Out in the bush

My housemate, Wendy, breeds horses, which are kept on her mother's farm about a 2 hour drive west of Melbourne. She has to go there pretty much every weekend to check in on them and spend time with them, esp since her mom doesn't really know anything about horses and mostly just feeds them during the week. On Friday night, I came home and said I was rather bored and had a boring weekend to look forward to, so she invited me out to the farm with her. We left Saturday morning and drove west of Melbourne, heading towards the town of Ballarat, but then on past that to a smaller town called Beaufort. The region has a lot of French descendants, in fact the mountains near the farm have the creative name of the Pyrenees. I found the drive interesting, even if it wasn't really that exciting or pretty, just because it is new to me, and this was only my second time far out of the city. There was a lot of farm land and fields and sheep. Sometime in the early afternoon we finally arrived at the farm which is still almost half an hour from Beaufort. The house is on a hill with brilliant views of the mountains. The best photo I have is here, though it doesn't do the view justice, it's only part of the mountains. It was a gorgeous, clear day, so we got to really soak up the view as we munched our lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches. Then Wendy and I fed some animals and walked around the property. Her mom also has chickens (which Australians call chooks) and ducks, though they really have to fight off the foxes who live just up the hill within sight of the pens. The chickens actually like a bit of a cuddle, which Wendy likes to give, but the ducks run away from you as soon as you head their way.

We wandered down to see all the horses she has, about 20 in total, though I lost track of how many I saw and certainly lost track of their names. The stallions are kept on the complete other side of the house from all the other horses, and esp the females, though they still call out and rile up the females. There are some young horses and an old mare. One has some back leg problems and walks a bit like a goose, another is blind in one eye and thus gets easily spooked, as he did when we were saying hi and he stomped down on Wendy's foot, which she said has turned many fun colours after that. We went walking up a gully that a stream runs down (though the stream doesn't have much water at the moment) and Wendy informed me that this is the time of year the snakes start coming out, and yeah, pretty much any snake you'd see is poisonous. Great. She said though that you're only going to get bit if you agitate them or step on them, so as long as you're not stupid, and not looking up in the air, which you shouldn't be doing anyway on uneven ground, you likely won't get bit. I don't even like harmless garden snakes though, so I really don't want to come across one here.

Sunday was really windy, made worse by being exposed up on a hill, and it started out sunny and warm enough, but it later really rained, which was kind of impressive to see as different clouds moved through the valley and past the mountains. I helped Wendy feed the horses and also helped her move some of them around from one paddock to another, though there was a big drama at one point as one escaped up the driveway and then some people arrived at the same time who wanted to go riding. I was all happy to help drive the truck around the paddocks (it was a small pickup truck, which is called a "ute" here, short for utility, and thus pronounced "yoot"). It was, I think, the first time I've driven a manual since I had to give up my car back in 2000. I only drove for like 2 mins, but I had fun doing it. She went riding with these people who arrived, after taking ages to gather and saddle up the horses, and then it started raining while they were out there, but they got back just in time. I'm very glad I didn't go, heh, but I never was comfortable riding horses.

It was a great weekend away, I met some people they know out there, and got to see and do some things that are definitely out of the ordinary. It was so wonderful to be out in the nature and in the mountains, seeing some forests and just more of Victoria. Oh, and I saw my first wild kangaroos! Which is still definitely a novelty for me, esp since I think I had the impression before that kangaroos only live out in the outback, but there are many kinds of kangaroos and they live all over the place. There are koalas and wallabies out there too, but we didn't see any of those, though Wendy spotted a dead koala on the side of the highway. I first saw a whole... herd? of kangaroos (what is a group of them called? Hrm, apparently a "mob") on a distant hill. I couldn't even see what they were and thought they were maybe cattle until one of them moved in a distinct hopping way. This morning though on the drive back to Melbourne one hopped across the road and I saw more gathered in someone's field. It was so cool! I mean I know it's so common for Australians, but we only see them in zoos! Definitely a reminder of the very different country I am in. Quite dangerous though to come across them while driving, you really do not want to run into one of them.

On a different topic, as a follow up to my mentioning the hook turn, I thought a video would help demonstrate how it works. I found this little animation that shows a pretty accurate situation of trams and traffic going through an intersection, though it goes fairly quick, so you may need to watch it a couple of times to get it. Otherwise there are some real life videos if you search for "hook turn" on Youtube. I won't post links because I have no sound and I don't want to endorse something I can't hear myself. =) I hope it is all clear after this.