Lochenbar Station

Goodness, a Vodaphone signal in a little town - I am typing this on my knee in the bus while we are stopped for coffee.

Sunday 4th September

We did not rise particularly early this morning, since the morning's activity was riding quad bikes, and we are not insured for that, as it is classed as a dangerous activity. We went for a walk instead, along the creek at the edge of the property.

It was very pretty, though we could see a lot of evidence of previous severe flooding; there were quite a few places where tee trunks and branches were piled together. There were quite a few unfamiliar birds and a lot of butterflies. There are also several peacocks and peahens, which are very noisy. We watched one of the station staff on a motor bike rounding up the  horses for the afternoon's riding.

When the quad bikers returned, we all got into a truck and were taken up a nearby hill to see the view, which certainly is fabulous. The hill is the highest for miles around, and one can see a long way in the clear air. The path down again was very steep and rocky though, so I did not enjoy that part of the walk back to the station.

The afternoon's activity was horse riding to help round up the stock. This was another activity in which we could not take part, since it is also classed as dangerous. We decided to spend a peaceful afternoon instead. However, after the horse riding there was clay pigeon shooting, which we were taken to riding on the back of a lorry.

Once again, our insurance didn't allow us to take part in the shooting, I can't quite think why - we assume insurance companies think at at our age, we will be so blind we will shoot other people by mistake. Or each other, possibly.

Fortunately, the mind of an insurance person had been unable to conceive of goat rodeo, so that wasn't banned and we DID take part in that. We learned to throw a lassoo and then had a go at roping goats. I managed to rope two goats at once, but was disqualified on the grounds of going over time. Personally, I think it was really on the grounds of poor technique, as I didn't whirl the thing round my head in the approved manner. I imagine if I had, I would probably have dropped the loop over my own head and strangled myself.  Anyway, I roped a goat, even if not in the approved manner, and I have the picture to prove it!

The poor goats looked quite bewildered, having spent the early afternoon being rounded up by people on horses and driven into an arena, at 5 p.m., the same people came into the arena with them, grunted a lot, and threw ropes which sometimes hit them on the head or back. Then there was a lot of clapping and they were let out to run again - only, presumably, to do it all again in a couple of days.