

### A Tail of Our Horses

### John Lee

Copyright © 2013 by John Lee

Smashwords Edition  
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### Prologue

Let me introduce us, we are the Lee family and we are totally horse free.

Well, when I say we are horse free I really refer to my wife Lyn and I; my daughter on the other hand still suffers from the horse sickness.

My daughter has been seriously afflicted with this disease since the age of four; she became infected suddenly, no warnings, one minute a perfectly normal four year old child, and the next horribly addicted to horses.

This is a terrible illness that is very harmful to one's bank account. It starts with a subtle yearning for one's own horse, perhaps starting with a lovely Welsh Mountain pony, but this soon leads to bigger and bigger horses, until one day we suddenly found ourselves the proud owners of a giraffe.

Please sit back and relax and journey with us down the road to bankruptcy.

**Special Thanks To**

My lovely daughter Cara, and my lovely wife Lynnie, for allowing me to share with you, our story of owning one's own horse, and all the trials and tribulations that go with it.

Extra special thanks to Helen Townes, for assisting with my second book, "A tail of our Horses".

### Contents

Prologue

Special Thanks

The Afflicted

Getting There

Jumping Jacks (Killer Ants)

Countrification

Nan and Pop

OK, I'm getting to the horses, but first . . .

My lovely wife, The Crusty Demon

Grandpa

Direct Debit

Our first encounter with the Equine Vet

Colic

The Gentlemanly pursuit of horsey riding

My horse riding expertise

And now back to Grandpa

An unfortunate incident

My Daughter becomes severely infected

Moonlight

Goodbye to Flowerdale

Strath Creek

Getting the horses organised

Things were starting to settle down

A couple of incidents on the same day

Little Silver

The Strath Creek Sports Day

Hang the Expense

Moonlight's very first event

Molly

An unforgettable accident

Make welcome Gentle John

Gentle John's time to move on

Comet

Moonlight's mishap

Tamar Park Exquisite (Babe)

Let's get Babe pregnant

Gemma

Cara has a re-union with Gemma

We say farewell to Grandpa

We say farewell to little Silver

Lofty

Pony club with Lofty

Shut your big mouth John

Almost a nasty accident

Lofty goes for show jumping training

Lyn's father, Pop, and my dear old Mum

Chocky Muffin

Introducing Sally

Cilla and baby Miracle

Let's build some more stables

Practical joke

Gates

I am sorry but I must digress for a moment ...

Life is full of surprises

Both of our kids move to Queensland

.oOo.

Our Road Trip **  
**(Bonus Extra Book)

Prologue

Special thanks

My Parents

The Caravan

Our Cars

Melbourne to Ballarat

Lynnie, I think my parents are about to die ...

Lynne's little adventure

Ballarat Base Hospital

We set off for far away Adelaide

Scuse me Dad, but we appear to have lost the ladies

Our first camp site in Adelaide

The bed incident

Adelaide to Ceduna

Oh! My gawd, I think I'm going to be sick

Lynnie, is that an earthquake?

Mundrabilla to Norseman

Norseman to Perth

Time to go home

Lynnie, let's play a trick on the olds

We part company

Oh! Shit, is that all there is?

Home sweet home

### The Afflicted

Horse affected people: on the left John Lee, the author, who now has a constant look of bewilderment, and a drooping smile line. The author's lovely wife, Lyn, on the right, now has a fixed staring gaze, and one eye has become so beautiful the other one can't stop looking at it.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and my lovely wife.

My name is John Lee. I am fifty six years old going on ninety, my wife Lyn is two years younger – she is approaching eighty-eight. I say going on ninety because horses have a tendency to age a person. I initially blamed our daughter Cara for infecting us with the horse disease, though after a somewhat heated argument we discovered that my wife and I were responsible for the initial infection.

I have a little pop top caravan that doubles as a time machine; we call it the Tardis – come with us as we travel back to 1984, to a little hamlet called Flowerdale.

Welcome aboard the Tardis, prepare for a trip down memory lane. Learn how man's second best friend, the horse, can turn a completely normal person loopy

### Getting there

Nestled in the hills and valleys, surrounded by towering gum trees, tree ferns, and magnificent flowering wattles, sits the lovely township of Flowerdale. Flowerdale is in the State of Victoria Australia and is located approximately 89 kilometres north of Melbourne.

It's quite a pleasant trip to Flowerdale, passing through the township of Whittlesea. I say passing through because there is no point stopping in at Whittlesea because after 5.00pm nothing moves, the township is bereft of moving objects, no cinemas, no huge shopping centres, in fact you can't even watch the traffic lights changing, because there are none.

But to its credit though, it does have a nice set of public toilets.

We now wind up the Kinglake hill, round twists and bends, and pass the Kinglake turnoff and the Kinglake West general store, on past Mount Robinson Pine plantation, then down the other side of the mountain past Wallaby Creek, and we now enter the valley of the King Parrot Creek.

It truly is a pleasant trip through this area, especially in late July when magnificent Cootamundra Wattles display their spectacular golden blooms, and flowering cherries contrast with their pale pink collages, during the winter months there is the lovely smell of wood smoke as the locals keep themselves warm, and during the summer months, the equally alluring scent of Eucalyptus from the myriads of Gum trees, but, for all its beauty, this journey can be quite treacherous, depending on the time of day you choose to travel.

I myself worked shift work, nights and afternoons, making this lovely picturesque drive a personal nightmare. To add to my worries I was forced to travel by motorbike, a device I swore I would never ride. I was employed at the time at the Austin Hospital working as an Orderly in the Casualty Department. I saw so many horrific accidents that were the direct results of motorbike riders colliding with various immovable objects. However the ever increasing price of petrol deemed me doomed to ride a motorbike for 14 years, rain hail or shine, summer or winter. Just picture the scene, riding home in the freezing cold, my helmet visor in the up position because of the light mist causing it to fog up, the mist stinging my eyes, when all of a sudden a giant moth with the wingspan of a light aircraft, crashed into my open mouth, splatting itself into the back of my throat. Though this sounds quite gross, it actually tasted quite sweet, but I was unable to catch any more.

The pleasant drive from Whittlesea to Flowerdale now became a nightmarish game of hit and miss especially during wintertime. In the pitch dark everything takes on a different shape; add to this black ice and driving rain, and an unearthly mist that rises from the King Parrot Creek and spreads like a white covering blanket across the road – just high enough mind that I could see over it, but not under it. Throw into the mix the silly solid concrete-like wombat, and the skittish which-way-shall-I-jump grey kangaroos and black wallabies, and the odd large deer or two, and it all makes for an interesting drive.

But let's go back to a lovely sunny daylight trip: as we wind through the valley we pass Zeppy's chook farm, and rounding a few more bends we come upon the location of Silver Creek Road. Isn't that a lovely address, Silver Creek Road, Flowerdale?

We turn left into Silver Creek Road and cross the King Parrot Creek. Silver Creek Road at this time was a dirt road, full of large potholes; we wind along this road past St Kevin's Camp, finally arriving at Lot 10 Silver Creek Road (home sweet home).

Welcome to our first home, a small three bedroom fibro cement house perched precariously on the side of a steep hill. The house was set high on wooden stumps, so high in fact the front veranda had a drop of about ten feet to ground level.

When we first moved into this house our driveway came to an abrupt end at the bottom of the hill.

The house was accessed via 50 steps cut into the side of the hill. Once this first stage of Mount Everest is traversed, you reach base camp, just time enough to catch one's breath, and then it's time to tackle the ten wooden steps that lead up to the summit.

Our house was set on approximately three quarters of an acre, most of the block steep (goat country), all set amongst towering straight-trunked Mountain Ash trees. The only really useable area of the entire block was the initial road frontage area, and most of this was deemed Crown land.

The house when we first bought it consisted of one master bedroom and another large long thin bedroom which we would later make into two.

The lounge was a large open room with exposed beams, and the entire front section of this room was dressed in floor to ceiling windows. The vista from this room was magnificent; we looked directly across the valley at The Mount Disappointment State Forest.

Digressing momentarily, I think Mount Disappointment State forest was so named because every time you drive through it you never see any wildlife. I recall driving all the way from Melbourne to the state forest arriving there just on dusk. The idea was we would drive slowly through the forest with the hope that we might spot a wombat to show our son Troy.

Mount Disappointment lived up to its name: whilst driving at 10 kilometres per hour a wombat shot out of the long grass, straight under the front of the car, giving me no time to brake or swerve. There was a mighty crash, and my son's first view close up of a Wombat was of one lying on its back with its feet in the air.

Later that night I checked my lovely new station wagon for damage, but could see nothing. The next morning our neighbour came over and said "I think someone has crashed into your car". On closer inspection we found that the Wombat had hit so hard underneath the front of the car that the front passenger side panel buckled. Imagine my disappointment with Mount Disappointment.
I recall with some amusement my first trip to work and back in our car, a small drive of some 110 kilometres. I had completed afternoon shift and was heading for home at 11 pm. I arrived home at midnight; as I parked the car and turned off the lights, I stepped out into absolute total darkness – the night was so black I couldn't even see the car, never mind the steps. This was pre-mobile telephone times, and all I could do to get my wife to turn on the outside spotlight was to toot the car horn. It took ages for my wife Lyn and the mother-in-law to come to the front door. This house had been used for many years as a holiday house; as a result of this a large wombat had taken to stomping up and down the front veranda each night – Lynnie and her mum thought someone was trying to break in, and were both petrified.

Directly across the road from our place was the Silver Creek; this is a beautiful mountain stream, with crystal clear drinkable water.

Our lounge room was heated by a large pot belly stove right in the centre of the room; the kitchen meanwhile consisted of a small bench, with an equally small cooking stove.

Our water supply was pumped directly from the Silver Creek to our 3,000 gallon water tank.

The main drawback about this house, apart from the access, was that if one required a shower, it was a physical ordeal to say the least.

Our internal taps had no water pressure; therefore it was necessary to pump water up onto the roof to what is known as a header tank, this allows gravity feed down to the taps and shower. All sounds a little romantic and somewhat countrified, but in reality it was a complete pain in the arse. To have a shower we had to manually do 500 cranks using alternate hands on a wooden pump handle attached to the outside wall. At 5.00am in the morning on a freezing winter's day, this was not an enviable task.

