shall remain nameless let out a yell of surprise, you can probably guess and found herself at the other end of the arena before the word was completely out of her mouth such was the speed of her trusty steed!!!!

35855968_10216521667655886_6050490459040514048_n — … and out the gates they went….

Thankfully our next attempts were less ‘startling’

Slowly, with the amazing patience and coaching from Jake, Ash & Rod, we all started to improve – of course some did so a lot more than ‘others’ (you can guess who those ‘others’ are – and if in any doubt, refer to the score sheet from our final day competition)

It was all such fun.

Until it wasn’t

Sadly one of the team fell – at the far end of the arena and we watched, helpless, as she bounced and lay still. A sober reminder that this is, still, a risky sport. Thankfully, with a nurse in the team, an ambulance from Gympie and a little bit of luck on her side, her injuries were not life threatening although serious. *

It was a quiet evening for the rest of us – with conversations muted; all aware of how easily it could have been any of us; how quickly things can go from normal to tragic; how fortunate we each were that it wasn’t us (and how awful to think that at the same time)