The new fitness regime at Bimbadeen Park!
December was the month for relaxation, catching up with friends and eating far too much good food! It was also the time for holidays! With all the eventers kicking back in their paddocks it was time for me to take a break and so it was back home to catch up with my family and let my parents spoil me! Shane jokes that for me it’s the time to go home and put on a bit of condition (like the ponies) and recharge the batteries before another big year. My holidays were at the beginning of the month this year so I could head back and work over Christmas while some of the other workers headed home. We take it in turn each year as to who works over Christmas and New Year.
After 10 days of lounging around at home I headed back to see what everyone else was up to and I arrived back to discover we had acquired two extra workers. A couple of Shane’s distant relatives from England had been back packing around Australia and decided to drop in and stay for a month. We quite often have back packers come and offer to work for their board and food for a few months. The last couple we had came for three months and ended up staying for the year!
We often get asked by overseas visitors if we chase the horses through the bush, a bit like The Man From Snowy River. We reply “Don’t be silly, our horses are well behaved!” That was until one of our ‘brumbies’ decided he had had enough and wanted to go home!
I had better start by explaining what I mean by brumbies. At the beginning of the year Shane and Niki purchased eight horses from a stud in Queensland. The stud stands a couple of stallions, one being Aries (Taurus’ sire) and another Kaptain (the sire of Niki’s mare Wisteria Lane). The only problem was that they were unhandled and unbroken three and four year olds and had never seen humans before! So they were hearded onto a truck and driven down here to Bimbadeen Park to begin their life as eventers. Throughout the year we have broken them in and started their training, but they are still considered to be brumbies!
Early one morning, the girls went to bring in two of the brumbies, Kalure and Katchme, to be worked. While leading them from the paddock, they got a fright and took off around our track. Katchme was sensible and stopped after a short distance and the girls caught him but Kalure decided it was all a bit too much for him and headed bush. Bimbadeen Park backs onto water catchment land and while there are fire trails out there for the rangers to get in, most of it is dense bush. So off went Kalure, through the fence and trotting off down the fire break! The girls jumped on the quad bike and took up the chase.
Normally the horses who decide that going bush is a good idea get to the end of the fire break, then turn around and come back as there are no other horses out there … but not Kalure. He got to the end and just kept on trotting, straight into the dense bush and down the side of the hill. Rach, in all her ‘Man from Snowy River’ glory raced down after him in fifth gear on the quad, trying to head him off before he could get too far from home. But he was having none of that!
Meanwhile back at Bimbadeen, Shane and myself continued with normal duties, believing that the four girls who had taken up the chase should be able to catch him and bring him back no worries. However after about an hour and a half Shane started to wonder what had happened to them so we jumped on a couple of our young eventers and headed off into the bush.
We strained to hear the sound of the quad bike running but there was nothing but bush silence so we turned to looking for tracks on the ground. Every few meters we would stop and listen for the quad bike then return to staring intently at the ground, trying to find any signs of a horse or quad bike. We managed to only take one wrong turn and after about 20 minutes of wondering through the bush we finally heard the sound of an engine! There around the next bend was Rach (who wasn’t supposed to be handling horses after accident) leading a very tired and sweaty horse! He had trudged for kilometres through the bush until his pursuers had found a clearing under some power lines where they could coral and catch him! An interesting start to the morning!
Concreting Shane style
With only a few horses getting worked everyday, we recently turned our attention to farm maintenance, more precisely concreting. There always seems to be something to concrete and as I’m sure I have mentioned in earlier blogs Shane always chooses the hottest days to pour it! I’m sure it’s just an excuse for him to drink beer! It used to just be the boys helping out with the pouring but in recent times the girls have lent a hand although we leave the tough stuff to the boys!
The other glorious thing about this time of the year is the weather! It’s been perfect for swimming in the pool and drinking under the back veranda. Its hard to believe we have to start getting serious about riding again … well maybe not just yet!
The team enjoying some time together