After three months of this I had biceps like Popeye – first item on the list for change, we need an electric pump.

### Jumping Jacks (Killer Ants)

Everything in this house had to be carried up that hill, groceries, gas bottles, my son Troy.

And always things would happen on the way up or down that hill. I recall our first few days there; my dog ran into the bush and was barking madly at something? Me, then being a person from the city, ambled over to see what all the fuss was about, I will never forget that moment as long as I live. The dog had discovered an echidna that was digging up an ants nest. All of a sudden I went berserk screaming at the top of my lungs; my wife Lyn thought I had finally lost the plot, sharp pain from dozens of white hot needles seared through my lower legs, I had been introduced to the humble half inch long Jumping Jack ants (why oh why would God invent those little shits?). I got no sympathy from Lyn, and it took days for the swelling to finally abate. Payback happened within days: Lynnie and I were carrying a large LP gas cylinder up to the house, both of us blissfully unaware that I had walked backwards through a Jumping Jacks nest, Lynnie followed shortly after wearing open shoes or thongs as we call them here. She stepped into a seething mass of angry jumping, biting stinging, and mad things. Immediately heaps of these angry little buggers started biting, and stinging Lynnie. She dropped the gas bottle and hi-tailed it indoors (Karma I believe is what that is called, Lynnie went berserk as I giggled and remained Karma); it served her right.

### Countrification

I'm not sure of the timeline for countrification: I think it's a gradual thing that creeps up on you. It starts with a slowing down of one's mental faculties; you start to walk slower, talk slower, and seem to spend more time gazing around at the scenery.

One's appearance starts to change too; it first starts with the beard; this seems to have a mind of its own and spreads like an uncontrolled clump of blackberries. Lyn's was always neat.

The clothing changed to Blundstone boots and overalls, and the last sign is the wearing of an Akubra hat: this is a wide brimmed hat similar to a cowboy hat, and it's made from compacted rabbit fur and usually has a leather band around the bottom of it. The excuse for wearing this is the sun, but really it's just a thing all country folk do. The last nail in the coffin is a subscription to the Weekly Times Newspaper; this is a country paper that tells of all things country, sheep, cows, combine harvesters, tractors and horses, oh shit I've said the word and already feel nauseated.

Horses, this is a book about horses we have owned over the years. I know I have to write about them at some point, but for now I will tell you a little more about us, our surrounds and how the illness first began.

We had lived in Flowerdale for a year or two; finally a local chap with a huge bulldozer cut a driveway up to the side of the house. This was marvellous at first, but the first time it rained we realized our driveway would need to be renamed Heartbreak Hill. It was possible to drive up the hill if it was dry, but to get back down was treacherous even in the dry, it required reversing skills that a Finnish rally driver would be happy to have.

Digressing for just a moment I will tell you of a few incidents that occurred on the hill of death that will give you a small insight into our dilemma.

### Nan and Pop

My lovely mother in-law, Marion, and my dear departed father-in-law, Allan, would make the sojourn from Melbourne to Flowerdale every Saturday. They owned a Ford Falcon station wagon, maroon in colour; it would be loaded up with fruit and vegies, to help us through the week; also on board was the family cat Muffy.

To describe my mother-in-law I would have to say: proper, immaculately dressed at all times, hair nicely coifed and held together with a full can of hair spray, all in all quite dignified.

Pop my father in law on the other hand I would describe as a taciturn man, also well dressed, deaf as a post, yet also proper. I very rarely heard Pop swear and on the one day he did he turned a deeper shade of red afterwards.

On this particular day in question Nan and Pop duly arrived at lunch time on the Saturday, the car fully loaded, the cat spread across the rear seat, and up the drive they came, almost to the top stopping just short of the summit because my car and motorbike was already there. The only good part here was the day was at least dry.

A pleasant weekend was had by all until that fateful Sunday, when it was time for them to leave.

Pop would always leave in daylight hours, because he hated driving in the dark. I used to take the mickey out of him saying, try your headlights Pop, they are brand new, and never ever thinking there would come a day when I would be in the exact same boat as him.

For reasons known only to them, they stayed late on this day and it was dark and raining heavily when they tried to leave.

We said our farewells and I walked down the driveway to help pop navigate. He reversed slowly down the hill, his back window completely steamed up with condensation. Already he was starting to veer off to one side; Pop had his window open so I yelled "POP, YOU'RE GOING OFF THE DRIVE", to which he replied "SHE'LL BE RIGHT". Another six feet and the situation was becoming precarious, I once again called out "POP, YOU NEED TO TURN, YOU'RE GOING OFF THE DRIVE". He called back "SHE'S APPLES". The third call went unheeded.

My driveway, if you're standing at the bottom looking up, drops sharply straight down, and then veers to the left, and looking to the right of the driveway is a huge drop, extremely steep; it was punctuated with large gum trees and a few small saplings.

Once over the edge it's a terrible end-over-end roll till one reaches the goat's pen.

I couldn't believe my eyes as Pop continued, as if on a suicide mission, off the side of the driveway, and the car began to list heavily towards the driver's side. I swear I heard the theme song to the movie Titanic as the car, in slow motion, started to turn turtle, over she went beyond the point of return and there she hesitated.

I was in a panic I radioed their position to the RACV and sent up distress flares; what a way to lose the in-laws, let alone the family cat.

The once pristine Nan now took on the look of the Wreck of the Hesperus, as the family cat raced around the inside of the car, its fur fluffed up like a rabid dandelion. You would think things couldn't get worse?  
But alas they did.

It was bedlam; the cat was now racing all around the inside of the car, fur fluffed up like a rabid dandelion, Pop was squashed down against his door as Nan stood on him and slowly raised herself out of her side window.

This once pristine lady was now looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus, her once beautifully permed hair was now dishevelled and sticking up vertically from her head, meanwhile the rain fell. The car remained poised past the brink of no return. I figured it was just a matter of seconds before she sank down to the depths.

And you guessed it; there were NO life-boats.

I raced around to the underside of the car, and realized all that was preventing the death throes was a tiny sapling perhaps 4 inches in diameter.

Quickly Lyn and I raced back to the stricken mother-in-law, she was extricated from the passenger-side window, and then she turned to help her partner of 50 years. They held hands as she shivered and sobbed JACK, JACK, JACK, which we thought strange because his name was Allan. He shivered then suddenly sank beneath the windowsill, then just as suddenly popped up again. We managed to extricate Pop out of the passenger side window. Oh! My God they were safe; I never did know who saved the cat. And the Hope Diamond was never found.

You may think the drama was over, okay the car was in a state but what else could possibly go wrong?

Enter the Kinglake Royal Auto Club of Victoria man, Andy. He turned up with his tow truck, lights flashing; he hopped out of his vehicle to appraise the scene. He seemed completely unfazed as if he saw this predicament every day of the week. Andy was a laid back sort of bloke, shoulder length dark hair, and he didn't say much or show any emotions.

He walked back to his truck, and turned it around so he was facing backwards up the driveway; he trained dazzling spotlights onto the disaster scene, then he started to unwind a winch cable which he took up the hillside.

He then hooked a snatch block pulley and wrapped that around the base of an 80 foot tall Mountain Ash tree. Next he then took the end of the cable and passed it through the pulley then dragged this end to the car. He hooked this up to the underside of the car then warned everyone to stay clear.

What a clever piece of advice that was, he jumped into the tow truck revved the engine then put the winch into gear.

As the gear took up the slack there was a moaning and groaning (that was Pop) as the car slowly started to move. Without warning there was a terrible noise as the Giant Mountain Ash tree was pulled out by the roots. Oh shit, a tree with a girth of three feet was uprooted, this mighty tree had stood for heaven knows how many years, minding its own business only to meet its demise in such a horrible way, and "where did the tree fall you may ask"?

It fell right across my bloody driveway.

The tow truck driver, Andy, didn't flinch, he simply unattached the winch cable, and promptly selected another giant mountain ash tree to act as his fulcrum. Once more, all hitched up, he set the gears in motion, the car slowly started to roll back, then deja vu it all happened again; 80 towering feet of gum tree came crashing down further down the hill across our driveway. These trees, despite their vast height, are shallow rooted, but I mean really, I always had plans to do some clearing on the block, but this wasn't quite what I had in mind. Completely unperturbed by his first two abject failures Andy hooked up to another giant gum tree. I now had visions of the entire hillside becoming unstable, and the entire house sliding down to join the car in the goat's pen.

But as they say lucky last, this time the winch and the tree held, the car crashed back onto its wheels and the only visible signs of damage was mud and a few gum leaves on the car's side.

I surveyed the scene and wondered how the hell am I going to get to work on Monday, my car and motorbike were stuck at the top of the hill, two giant gum trees were across the drive, but on the upside we slept well that night knowing that would-be thieves wouldn't get anywhere near the house.

### Ok I'm getting to the horses, but first . . .

Yes yes, I know this is a book about our horses, but first I feel I must give you an insight into the craziness that makes up our day to day lives.

Maybe a matter of a week or two later, we were faced with the unpleasant dilemma of an overflowing septic tank. I had already taken the advice of local residents who informed me that if I was to remove the lid from the septic tank, I could use a stout long stick to break up the crust that settles atop the household jobbies. By doing this I was informed we would get another month or two's use from the septic tank. I did as advised twice and was finally left with no choice but to call the jobbie removals person.

This chap duly arrived one Sat turd day morning in a large truck complete with large tank and pumping equipment. To my surprise he drove straight up the driveway without any drama, he then attached all his pipes and sucking equipment and headed for the septic tank.

Lynnie and I watched in fascination as this chap removed the lid, sucked all our hard earned money out of the tank, and then to our amazement he hopped into the tank with a broom.

I couldn't help myself: I said "to him, gawd what a shit job", to which he promptly replied, "Who's the fool, I've been here ten minutes and I'm leaving with $70 of your money" (good point I thought).

It was time for him to depart; and it was now the games began, as he reversed slowly down the driveway and slowly began to slip sideways towards the huge drop off to the goat's pen.

