After an incredibly warm night and several more bites, Jana and I got up at 7am (that’s almost a lie in!) and put on our farm clothes. We headed to breakfast and had a go at toasting bread over the campfire and making tin-billy tea. The light of day revealed that a bite I got on my finger had swollen right up and meant that I was having trouble bending it! Not good!
Straight from breakfast, Jana and I went with Darlene and fed the calves. It was really funny as we were walking them to the paddock - Jana’s calf came up behind me and stuck its head between my legs and almost lifted me off the ground! Needless to say this made me scream! The calves were very greedy and certainly enjoyed their bottles, gulping their feed down super fast. Darlene then gave us the pellet food to feed them and they chased us down the paddock as we went to put the pellets into the trough!
Next up were the chooks – whilst they were being fed by one of the other guests, Darlene gave us a chook each to hold, but my one was not impressed at being picked up and flapped itself away more or less as soon as I had hold of it! Jana’s was more cuddly and seemed to enjoy being held.
Darlene then took us up to the horses, put each of them (there are 25) into their stalls – some were certainly more reluctant than others! Darlene made up their feed – it’s a bit like porridge but with lots of tiny bits of minerals in (including calcium and lime) so it ended up quite granular. We had to feed each horse, some of them were very antsy because it was so hot and they were so hungry - a couple practically knocked the tin of food out of my hand as I tried to pour it into their food dishes!
Once they had eaten, we found our horses from yesterday and bridled them up. The idea was to lead them out to the training paddock, to give them a brush and learn some horse-related skills. That was the idea. Bandit had other ideas. He was going nowhere! Not for me anyway. After a lot of gentle persuasion, following all the instructions I’d been given, Darlene came over and gave him a good yank and he moved! Once in the paddock, he stood still whilst I brushed him, he seemed to like it.
Next we took them back to their stalls, to put their saddles on, before leading them back to the training paddock for a bit of practice at our riding skills. Because of the excess rain the day before, the ground was a bit slippery so we couldn’t take them out of the training paddock. They’re not very keen on hanging out there, so they were a bit miserable to be going around in there, which meant they became a little bit non-compliant! It was ok though, because we got to practice riding. Jana got on really well and even got her horse to do a fast walk which is almost a trot! My ‘elephant finger’ was making it hard to hold the reins, so I let Darlene ride Bandit for a bit. After bringing the horses back in and taking their saddles off, we went for morning tea and gave me an opportunity to play with the parrots again!
Once we’d had our tin-billy tea and homemade biscuits, we returned to the horses and had to get all the horses back out of their stalls and into the training paddock for a runabout! This gave us a workout too, as once again, the horses didn’t all play ball and necessitated a lot of chasing!
Darlene then took us on a walk to see the nest of a Bowerbird, which required us walking through a big pool of water and getting our feet/trainers/trousers absolutely soaking! When we got back we had to wash our trainers and hang them up on the line, just in time for lunch! I then spent the afternoon chilling out, chatting to Jana and playing with the parrots – I really love them!
Pete took us out in the back of his pick up to see the sunset but suddenly it started raining and so the clouds and rain meant that the view got a bit ruined so we headed back, feeling like cattle going to market – he did call us heffers! Shane had left me an aloe leaf so I sat rubbing the sap straight onto my hand, whilst playing with Harry.
Tonight’s dinner was great – roast beef and veggies! Pete’s home brew impressed me again and was the perfect end to a delicious meal! Jana, Nikki and I sat with some other girls and watched Bridget Jones’ Diary (none of us could remember the last time we watched a VCR!) and then Jana and I decided that there was only one other thing appropriate to watch – Crocodile Dundee!
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