Cowgirl on unbeaten tracks in Rockhampton

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Totally tired I finally arrived in Rockhampton, the beef capital of OZ. Not sure why I came here or where to stay, the Lady of the bus company took me with her, cause she also owns a backpackers place, good choice though. She really is a lovely mum like lady from New Zealand. She told me some stuff I could do here and there is a cattle farm not too far from here. Yes, I just thought, that’s the OZ experience I shouldn’t miss, chasing some cows on a horse across the outback. Well and that’s what I did. Not that I really have much clue about horses, did I ride on one before, hmm yeah as a kid some years ago, hardly remember that, I’m not really a horse person but I guess this image of OZ was in my mind.

Next morning Peter the old one eyed farm owner picked me up and drove with me for 1.5 hours inland, not far in oz dimensions. At 8 am we arrived at the farm and after some instructions, a brief breakfast and putting on some farm clothes I was ready to face my horse and new friend „Chocolate“. She is an old girl, but very gentle and as Trevor (our horse guide) said, he just knows which horse fits the person.
We rode some time through the grass, getting used to the horse and see the farm. Yes very high grass everywhere, because the last weeks it rained like hell in Queensland with flooding all over the country.

After the best lunch in a long time the next adventure was right ahead. Riding a cross-country
bike and give some speed as far as possible that is with a speed limit of 35km per hour ;) . Anyway that was heaps of fun.
In between all that I fed a kangaroo baby and a calf.

During Dinner I asked Trevor a lot of questions about the farm, how many cattle and how they work today and later he told us some stories about his younger days and how it was back then bringing 40.000 cattle across the outback by horse, imagine this, one whole day just to cross a river with an endless stream of cattle. Riding all day and sleeping under the stars. Today they use motorbikes, helicopters and transport them on trucks across Australia.

Next morning held a big surprise, we are going to do some real cattle work, bringing them back to the house for transport. Well that’s the sad part about it, they will leave the place alive but not for a long time. We all got ready with the horses, just us guests/trainees and Marie, not enough people today to help out. We left on the horses, me on Chocolate again to get to the fields with some training inside the paddock. Chocolate was a little bit stubborn in the beginning, I had to show her who’s the boss and that she would follow me and I did pretty well, she is a good old girl. Finally we got some more help of the professionals, slowly we came closer and closer in a circle to push about 50 cattle in one direction, Chocolate was exited too. We both managed to stop them and run in a wrong direction and then they all moved forward, the horses and us 15 meters behind them to give them enough space without stress … wow very cool experience though.

Later they all got shipped on a truck with sadness in their eyes … the circle of life and a steak on people’s table.

Tita

Posted in pictures and tita-logue 14 years ago at 01:14 PM.

1 comment

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  1. herliche bilder.bussi


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