It seemed surreal like the fantastic slow motion vision one sees on sporting events these days. We stood mouths agape as this huge lumbering truck full of our number two's started tilting over the edge of the driveway. I had horrific visions of thousands of Polly Waffles flooding the front of our property, and Matilda, our pet goat, going under for the last time. Oh! What a shitty way to die.

As all seemed lost the driver managed to stop the truck, one pair of dual wheels hanging in mid-air. Thank God for international rescue, an old chap from down the street just happened to be passing on his International tractor; he drove up, hooked chains to the front of the truck and saved the day.

The calamity was averted. I have looked back on this incident and surmised: had the truck rolled, had the contents broken free, had Matilda drowned, who would pay for the cleanup? Would the Insurance people deem it an act of God, how would the Kinglake tow truck operator handle this one (should we move?). Questions, I now happily say, the answers to which we will never know.

### My lovely wife, The Crusty Demon

I promise now this is the last story of the driveway from hell. As I have mentioned earlier I was forced to commute to work via motorbike. I had purchased a brand new Suzuki GSX 250cc motorbike. Oh! What a beautiful looking machine, deep red with black GT lines on the side – so new, so shiny, so undamaged.

I remember this day so clearly, it had just started raining, so I had parked the bike at the bottom of the driveway, and as I hiked up the hill Lynnie met me halfway. "Can I ride the bike up the hill"? she asked. Not really thinking too much I thought why not, and without further ado I handed her the keys. I recall saying "be careful it's raining and the driveway will be slippery" and without a second thought I rounded the back of the house.

I heard the motorbike start up, I heard it slowly make its way up the hill, and then I thought I heard the beginning of World War Three.

As I have mentioned earlier my driveway if looking up from the bottom, went steeply up the hill curving to the left, at the top it came to an abrupt end at the one flat parking spot. I didn't mention however that as you draw level with the front of the house, to the left there is a tiny pathway from the driveway across the front of the house to the veranda steps. One must be careful walking along this path, especially if it's raining; no-one in their right mind would attempt to ride a heavy motorbike along it.

To say nobody in their right mind however obviously did not include my wife Lyn.

If someone not in their right mind was to turn onto this pathway, they would find an almost vertical drop to their left down the hillside to the driveway, then onwards towards the goat's pen. The hillside here is dotted with massive Mountain Ash trees obviously placed strategically by someone greater than us to help arrest the downward rush of anyone foolish enough to go this way via motorbike.

I heard the bike coming up the hill; I knew it was at the top of the drive, I heard the bike continue on, I heard the throttle open to full; I heard an unearthly crash followed by a sound that will haunt me the rest of my days. I heard the bike now revving at full throttle, and over that I hear an ear-splitting scream of ... "JOHNNNNNYYYYYYYYY".....

I raced around from the back of the house, and was confronted with a horrific sight. The bike was three-quarters of the way down the near vertical drop, it was lying on its side revving out of control, and pinned underneath the bike was Lynnie looking somewhat mangled.

I switched the bike off and managed to lift it from my stricken wife. I now turned my attention to Lyn, "where are you hurt"? I asked. "EVERYWHERE" she replied. I wanted to call an ambulance but Lynnie insisted she try to move all the moveable parts of her body to assess what was broken and what was still intact. I asked the obvious, "Have you hurt your neck or back"? "No" she replied. "Can you move your legs"? "Yes but my foot is very sore" she replied.

I heard the bike revving at full throttle, I then heard a horrendous crash, followed by an ear splitting scream of "Johnnnnnyyyyyyyy!"

With great care we got her to her feet, and up into the house, her head was aching, her chest was hurting, her foot was extremely sore, yet still she refused to see a doctor.

The unfortunate thing about all this, besides her injuries, was that we were due to have an interview in Melbourne that night, with the view to becoming Cottage Parents, and this is a job which involves looking after Ward of the State children.

Our interview was scheduled for 6.00pm but on arrival we found ten other sets of people vying for the same position. They called us in supposedly in alphabetical order, yet we somehow got the last interview.

Meanwhile, sitting in the waiting room, I was getting very concerned for Lyn's welfare; she had beads of perspiration standing out on her brow yet the air was cold, then she was shivering then fevered. At last we were called in for our interview; I was surprised to see how young the people were that were conducting the interview. They asked us question after question with different scenarios, how we would react in different situations. It went on and on; I know it is vital to choose the right people when it involves looking after children, but by now it was starting to get to me, Lynnie was looking worse by the moment, and then the young lass asked a question that got my goat so to speak. She asked "what is love?"

I looked at her and couldn't help myself; I asked her "how old are you?" She replied "nineteen". I said "are you in a relationship?" She replied "no". I said "then you tell me what love is". I went on to say we have been married X amount of years, we have two well-adjusted children, we have been through quite a number of life experiences etc.

This young lass had read about love, and had a text book response to what love is; we were expected to respond to the designated question in a pre-designated way, needless to say the interview didn't go well, and we didn't get the job – never mind.

From South Melbourne we drove to the Austin Hospital and, numerous X-Rays later, we learned Lynnie had suffered several broken toes, badly bruised ribs, and concussion.

And now for the really bad bit, my beautiful shiny bike suffered severe abrasions on its previously unmarked paint work; the gear lever was at right angles to the bike, both mirrors horribly twisted.

And when I went to go to work the following evening I found my headlight would have been more useful for spotting Aircraft.

Needless to say Lynne's motorbike riding career was over forever.

### Grandpa

Grandpa, a dirty white Appaloosa horse: he taught us many things, especially how to spend money.

I can put the inevitable off no longer, it really is time to broach the main subject of this book. The horse, aah, yes the horse!

Let me begin at the beginning by introducing you to our very first horse. Please make welcome Grandpa. What a right bloody name for a horse, but unfortunately that was the name he was delivered with. The final chapter in becoming countrified is to own one's own horse; we'd spotted a sign in the local shop, Grey gelding Sixteen hands high, six years old make great family pet.

The sign went on to say what all horse signs say, (The Horse is Bomb Proof). For the uninitiated this means the horse will not go crazy or gallop away from you, even if, god forbid, a bomb goes off close by. My wife Lyn first went and checked out Grandpa at a local riding school. Grandpa was a big solid looking horse, 16 hands high, he was described to us as a Grey Appaloosa horse, but he actually looked white in colouring. A chap, who I would finish up working with later in life, was selling the horse.

When Lyn arrived at the riding school on the outskirts of Flowerdale the owner Rob, leapt up onto Grandpa's back, no saddle, just a halter and lead rope. He rode him in circles for a while, and Lyn was convinced this was the horse for us. Later that same day Grandpa was duly delivered to our property via a horse float, he calmly backed off the float, and was lead into our Goat Pen. This was a well fenced area approximately a quarter acre of flat grass land. Grandpa made himself at home, dropped a big shit, then began to munch away contentedly.

We paid $400 for Grandpa and bade farewell to Rob, and I still hear the words echoing in my head: 'don't worry, he's completely Bomb Proof'.

First-time horse owners often make the mistake that Lynnie and I made in regard to what to feed their animal. We knew nothing about horses. only that they looked cute, and also to be careful when walking around the back end of one. We knew horses ate grass, we also knew they drank water, but apart from this we were complete novices.

We headed off to the local Stockfeeds at the Flowerdale store, and after reading the labels on several bags we opted on one that seemed to fill all our requirements. We headed for home and filled a large bucket with this horse food. Grandpa actually seemed thrilled to be getting such grand treatment, and chomped on this food like there was no tomorrow. I even thought I heard him say thank-you. We were well pleased with our efforts, our new horse was settling in, he loved the grub we gave him, and life was perfect.

We gave Grandpa another bucket of feed at tea time, and again the following day.

Something strange was happening however. I suspected the drugs were perhaps wearing off, because now Grandpa was running in circles as if he was competing in the Melbourne Cup. Round and round he went, getting progressively faster and faster, we couldn't catch him, and he appeared to be going a bit mental his eyes rolling around in his head.

I said to Lyn "I'd better ring Rob up and tell him the drugs have worn off". And I did just that, using those exact words, "Rob I think the drugs have worn off already". He said "what are you on about, the horse is Bomb Proof". I explained how the horse was running faster and faster in circles, so fast he was starting to wear a track into the grass.

Rob said, "What have you given him"? I said "only some horse food we bought from the local store". He said "what sort of food?" I replied "it's called Completo". He said "how much have you given him?" "Three large buckets" I replied. Rob was laughing on the other end of the phone, a bit rude I thought, but then he went on to say "fuck me you're going to blow the horse up". He went on to explain," Completo is just that, it's a complete horse mix that lots of trainers give to race horses before a big race; it apparently heats their blood up and sends them crazy. It's a bit like putting high octane fuel in a normal car, turn the key and the car leaves you behind". Okay our first little mistake, it only took about three days for the horse food to wear off and for Grandpa to return to earth, but there is a saying that springs to mind: "you live and learn"; this was our very first learning curve, and one of many more to come.

### Direct Debit

Such joy! such bliss to own one's own horse, yet already I was starting to learn that to own a horse the best approach is to always have your wallet in hand, have the wallet open at all times, and basically just let the cash slide automatically into the hands of those who provide services for said horses.

Vets, farriers, stock feeds, saddlers, horse breakers, horse fixers, and the list just continue on.

We had a short period of relative calm with Grandpa; he ate then deposited our money in various mounds around the paddock, and we were rewarded handsomely with exercise, picking up these large blessings he left for us.

We forked out money for a bridle, a horse rug to keep him warm in winter, a summer rug to keep him cool in summer, a fly veil designed to keep the flies from getting in his eyes, lead ropes, various brushes, combs, and tinder blocks for grooming, a pick to scrape the dirt from the undersides of his feet, a large file to neatly shape his hooves, and the list went on and on.

Oh, and not forgetting a Western saddle for $200.00. Okay, it was cheap so to speak and imported from India, but it was functional. Next on the list was a bridle, a bit, a head stall. Then a lovely soft fluffy fleece-lined saddle blanket bought specially to prevent Grandpa's dirt caked coat from getting marked.

The great thing I personally loved about Grandpa was his loving regard for us. Lyn would spend hours lovingly grooming this animal, all the while telling him how beautiful he looked. The horse obviously loved all this attention and I swear his head used to swell with pride. Once the last brush stroke was applied, Grandpa would lovingly go to the muddiest spot in the paddock, and roll over and over rather like a wallowing pig, then he would trot back to us, as if to say 'hey what do ya reckon'?

