It has been a busy week or so. We had a four day ride on Monday through Thursday with 30 8th and 9th grade girls and three of their teachers. We also had short rides at Camp Howqua at the same time, so we were rather low on horses. For the four day ride our staff horses consisted of Woody, an extra long old gelding with a lump on his back, Toobie, an ex-racehorse gelding with a lump on his back (when riding either of theses horses it was important not to sit heavy on their back and try not to sit at all while going faster than a walk), Freckles, an appy gelding who is blind in one eye and quite sensitive to light, Lawson, and Lana both horses who really really really like to more forward quickly… so as you can imagine us staff looked rather interesting on this ride. Luckily I rode Toobie most of the ride. Now Toobie rides exactly like Danar… riding him for a long ride reminded me of why I sold my lovely Danar. For this ride the kids were wonderfully behaved for the most part. One of their teachers really kept them in line. For example she made sure they were in bed with the lights out by 8:30… we all thought that was a bit early, but… this teacher really liked to take charge. At the beginning of camp there were a number of girls who were frightened to trot or canter. By the last day we had every girl jumping. It was amazing to see the transformation in the girls. They were pushing their horses and getting them going really well over the jumps. I was working with the beginner group and for this group I taught them a safe jumping position. One at a time I had them ride so they were lined up with the jump, pick up a trot or canter, and go over the jump. This jump was a log that was about six or eight inches high. Most of the horses would trot up to the jump (some needed more persuasion than others), take a tiny jump or big trot step over the jump, then trot a few strides more where my coworker Dale was on a horse to make sure the kids stopped their horses. We had the horses pretty well blocked so if anything went wrong a staff member was there to stop the horses. Some of the kids were amazing. There was a little girl riding Ben, a old gray arab gelding, who on her first jump almost came off. She asked me what she did wrong, corrected it and by the end she was with the advanced group jumping the bigger logs. I was quite proud!
Camp was an awesome experience, but living with that many girls was tiring. The first and last night they all stayed up at Brian’s lodge where we always live. Our nice quite place in the bush is not nearly as quiet with all of those girls around. We lost our happy little place briefly. The second night we camped in tents at Camp Howqua and that was quite nice! There were plenty of hot showers and a nice campfire.
Saturday and Sunday I was on a two day ride with a bunch of friendly people. I got to ride my lovely Snowy again and he was great as always! We had all of our riders cantering by the afternoon and they all did great and I think they all had a blast. We stayed up late with this group chatting and having a lot of fun. On Sunday we had to switch horses around a bit. Avoca was a bit stiff in the shoulder so we switched her rider onto our older andalusian cross, Combo. That ride went well in the beginning, but after the second canter poor Combo was puffing really hard, so we put his rider on Snowy and Shaynee and I took turns walking Combo up the hills. When the ride went to do a canter, silly Snowy kept walking waiting for a signal from his rider (because he is used to me riding him), so she urged him into a canter and he was a bit behind the group. Rather than racing to catch up, my amazing gelding happily cantered at a good pace until he naturally caught up with the group. Sadly I think my little gelding is almost ready to be a full time guest horse.
After a nice lunch at the winery, an uneventful ride home, and untacking and washing the horses I was completely exhausted. I fell onto the couch as soon as I got home in a smelly pile of tired.
The past few days we recovered and rested in the best way we know… by going to the beach. Amazing Alice took Steph and I to her beach house south of Melbourne in Blairgowry. Of course her dog came as well. It was an amazingly relaxing few days despite the overcast skies. We were walking up the pier talking to fishers when a lady near us caught squid after squid. As she pulled them out of the water, they inked everywhere. Ink was flying in all directions almost hitting us. It was the most exciting fishing I have ever seen. After they were caught, she let us touch her squid. They were beautiful animals and I wish I could have looked at them longer. We went for a walk on one of the most beautiful wild looking beaches I have ever been to.
You take a path through trees and grasses, then suddenly you emerge onto rough sand with rocks everywhere.
The waves were crashing violently on the sand and even more violently onto the rocks. Steph wanted to go swimming and as she waded into the water, a wave promptly knocked her over. That was the end of swimming for all of us for the day… except for the dog Sparkie. Sparkie went swimming, ate things, drank sea water, and inevitably threw it all up. Lovely dog’s life.
The other amazing thing I discovered on this little vacation are cheesie-mite scrolls. They are like cinnamon rolls except that they have vegemite and cheese in them rather than cinnamon. They are heaven made of bread. YUM! If you ever get to Australia be sure to try one!