We discovered the Appaloosa breeding of Grandpa early in the piece, straight after his first session of grooming really; he did as he always did, waited for the last brush stroke then dutifully rolled in the crap. Not to be beaten, we got the hose and washed him. To our great surprise his whole back end went a dark colour of blue, with all these lovely dapples all over his rump, which brings to mind an old saying "never judge a horse by its colour" or is that a book by its cover? Ah! Well, never mind.

### Our first encounter with the Equine Vet

Living with horses is a constant learning curve.

Lesson number 1: (Never feed them that Completo stuff.)

We were still learning, always the hard way, and always in ways that would have maximum effect in emptying my wallet.

Lesson number 2: (Carrots, eaten in moderation, are fine.)

Lynnie had been out shopping, and whilst on this expedition she bought carrots. A very large bag of carrots, and the great part was they were cheap.

Grandpa loved them, his ears would come forward, his eyes would take on a dreamy look of calmness and contentment, and as many carrots as we would offer, he would gratefully dispose of. And imagine how wonderful his eyesight would become.

One entire bag of carrots later Grandpa was sated, but within hours things changed. His ears now ran parallel with his neck, his eyes rolled and he farted with great gusto.

He kept on twisting his head looking frantically towards his flanks; he would raise his back leg as if trying to scratch.

My gawd! What the heck is wrong with him now? One thing about living in the country is that there are lots of people in the same boat; many own horses, and the amazing part is, they ALL consider themselves to be experts in all things horse. We rang someone local, I don't recall who, and explained our dilemma and received the news Grandpa has Colic.

### Colic

The first advice we received was to give the horse a bottle of flat beer, this we were told would relieve the symptoms and help the horse to pooh. Once this was achieved the horse would relax and all would be well. I was dubious to say the least, and not overly impressed to be feeding this windbag with my beer.

I had three-quarters of a bottle of beer in the fridge I had opened a few days earlier and hadn't drunk. This was during my drinking days and beer, flat or otherwise, I would drink regardless. Reluctantly the beer was brought down to the panic-stricken horse, we tipped it into his mouth and he dutifully drank it. All we achieved here was a slightly tipsy horse with guts ache.

There was nothing else for it; we would have to call the Vet. We rang the local Vet – when I say local he was the closest and situated in the township of Yea, some thirty minute drive away. We explained the situation to him, and he advised us to keep the horse moving until he arrived, and went on to explain that Colic can kill a horse, because they are in so much pain that they can go into shock.

I must say that on this day, my brief love affair with horses ended abruptly. I volunteered to walk the horse, I had him on a short lead rope, and led him all around the property, up the hill, across the block, down the hill, up the road, down the road, and all the while the horse dutifully let rip with monstrous farts; at one stage I actually thought he had gotten his engine started.

Back home again I stopped for a quick breather, and it was here Grandpa lost me forever. To say thank you to me for being so considerate of his needs, he reached over ever so gently and bit me on the shoulder.

I lost the plot; I would never hurt an animal, but something snapped, my fist came up from round my ankles, flew in a menacing arc towards Grandpa's head. I missed him by miles and only succeeded in almost dislocating my shoulder. Now I am wary of horses, sure they look pretty, and butter wouldn't melt in their kindly mouths, but when they bite it hurts.

Finally the vet arrived; the situation was resolved in seconds, the Vet then produced a needle which he stuck in the horse's neck. The horse sighed then let go with a monstrous shit, he then proceeded to munch on the grass as if nothing had ever happened.

The vet was a chap called Murray Grant, and he explained to us that Colic is a serious problem for horses; they are in so much pain that they cannot pooh; the problem becomes worse and worse until the horse goes into shock. He mentioned the sure signs of Colic, the glancing to the flanks, trying to kick themselves with their hind legs, the wind etc. Once cured all that was required was for me to empty the contents of my wallet into the Vet's reluctant hands.

The horse was happy, Lynnie was happy, the Vet was happy, and I was skint.

### The Gentlemanly pursuit of horsey riding

The time had come to test out the bomb-proof theory that seemed to follow Grandpa's previous history.

Grandpa all saddled up for the first time and ready to go. Would he take off at a gallop and leave me suspended in mid-air?

Grandpa stood nicely as we placed the saddle blanket on him, he never flinched as the saddle was placed on his back, he let out a prolonged fart (or a fluff, as Lynnie is prone to call them) as we cinched up the girth strap, but apart from this he was a thoroughbred gentleman, he mouthed the bit and seemed quite content.

I know you are expecting some kind of disaster here: I bet he gets thrown straight off, you're thinking maybe the horse will take off and leave him suspended in midair? Aaaah! You didn't know I have had previous horse-riding experience? Let me digress for a moment.

### My horse riding expertise

At or about the young age of sixteen, I took up horse riding with a bunch of mates. They had all ridden before but I was about to have my very first horse riding experience.

We went to a riding school at a place called Watsonia. My mates gave me the great advice that when the riding school people asked if I had any previous experience I was to reply convincingly that I had.

I think I was set up by my mates and the owners of the riding school. My first horse was a huge red beast, named, strangely enough "Big Red". They held onto his head as I placed my foot in the stirrups and another chap boosted me up onto his back. There was muffled laughter from a number of people but in complete innocence I thought there must have been a private joke told.

We walked to the end of the riding school paddock and came upon a gate that would let us out onto open land. It was suggested by my mates that I hop off and undo the gate; they claimed this would give me a bit of experience in getting on and off the horse. This sounded reasonable to me and I obliged. I jumped off the horse and that was fine, I let the gang walk their horses through, and closed the gate then went to get back on.

I placed my left hand on the horn of the saddle as per instructions, I placed my left foot in the stirrup, and then I suffered horrific pain in my left buttock as this big red shit of a horse bit me.

I leapt out of the stirrup only to receive a hefty kick from big Red on my leg, backing away from this I got another bite on my arse (NOT HAPPY JAN), yet my mates were in fits of laughter, taunts of "c'mon we have only got the horses for the day", and other such stuff was thrown my way. Needless to say, Big Red was walked back to the riding school and traded in for a much slower and more placid beastie.

I was now placed upon the back of a large dark brown horse that seemed to yawn a lot; we set off again this time at a much more leisurely pace, me bringing up the rear. We made our way mostly uphill until we reached a large open paddock opposite the Watsonia railway station.

Silly me had the thought perhaps we might ride back and forth slowly until I had attained my horse legs but my mates had altogether other ideas. I was with about six other mates: Rudy, Paul, me old mate China who has since departed this earth, and I can't recall the others. We formed a line abreast at one end of the paddock, facing towards a 500 meter open field.

I was totally unprepared for what happened next, someone yelled Ready Set Go, and with this all the horses sprang forward into a flat out gallop. It was a complete re-enactment of The Charge of the Light Brigade

I lost the reins after two strides, I lost my stirrups after four strides, and I lost the will to live after eight strides. I now started to list heavily to the left hand side, I maintained a grip on the pommel of the horse with my right hand as I slid beneath the horse, my legs held a scissor like grip around the horses flanks, and I completed the ride underneath the horse.

Footnote: It is impossible to steer a horse from this position. I didn't quite make the far end of the paddock, and when the horse finally stopped I slid onto my back beneath the horse – not the greatest of introductions to horse riding, but it gave all my mates a bloody good laugh.

We went riding quite a number of times, and I was starting to consider myself quite an accomplished rider, that was until I met the Pinto horse. This horse looked like one of those types that you would see a Red Indian riding; it had lovely markings of black, brown and dazzling white.

I mounted this lovely looking horse; I was indeed the English-Australian version of Tonto, my mate Rudy was the Lone Ranger, Paul was Roy Rogers, and China was John Wayne in True Grit. Off we went up towards the railway paddock; this time I was prepared and ready to race. We all came about at the top of the paddock in a line abreast, the call went out "Ready Set Go", and all the horses jumped forward as if leaving the starting gate at Flemington race course, all that is except for my little Pinto, he didn't move.

My horse was a miniature version of Phar Lap after he had been stuffed and placed in the Melbourne Museum: he stood stock still.

I almost went over his head as I leapt forward in anticipation. My horse would not move, I loosened the rein, dug in with my heels, and even resorted to yelling giddy up, but to no avail, my horse was broken and unmoving.

It was now I noticed a thick short piece of rope on the ground, about a foot in length and very frayed at one end. I hopped off and picked up this bit of rope, I even invented a name for it: I called it a swish. Climbing back on board I thought to myself rather than frighten the animal I would gently lean forward and show the horse my swish.

He didn't like it, didn't like it at all and took off sideways away from it. As I had done on a previous ride I lost the reins, but this time managed to retain my stirrups. The horse took off at a full gallop down the hill back towards the riding school; I hung on grimly to the horn of the saddle as we raced flat out across three roadways without even looking. We were travelling at such speed I swear my face was flapping in the wind, like a sky diver as he plummets earthward.

At the bottom of the hill was another road that went off sharply to the left. The horse was amazing as it executed a perfect 90 degree left hand turn without missing a beat. I on the other hand maintained my perfect riding position as I continued straight on at height, and, without the use of a parachute, I nose planted into the roadway. I lost several layers of skin from my nose and face, and various other parts of my body. My mates recovered my little horse that by now was totally knackered.

Then bloodied and bruised I rode back into the riding school. I now had a new respect for the capabilities of a horse, and realized I wasn't as good a rider as I once thought I was.

### And now back to Grandpa

Grandpa stood perfectly still as I placed my foot in the stirrup. He never even blinked as I boosted myself up onto his back; in fact he behaved as a bomb proof horsey should behave. I walked him across the local creek and up into the hills, we cantered along bush tracks, and had a thoroughly enjoyable ride, and to his credit until later in his life he always behaved well.

### An unfortunate Incident

Owning a horse can be a rewarding experience, not in monetary terms but in such things as seeing the neighbourhood at a leisurely pace.

It pays to have more than a quarter acre for the horse to live on. Only having such a small pen we found as soon as it rains, the area turns into a quagmire, and the horse can then get sick from such things as mud fever and seedy toe etc.

I have never been a believer in the agistment of a horse – this means paying good money out to other people to place your horse on their land. The deal normally involves X amount of money per week paid out for the horse to stay on someone else's land, then it's an optional thing as to whether you pay for the horse's feed and upkeep, or whether you pay the land owner to provide for the horse. Both Lynnie and I have always preferred to be able to have our horses within our sights; that way you know what is or isn't happening to your horse.

During a particularly rainy week our little paddock became waterlogged. Some neighbours down the street told Lyn they had a paddock out the front of their place that was overgrown with very long grass, and that we were more than welcome to place Grandpa there free of charge; this would be doing us both a big favour. This being our first horse we thought it was a marvellous gesture, and happily we walked Grandpa down the street to this lush oasis of food.

These people had lots of kids, and so did their neighbours; we suspect what may have taken place but not being there to see Grandpa, we could only surmise.

It was a nasty overcast day, Nan and Pop had just arrived at our place when we got that fateful phone call. It was the neighbour where Grandpa was agisted, "could we come to their place urgently, Grandpa had run amok and had destroyed their TV mast and antenna, also Grandpa was bleeding quite heavily from a cut on his front leg".

We all piled in the car and raced down to the scene. Grandpa was really spooked: his eyes rolling showing the whites of his eyes, his ears flattened against his skull, and he had quite a large gash on his front leg, cut from knee to shin bone, really quite nasty.

I held onto Grandpa's headstall and walked him over to the big metal farm gate that provided access to the paddock. Lyn's dad was standing on the other side of the gate and I asked would he mind holding onto Grandpa while I went to have a look at the TV mast. Pop reached over the gate and held onto Grandpas headstall with his left hand, he held it in a vise-like grip.

I walked over to the tangled mess that was once a thirty foot high television tower, Grandpa had obviously been spooked by something. We always suspected local kids of throwing stones at him but had no way of proving it, but anyway I was confronted with a tangled mess of metal guy wires and bent galvanized tubing, and thrown into the mix a mangled antenna and booster.

This was all going to cost us a pretty penny but what else could go wrong? The thought no sooner entering my head than it was cast aside by an awful racket.

Pop was still holding the horses headstall in a vise-like grip, Grandpa was still in shock and very very flighty. All of a sudden Grandpa reared up and jumped backwards. Pop didn't relinquish his grip and as a result was hoisted high into the air over the gate, only to land most unceremoniously on his back in a large pool of mud and horse shit.

The ever dignified Marion, Lyn's mum, tried to come to Pop's assistance; Pop was floundering around on his back, his little arms and legs flailing the air like a stranded Tommy the Turtle. Marion really wanted to help Pop, but was not helping the situation by laughing hysterically.

Poor old Pop managed to roll over, he stormed out of the paddock and huffed and puffed off up the road back to our place. We could still hear him muttering as he disappeared into the distance.

The end result of all this was one very annoyed father-in-law, one freaked-out and injured horse, three hundred dollars in costs to replace said mast and antenna, and two hundred dollars to the vet for stitches applied to panicked horse.

Learning curve: keep the horse where you can see it; keep the father-in-law away from the horse; horses and TV masts don't mix well; never ever laugh at a man lying on his back caked in horse shit; and be prepared to work lots of overtime at work.

Poor Pop was hoisted over the gate landing on his back in the liquid horse shit. Never try to help a person when you're laughing, it only makes them more angry. Pop floundered on his back like a stranded Tommy the Turtle.

### My daughter becomes severely infected

I come now to a very sad time in our life: our little girl Cara was at the tender age of four, she was quite a shy little girl, loved to play with her dollies and her Barbie's etc., not really an outdoorsy type, but all this changed one fine sunny morning.

We had brought Grandpa up behind the house; we thought he might like a little nibble on the lawn out back. We meanwhile, were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a nice cup of tea.

It was then that it happened, as we looked out into the back garden, to our horror we saw Grandpa race past, and on his back hanging on grimly to his mane was a mosquito, well she appeared to be a mosquito aboard this huge four legged creature.

Our daughter Cara had somehow managed to lure Grandpa over to the trampoline, once alongside she had managed to climb upon his vast back, and was giddying him up around the garden. She was barefoot and sitting almost astride his neck, her little hands wrapped in his mane. Round and round they went, and to our horror and dismay Grandpa would race beneath the clothesline, we had horrid visions of our child being left coat-hangered amongst the washing.

I raced out and managed to stop the galloping gluepot before he finished off our darling daughter. It took us a moment or two to work out how Cara had managed to climb aboard this equine runaway, but we finally put two and two together and came up with TRAMPOLINE.

The only positive from all this was we realized Cara had very good balance.

From this day forth Cara was hooked on horses. I never really liked Grandpa, and this episode did little to endear him to me.

It is not an easy thing to explain to a four year old that it is not a safe thing for one so small to be aboard one so big, with no saddle, reins or seat belt, but we also realized that at every opportunity Cara would now be trying to get back on board, so the compromise was reached that she could ride on his back, as long as an adult had hold of his reins, he would only be allowed to walk, and certainly nowhere near the clothes line.

### Moonlight

Let me introduce you to our second horse Moonlight. We bought him as a two year old completely unbroken. We bought him originally for my son Troy who was aged about 8 or 9 at the time. Troy only rode Moonlight a few times and it soon became apparent Troy wasn't really interested in horses.

Moonlight was a young horse full of mischief, but a delightful little character.

This is how my daughter Cara describes him: 14.2 hand high, Arab Cross, Welsh Cobb, dark dapple bay with a few socks and a snip, very solid, fat as hell, short back. solid neck and big apple bum. He was very cheeky, not nasty, a beautiful eye and prone to be a bit fiery. Everything with Moonlight was done flat out.

Moonlight for the first few months was just one of the family's pampered pets, but at some point it was decided to spend about $400 on getting Moonlight broken in for riding. We rang a local chap known only by the name of Megsy (obviously a red headed chap) and he took Moonlight for a week, and from what I was told basically rode Moonlight up and down the hills of Flowerdale for a week, and gradually wore Moonlight out, however when he came back to us he was fully rideable, and quite well behaved.

I believe the way to break horses these days is totally different, however in days gone by a local cowboy would jump on the horses back and buck and cartwheel around a horse yard, until the horse's spirit was broken, now it's all done with psychology and gentle coaxing, the horse retains its own will, but is happy to obey the rider.

Now lots of people have their horses broken in (or trained) using the Pat Pirelli method; this involves the use of psychology etc. For instance if you wish a horse to turn away from you hold your hand up towards his face and he will naturally turn to avoid your hand. When we were first introduced to this training method via our daughter Cara years later, we were amazed at how such simple techniques work.

One of the first things that we learned was a horse is a prey animal. If you are on a horse's back, and the horse takes flight due to a scare or some such thing, the human being's natural reaction is to cling on for grim death. The horse reacts in the opposite manner by trying to run away from this creature clinging to its back. When a horse takes off at full gallop it is not an easy thing to do to tell oneself to relax, but if you do relax however, the horse will relax a lot sooner than if you cling on ever harder.

I wish I had known about this some years earlier, when I galloped across the paddock hanging underneath the horse, how silly was I when all I needed to do was relax?

Back to young Moonlight. I must admit I did like Moonlight – he was always sort of his own horse, there was always a mischievous glint in his eye, and his mane when brushed was long and rather crinkly. My daughter would spend hours grooming him and plaiting his tail. She would brush his rump this way then that, and all the time making all sorts of patterns on his fur.

Moonlight loved the attention, and in the first few years we had him, he didn't get ridden very much – my daughter was still way too young, and my son Troy was more interested in playing with his mates, army games and riding his bike, fishing and camping etc.

So despite the fact Moonlight was broken in to saddle he lived a very easy and comfortable life for his first few years with us.

I do recall however a friend came over from Perth, we saddled up Grandpa and Moonlight and we headed off up into the hills.

I was atop Grandpa and my mate Allan was aboard Moonlight. We had a most enjoyable day as we rode the fire trails of Mount Disappointment National Park. The vegetation was lush with not a soul to be seen for miles around.

In the year 2009 a massive bushfire swept through this area causing absolute devastation. The lushness of the bush is slowly starting to return, but the scenery went from a lush green to a scene of grey, black and white. It is now three years since that fire and the bush is still in recovery mode. Where once the hillsides where covered in dense bush, and the horizon was a tree line, now you can see the tops of the hills between the trees.

We made our way across the mountainside till we reached the Flowerdale/Broadford road. This is a dirt road just wide enough for two cars to pass, but not too many cars use it as it is more of a scenic drive through the forest. We wound our way back down the mountain, past the St Kevin's bush camp, and then back along Silver Creek road to home.

I believe this would have been the longest ride Moonlight undertook in his entire life.

### Goodbye to Flowerdale

I now jump forward a year or two – it is quite hard to put exact dates on things now that I am much older – I have found my brain is like a car battery and the memory banks have started to corrode.

Our time at Flowerdale was over and it was time to move on. We had achieved all we had aimed for at Flowerdale; we had lived at Lot 10 Silver Creek road for a number of years, and had eventually bought a vacant though still somewhat steep block of land close by, Lot 8 Silver Creek Road Flowerdale in fact.

I had a personal ambition to build a house from start to finish, and to do so without the help of any outside tradesmen, meaning really that Lynnie and I would build the entire thing start to finish. I drew up the plans for a large four bedroom Ranch style house, we got stuck in and amazingly we built a beautiful house. This alone would make an interesting story, because it was a learn as we go project, and one particular part of the build springs to mind.

Everything I did on this building project was completely new to me; I had to ask lots of questions of my brother-in-law, Geoff, and other local builders. I had the timber frame in place, and as the Building Inspector would pass I would call him in for a little advice. One of the jobs I was faced with was pitching the roof. The roof was the old fashioned style, rafters pitched off the outside walls, and butting into a central ridge beam at the top. One of my problems was joining two pieces of ridge beam together. My usual approach to these problems was to sit on my builder's toilet; I would then study a 1960's version of a Readers Digest builders journal.

I found the chapter on joining a ridge beam; it gave a formula for cutting a saw tooth join. I took this newly acquired knowledge and applied it to my two pieces of beam. I measured the correct angles and corresponding cuts, and spent ages getting the join absolutely perfect. Lynnie and I put the ridge beam in place, then I nailed a couple of timber cleats either side of the join, then just to top it off I placed gang nails top and bottom as well.

On the day of the final full frame inspection the building inspector went right over the place. He was well pleased with what he saw, and the frame passed with flying colours, but when it came to the roof timber inspection, he spent many minutes looking at my Saw-tooth join.

Finally he asked "who did the saw tooth join?" I replied "I did, why? Is something wrong?" He said "no actually it's a work of art, and if I were you I would leave that part of the ceiling open so people can admire your handiwork". I was feeling really chuffed with my efforts until he brought me crashing back to earth. He then went on to say builders stopped doing that sort of join 30 years ago, nowadays they just butt join the timbers and nail cleats either side. Sheesh!

### Strath Creek

We sold our property at Lot 8 Silver Creek Road and bought a 16 Acre property at a place called Strath Creek. This was a further 14 kilometres out into the countryside from Flowerdale. The property we bought was a triangular shaped paddock, fenced on two sides, with the onus on us to build the third fence. The land was well grassed, rising slightly from front to back. All of the land was totally usable, and luckily we had a pumping permit to take water for drinking from the King Parrot Creek, which was directly across the road from our property.

Situated halfway up the fence line was half a dam, I say half because the previous owner was smart enough to run a fence line through the centre of the dam, making both sides more saleable.

Once again we organized the chaps with their bulldozers to come over to build us access via a long driveway. This time however, the driveway was totally usable in all weathers, and only had a gentle rise to the property frontage. Whilst on the job they graded an area for us to once again build our new house.

This time rather than build from a self-made plan, we opted for a Kit Home called an Alpine Lodge. Whilst building this new house meanwhile we lived in an old caravan with lean-to annexe. We were crammed in like sardines, Lynnie and I our son Troy, and my daughter Cara, two blue heeler dogs, and of course the old enemy, Spider the cat. Add to this Grandpa and Moonlight, the horses, and this rounds off our family so far.

Our property at Strath Creek, our old caravan and annexe in the background, Nan and Pop's little Pop Top caravan in the foreground and a typical barbeque family scene with parents and In-Laws.

Oopsa daisey, we all fall down. This was a double storey Alpine Lodge, that is until Mother Nature intervened. She huffed and she puffed and she blew our house down. When your luck's out, it's out: the house could have fallen one of four ways – It chose to fal on our shed containing all our furniture and belongings – such is life.

Everybody pitched in with the re-building, included the lovely lady pictured, my Mother-in-law Marion. I mean we had to let her help; she had a hammer after all. In the background halfway along the fence-line is the half dam, and the property continues to the tree line in the background  
Footnote: though ready for hard labour she still wore her pearls

### THE FINISHED HOUSE AT STRATH CREEK REAR VIEW

All the large timber from the original building was sawn down to make extra studs, Then rather than go up to two storeys again, we built laterally – plenty of room anyways

Approaching our driveway at Strath Creek, the drive is on the left at the white guide posts

This is the site, of our very first house at Flowerdale. After the fires in 2009 all has returned tonatural bush and is not to be re-built upon

This is the front of the second block of land we bought at Flowerdale. The beautiful house Lynnie and I so lovingly built has also returned to natural bush

Our home site at Strath Creek was atop a slight rise and afforded magnificent 360 degree views. The main paddock consisted of 16 acres, all useable, with a winter creek running through the middle of it. All around us were vast hillsides, not quite big enough to term as mountains, yet big enough to wear a person out should they decide to climb them. Our block was devoid of trees except for one solitary Yellow Box Gum tree right at the very back. This poor solitary tree later passed away when the horses ring barked it.

Along the road frontage however was a stand of fully mature pine trees, which fronted the roadway the full length of our property. I remember taking my mum and dad out to see the block prior to us moving there. I will never forget my father's comment on viewing the property. He said in his lovely Lancashire accent "bloody ell lad, 'ow ya going to mow it"? I replied we are going to get a two horse powered mower, meaning literally our horses, but the meaning seemed to go over my father's head.

This was typical of my old dad, he had a dry wicked sense of humour, he would talk about being down on his luck, and one of his favourite sayings was "ya know lad, if they threw a thousand fannies up in the air, I'd catch ya muthers every time, it's like a horses collar", and me old mum would retort with "eeee 'ark at him, in't he awful like".

I recall also that day we took a picnic lunch, which we ate as we sat on the side of the dam wall. As we looked towards the hills to the south a massive thunderstorm was forming and heading our way. I mentioned to my dear old dad that we ought to head back to the car, but he wanted to sit and let the thunderstorm saturate us. Any other time I would have probably agreed as I love the extremes in the weather in Australia, but my father was getting on in age, and the last thing we needed was for him to come down with pneumonia.

The kit home we had purchased was called an Alpine lodge; it was a three bedroom affair,

And it was two storeys in height. The roof of the house was very steeply pitched like a Swiss chalet; the ground floor consisted of one bedroom, large L-shaped lounge and kitchen, bathroom, toilet and laundry. Upstairs was an equally large lounge room and two more bedrooms and toilet and shower.

The house was placed with the front facing towards the main paddock and hillsides. The entire front of the house was floor to ceiling windows, and both upstairs and down had a veranda for entertaining.

I must confess, this was the main reason I opted for this particular home, and thought of sitting on the upstairs veranda on a sunny day, looking out at this magnificent vista, lord of all I surveyed. However this was not meant to be.

The kit home was delivered and unloaded by crane. Part of the reason for buying a kit home this time was the fact that the entire kit was supposed to be delivered on the one day. This turned out not to be true, it turned out to be around five separate deliveries, and involved constant waiting for the parts required. The build was going well: I got all the concrete stumps in place, and then the bearers and joists were put in place, and then the downstairs frames went up. The frames were pre-fabricated, but all the rafters and roofing had to be hand built. Once the downstairs frames were finished it was time to start assembling the upper storey.

The upstairs floor joists were all put in place, and then around three sides a dwarf wall was erected, this wall was approximately one meter high. The rafters were pitched off these outside walls to a central ridge beam. Everything was going to plan (pardon the pun); I had all the roof beams up, the battens for the corrugated iron were in place; bracing was placed all around the inner frames.

I still had not received the Western Red Cedar weather boards, so in the meantime I proceeded to put some of the roofing iron on. I recall the fateful day: it was a magnificent morning, not a cloud in the sky, the time was around 8.00am. I had been working on the roof, and my little daughter was sitting right at the top of the ridge beam with me, this was about 30 feet high. I said to her "c'mon let's climb down and get some breakfast". This we did, we were just sitting in the caravan about to have a mouthful of Weetabix, when it happened.

An almighty gust of wind came from nowhere, the van rocked violently, and then all we heard was CLUNK. My wife Lynnie said "I think the water tank has blown over". I replied "I think that was the house".

We made our way out of the annexe, and we were greeted with a terrible sight. The wind had hit the house so hard that one of the upstairs dwarf walls was blown inwards. This caused the whole roof to drop one meter, which then caused the entire house to fold like a pack of cards.

This was bad enough, but as luck would have it, things got worse. The house could have fallen one of four ways, but the way it chose was to fall onto our shed that contained everything we owned, and it was all flattened.

It was such a terrible feeling; Lyn was in a shocking state and couldn't stop crying. I knew I had to do something and quickly, so I immediately rang the Building Inspector and explained to him what had happened. The house had been inspected by him the day before and was passed as stable. I said to him "I need to get new plans so I can pull this place apart and start again". He was very helpful, he came over first thing the next morning, and between us we drew up new plans for a single storey house, and all the timber that was used in the original building for the second floor, we would cut down and use to go out rather than up.

I had a very strange experience that night whilst sleeping in the van: I vaguely woke up and remembered the disaster of the house. I pulled back the curtain of the van and could see quite clearly still the silhouette of the house roofline. I lay back down thinking, oh! Shit! It was all just a bad dream. In the morning however I realized it was not a dream, because as the house had collapsed, the roof stayed perfectly pitched, hence me seeing the roof outline. A neighbour on the hillside opposite us thought he was seeing things too. He had seen the frame at completion from a distance, yet the following day when he looked the house appeared smaller? He then got hold of a pair of binoculars and realized what had happened.

The plans were approved basically on the spot; it was then a case of pulling the entire thing apart and starting again. My friends reckon the house fell down because I had used too many nails. It's very important at all times to maintain ones sense of humour; in our lives we have suffered a lot of hardships, and have been kicked in the guts so to speak on many occasions. The most important thing here is, we were still here to tell the story, everything is replaceable but loved ones are not. I think a lot of our trials and tribulations have made us a stronger couple

In another book still to be written, "A Tale of Us", I will describe in detail the fire that destroyed our first house at Flowerdale. We had the house insured but not the contents. I will describe the bushfire that came so perilously close to destroying the new house that was built to replace the destroyed house. I will also write about the devastating bushfires that came through the Flowerdale area in the year 2009 which destroyed the entire area, taking many lives, and destroying our entire life's history in the Flowerdale area. Even the beautiful house that Lynnie and I so painstakingly and lovingly built was destroyed and now all that remains there is overgrown bush and all signs of us are gone.

However back to Strath Creek. Friends and neighbours turned up en-masse, equipped with claw hammers and raw enthusiasm, all the timbers were pried apart, de-nailed and neatly stacked. We examined the original stumps and found they were all in good repair.

Fun and laughter was aplenty; I recall my crazy brother marching through the middle of the building site. He was holding a length of Oregon timber vertically, it must have been six meters in length, and he was walking with it straight up in the air. I yelled out at the top of my lungs, "watch out for the power lines", my brother went into a panic and fell over, needless to see there were no power lines ha ha. Barbeques were prepared and voraciously eaten, a local priest organized a heap of school kids from the Ivanhoe Grammar school to come to our place, all were equipped with hammers and they all pitched in. It's amazing how during a disaster people seem to appear out of the woodwork to help, but should you be losing your house due to financial difficulties, then nobody gives a fat rat's arse.

Even the Building Inspector came, sporting a tool belt and various power tools and pitched in with everyone else and in no time at all a new frame was erected. I had to put in another three rows of concrete stumps to accommodate the extra rooms that needed to be built. We finished up with a house that had as much usable space as the original kit home, the only thing missing was the view from the upstairs veranda and living room.

However, we did maintain the full floor to ceiling windows right across the entire building, so the view was almost as good. On reflection, I am sort of glad we didn't finish up with a double storey house after all; some of the winds we experienced here at times were quite frightening, so perhaps all was for the best?

### Getting the horses organised

As I have previously mentioned our house was now situated at the front end of a sixteen acre paddock and we were next to our neighbour's property of 50 acres. The main problem here was that we still had not erected the fence to separate our properties. This was fine with the neighbours; it gave them the use of an extra 16 acres, free of charge, and at the time we were quite preoccupied with re-building a fallen house etc. However, one problem we had was the neighbours owned about fifty or sixty cows, and these were forever walking through my building site, builder's lines would be set, and in the morning the cows would snap the whole lot. They would even pop their heads into the annexe, and this can be quite disconcerting at six am in the morning.

We nominated a day, and with the help of our neighbours we erected the third boundary fence. Our neighbours Geoff and Therese were born and bred country bumpkins, they knew all there was to know about farming life, so with the expert guidance of Geoff we managed to put in a wire fence stretching 500 metres and we put it in dead straight – our cleverness knew no boundaries !!

Grandpa and Moonlight were brought to the new property in a horse float; they reacted like they had just won the horse equivalent of a lottery as they were turned loose in the paddock. It's a marvellous thing to watch a horse at full gallop, and these two guys made the most of it. Finally all energy expended they settled down to their daily routine of eating and shitting at regular intervals.

My daughter Cara's affliction for horses was getting stronger by the day. We would still walk her around while leading Grandpa, but it was a short matter of time before she wanted to ride Moonlight without our assistance. Cara by this time was about 8 years old and would get Moonlight to stand while she saddled him up, don her helmet and then using whatever was at hand she would boost herself onto his back.

Moonlight was full of spirit and clever to boot; we have found over the years that the cleverness comes from the Arab side of his breeding. He would walk around the house site, but as soon as he got fed up with this he would go and lean against something, it could be the water tank, or even the house, but he would just stand and lean and Cara would be stuck. We had an old shed, the door of which lifted up like a small garage door. Moonlight had another little habit of walking under this door, and Cara would be stuck there with her head pressed against the roof, until he decided to move.

The next thing on the agenda was to fence off an acre of land that surrounded the house, and then we could start a garden of sorts, with no cows or horses to trample and crap on it.

Grandpa had made a habit of sticking his head in through the front sliding door. Neither Lynnie nor I drank very much at all, but Lynnie found Grandpa had developed a bit of a liking for Black Douglas Whiskey which he would lap out of her glass. This was all we needed, fancy having to call the vet out to tell him the horse was pissed.

### Things were starting to settle down

With the house block now fenced, we could start to organize a bit of a garden. I built a stone barbeque area that had a roof and sides; the sides were made from pine trellis and Lynnie grew climbing roses all over this area. It looked magnificent when in full bloom, half with small white roses, and the other half with red. The pathway along the veranda was concreted, and in front of this was a garden bed with various flowering plants.

Strath Creek had its own wildlife altogether different from Flowerdale: large grey kangaroos up at the back of the paddock, a friendly little echidna that used to visit every day. We had a bench seat on the veranda, and this little echidna (as long as we were quiet) would waddle up and flick its little tongue between our toes. There were lots of swallows flitting around the garden – it is said that it is lucky to have swallows nesting on your house so our luck should have been fantastic because there was nests everywhere under the eaves of the roof. A white kestrel would appear daily and would hover perfectly still over the one spot, obviously on the look-out for field mice.

I know I am digressing again but I feel it is sort of important to fill you in on the way we lived and despite us being in the middle of nowhere amidst thousands of acres, the wild life was quite abundant.

Another animal in abundance was the crazy boulder-like wombat. This is a very solid animal about the size of a solid pig, they are nocturnal, and we would usually encounter them at night on the roads when we were coming home from work.

I remember one wombat in particular; it was suffering from a disease common in wombats. This is a severe skin irritation called Mange, and causes them to lose their hair, and eventually become blind. This is when the problems occur, as the wombat no longer recognises daytime from night. The wombat I refer to became a real nuisance as it would come out during the day. It is nigh impossible to keep these creatures out of the house paddock because they don't go round fences, they literally just go straight through them. They are known none too affectionately as The Bulldozers of the Bush. This wombat would come out at any hour and graze on our lawn area; the problem here is it was a male wombat, and they can be quite aggressive and if you went anywhere near him he would charge towards you and growl.

I had a bit of a habit very late at night of nipping out the veranda door for a pee. I loved to look at the night sky as I weed on the grass; the skies over Strath Creek are ideal for star gazing, so beautifully clear. Imagine the shock when one night I was quietly enjoying a private sprinkle when who should walk up behind me but the mad bloody wombat. It let out an unearthly growl and charged at me. I shot out into the garden with my jocks tripping me up, wee spraying everywhere like a garden sprinkler gone mad, and this maniac trying to disembowel me. I found that when push comes to shove I can travel at breakneck speed over short distances. Unfortunately I had to call on my neighbour to come and dispatch this poor blind creature to greener pastures; it would have been just a matter of time before one of the kids would have been seriously hurt by him.

The back of our house faced toward our driveway, and the front of the house made full use of the view towards the distant hills. This view was attained via floor to ceiling windows right across the living area. In the next room was the dining area which had floor to ceiling windows on two sides, forming a fully see-through corner. To the left out the front we had made a lovely fern garden. Tree ferns and other leafy plants were right outside the dining room window. The problem here was the poor birdlife thought that they could cut through this corner.

I have learned about all sorts of birdlife, just from the ones that flew into these windows; blue fairy wrens, swallows, sparrows, parrots etc. One day I was sitting at the dining room table when I noticed a large hawk heading straight for the corner. I thought no this can't be, these birds have magnificent eyesight, yet two seconds later with an ear-splitting thump the hawk crashed into the window. The result was always the same; the bird would lie on its back totally dazed, little legs jerking and after anything up to a few minutes they would eventually shake their head and fly off, except for one little swallow who hit the window beak-first, his little beak broke sideways, and looked like a pair of scissors – this poor little chap didn't make it.

My daughter Cara had a little friend who would come to our place quite often, she lived down at the Strath Creek shop, her name was Kerry Price, and she was a very slightly built young lass with a wicked sense of humour. I mention her whilst I'm talking about the corner window because one day as I was eating my breakfast Kerry came racing up the pathway, she ran flat out up the step and collided face first with the kitchen window. Like all the little birds before her, she lay on her back, her little legs flailing the air until she came round. After this incident Kerry was nicknamed affectionately "The Sparrow".

### A couple of incidents on the same day

When we were rebuilding at Strath Creek we had a number of funny incidents, well I should say: funny according to me. Our toilet arrangements were not the best; I had built a narrow hut with a pitched roof and to describe this I would possibly say it looked like a guard hut at Buckingham Palace, just room enough to fit a person standing or sitting.

Inside it was a contraption called a Porta Potty, not really the nicest of things to have to use, but there was little to no smell because the Porta Potty contained a chemical that broke down the waste, and it was also perfumed. The main drawback of this whole thing was the hut had no door. It had a curtain that reached above waist level that one could draw closed when doing one's thing. I think the only good thing about this was it was a room with a magnificent view.

I always recall this particular day; it was a day full of surprises. My sister in law Sharon came up one day to visit and she brought with her my nephew, Shane, and my niece, Tara.

As they were approaching down the main Strath Creek road, Sharon spotted a light plane with smoke trailing from its rear end. Sharon raced up our driveway, jumped from her car and quickly informed us she had spotted a plane which she thought might be having engine trouble.

We had to laugh, as I pointed out to Sharon "oh no! look, there's another one". The plane she had spotted was doing aerial spraying on my neighbour's property. The calamity avoided, Sharon needed to use our Porta Pottyl she sat in all her glory doing her thing, when imagine her indignity when the very same pilot flew past almost at ground level, and wiggled the plane's wings to say hi to my red faced sister-in-law.

It was an interesting day all round really: the kids asked if they could ride one of the horses. My daughter Cara rode Moonlight around our house paddock for a while, and then they decided to take him next door onto a 70 acre property.

The day went downhill from here on in (and I need to say a special thank you to my lovely niece Tara, and her brother Shane for allowing me to use their real names). Moonlight was led out into the paddock and Tara was boosted up onto his back. Tara had not ridden before and there really should have been an adult supervising, but unfortunately it was just all the kids.

For reasons known only to Moonlight he took off at a full gallop. Tara was absolutely petrified and frozen in place but, to her credit, she managed to stay atop his back, but the fright was so intense that it had a profound effect on Tara: it rendered her completely blind albeit only for a moment. I was summoned over to help. We assisted Tara carefully down to the ground and thank goodness the moment passed and her eyesight returned. I had horrific visions of having to front my sister-in-law, Sharon, with the awful news: "look I'm terribly sorry Sharon, but it appears as if Tara's gone blind". I do believe Tara has never ridden a horse since.

But this wasn't quite the end of things; Tara's brother Shane wanted to ride Moonlight back to our place. We were dubious to say the least, but he was quite confident and up he jumped. It must have been one of those days: Moonlight gave a little buck as Shane alighted in the saddle, it was just enough to send him airborne landing squarely with both of his crown jewels on the pommel of the saddle. Now we had two injured kids, one with temporary blindness, and the other was talking in an extremely squeaky voice.

I think that is one of the things about horses and novices, the horses seem to know and act accordingly.

I thought I could make things up to Tara by giving her a bit of a driving lesson out in our paddock. I had an old Toyota Corolla that we used for mucking around in. Tara got behind the wheel with my strict instructions "do exactly as Uncle John tells you".

I guess this incident was my stupid fault also, because Tara obeyed me to the letter. We were driving across the paddock heading straight towards the fence, with me sitting back enjoying the ride.

I thought I would let Tara do what she pleased, but we were approaching the fence at a rapid rate of knots and I thought she will surely turn but NO, we were going to drive straight through the fence. I yelled out STOPPPPPPP, and Tara applied the brakes and we did stop practically touching the fence.

I was flabbergasted. I said" Tara what were you going to do?" She replied" I was just going to keep going straight". I said" why?", and she replied, quite as a matter of fact, "you never said to turn". What could I say, she was right, I was wrong, and thank goodness we weren't heading towards the dam.

### Little Silver

Lynnie on Grandpa and Cara on Little Silver, Lynnie only ever rode a horse twice but Cara was never off them.

I must apologize to the reader, for I feel I must backtrack a little: I have missed out on an important part of our Horsey-isation (yes I know there's no such word, but as they say in horse circles, tough titty).

One of the first things we did when we arrived on our property at Strath Creek was to organize a big surprise for our daughter Cara's eighth birthday.

We spoke with friends in the valley who were very wise in the ways of horses. They were a couple who lived on a 300 acre farm, and had lots of horses, mainly dressage and show jumpers. We asked for their help in finding a suitable (BOMB PROOF) little horse as a surprise for Cara's birthday. They enlisted the help of a friend of theirs who I could only really describe as a horse whisperer type. It's shameful that his name now escapes me, however to describe him I would say shy, quiet, tall and rangy, always dressed in faded jeans, wrangler shirt and riding boots, and off course the compulsory Akubra bushman's hat.

This chap took it upon himself to assist us in our quest, and we relied upon his expertise fully. Our friends rang us one day just prior to Cara's birthday to tell us their friend had found the perfect little horse for Cara. He took my wife Lynnie with him to check out the horse. The drive was a good two hours away from our place, but Lynnie cannot for the life of her remember where they went.

The lady selling the horse was tiny, and sporting a broken leg after falling from a much larger horse. The chap helping us tested the little horse to gauge his reaction, he sat on the horse's back without a saddle, and then slowly shimmied back until he was sitting on the horse's rump and the horse didn't flinch. He then felt the horse's legs, lifting each one individually, and then ran his hands along the underside of the horse's body. The little horse passed all tests with flying colours, and the asking price of $700 was agreed upon.

The little horse was loaded aboard the horse float, and together they headed back to Strath Creek

The day of Cara's birthday came and she had not a clue what was in store for her. An old four wheel drive vehicle came up the driveway, with an equally old horse float in tow. The chap reversed the rig so that the loading ramp of the horse float was facing our back door. Then we all gathered outside as Cara was called to come see the surprise.

It's times like these that a camera or, better still, a video camera is at hand but unfortunately at the time we had neither.

The moment was one of magic: the ramp of the horse float was lowered, and out walked a perfectly BOMB PROOF little White Welsh mountain pony. Cara had been led out the back, but made to cover her eyes until she was told to open them. When she did she thought she had died and gone to heaven, it was definitely love at first sight, and the start of an addiction to horses that lives to this day. This little chap was named Silver.

This is how my daughter Cara describes him: Silver was a white bomb proof, extremely quiet little horse. He was a very loyal friend from the first time our eyes met. He was 12 hands high, perfect in almost every way except for his rear feet – he never liked them being touched, but this was a problem that was solved with time. Cara says "Silver taught me how to ride", and "he put up with my crap time and time again. I fell off him most days and he never once ran off and left me, instead he would nudge me, and nudge me again, until I would climb back into the saddle. And then we would repeat the entire process".

I have heard the saying that you need to fall off a horse at least seven times, before you can consider yourself a half decent rider, but Cara must have been an expert because she fell off seven hundred times. From the first time she got onto Silver's back, we virtually lost her: she would be racing around the house paddock, and in no time at all was racing in a flat out gallop right across the property.

### The Strath Creek Sports Day

I couldn't write a story about our horses without mentioning the Strath Creek Sports Day.

What a spectacle to behold; people would come from all over Victoria to attend this annual event. Cars, trucks, four wheel drives, and horse floats, would start appearing from about 5.00am on the morning of the event. In our house we were ideally placed to watch the entire day just sitting on our side veranda. Our place was atop a slight hill and gave a great view of the venue. The sports day was held on a property directly opposite our place, on a paddock of roughly 50 acres. A farm gate allowed access to this property at the bottom corner of the paddock almost opposite my driveway.

This paddock was well grassed, rising slightly uphill from the gate to the back of the property, the whole property being skirted by the picturesque King Parrot Creek, and it truly was a magnificent venue. The day consisted of basically all things horse, with lots of family events thrown in for good measure. People would turn up in their horse gear – this was not a fancy event like dressage or anything like that, it was a real bush day.

We would sit on the veranda enjoying a cup of tea and watching all the various people turn up, and then around 10.00am we would amble over to watch the fun. All the horse floats and trucks would assemble across the far side of the paddock at the bottom end, all sorts of sporting events would take place, but three in particular spring to mind.

The first one was the tug of war. This was not your usual type where everyone latches onto a length of rope and pulls, this was a fully professional event, and it consisted of a set of cleats on the ground. To describe these I would have to say it looked like a long ladder lying on the ground. In the centre of this contraption was a metal bar that slid between two runners. The tug o' war rope was attached at either end of this metal bar, and in the centre of the bar was a metal pin that held the whole thing still. This allowed the tug o' war teams to take the strain, and at a given time the judge would release this pin allowing the teams to compete.

The teams usually consist of about four hefty blokes who would position themselves on the cleats, one behind the other. They would position their bottoms between the rungs then brace their feet against a rung in front. The main chap was the fella at the very back of the line; he was known as the anchorman, and his other three team mates would place both hands on the rope and maintain a firm grip, whereas the anchorman would wrap the rope around his waist.

I watched this event for a number of years and it almost always ended up with the

Flowerdale team winning. Their anchorman was a heavy set chap called Eric Baker; he had a technique that seemed to ensure their winning formula. Most of the other teams would take a grip on the rope, the anchorman would tense and, on the call of 'go', they would heave with all their might.

The Flowerdale team on the other hand would sit relaxed, letting the other team take all the strain, and then on the call of 'go', the team would take the strain, but Eric, with his hands behind his head, would launch himself backwards, this would jerk the other team up in their seats, and once Eric's legs were in a locked position then it was all over red rover. It was a fascinating sport to watch; all through the eliminations you could see the centre pin hole waver first one way then back the other, the crowd would be well lathered by this stage and all yelling at the top of their lungs, but come the final, Eric would do his party piece and Flowerdale would be once again crowned the champions.

The last year that the sports were held at this venue the tug o' war went along as per usual with Flowerdale beating team after team. But this time in the final things took a different twist. The Flowerdale team set themselves in the cleats, Big Eric at the back all set to do his thing, at the other end were three skinny looking chaps, but their anchor man was a man mountain, he stood I reckon six feet eight inches tall, and three axe handles across his shoulders. The call was made to take the strain, Flowerdale were tensed and ready, the pin was pulled and as per usual Eric threw himself back with hands behind his head, and locked his legs. As in all other previous pulls the opposition team sat up on the cleats, and they just stayed like this until about three seconds before time was called.

The big giant bloke at the back now grabbed the rope in both hands and with one almighty heave he threw himself backwards as Eric had done earlier, but this time all the Flowerdale blokes shot up on their cleats – it took on the look of a giant pop-up toaster, and the Flowerdale blokes were the cooked toasts. Eric was dislodged and the new team won. I think they were from Broadford, and of course there were calls that to compete that way was cheating. But Broadford gained the trophy.

This was a fabulous spectacle to watch, and I'm sure many a wager would have changed hands.

Another event was the sheaf toss, this involved using an old fashioned pitch fork with two prongs, and this was used to heave a sheaf of hay over an adjustable bar. It looked rather like a set of rugby goal posts, with a cross bar except the crossbar was adjustable. I think the maximum height the bar could go was around six meters. There would be lots of heats with chaps getting eliminated along the way. This event always ended the same. Eric Baker would by-pass all the lower throws, and wait till the bar was at its highest, then he would stagger up, usually 4 parts cut, and do one almighty toss. He was a powerful man and would virtually throw himself off his feet, but the result was always the same. And Eric would retain his yearly trophy.

The biggest event of the day was the finale, known as the Stockman's Cup. Bush horsemen from near and far would compete in this event, and there were all sorts of horses in this event: run of the mill nags, thoroughbreds, and basically anything that could go in a flat out gallop. I saw this event two years running, and how someone wasn't killed is beyond me.

The first time I saw it, the race started from down near the main entrance gate, the track was marked with plastic guide posts with tape across the top of them making like a fine running rail. The race would be straight up the hill, rounding the bend to the left, then flat out down the hill to the finish line.

The start was not like your regular horse race; remember this was a bush race. All the horses would be wearing a headstall only, and the riders would be hanging onto a short lead rope. On starter's orders, the call would go up, 'On your marks, get set, GO', then the riders had to throw on a bridle, saddle blanket and saddle, and then leap onto the horse's back, then they would set of in a mad flat out gallop up the hill. It was bedlam at times with some nasty falls.

The first year I witnessed this event, the organisers made the mistake of parking all of the horse floats just past the finish line. What they didn't allow for was the riders being able to pull the horses up after the finish line. Of course they couldn't and a few people got bowled over. I thought maybe this was the end of the Stockman's Cup, but the next year it was on again.

The next year they put a bit of thought into where they would start and finish the race. This time they started the race at the top far left of the paddock, running in the opposite direction, down the hill, round a bend marked with posts and tapes at the bottom, with the finish line well away from the floats. What could possibly go wrong you might ask? Well, this time, as the horses raced flat out down the hill, the crowd had gathered on the outside of the thin race line, the horses as they came into the turn ran through the fence, and straight through the crowd.

The good Lord must have been watching over the event this year, because no-one got injured, but it was soooo close; perhaps ten or so horses racing at full gallop through a crowd of mums with prams, kids etc., and nobody got hurt. Wow!

This was the last year that the Strath Creek Sports was held at this venue, as the land was advertised for private sale.

I recall a funny scene, a chap called Billy Price was in attendance on his horse; he was dressed in full Man from Snowy River garb: the trench coat. the scrunched up bushman's hat etc. Billy is a local character from Flowerdale, and if memory serves me correctly, he had a bit part in the movie The Man from Snowy River. Billy has a face to remember, small turned up little nose, tight curly hair, and on the back of his horse sat his wife in similar attire.

A lady spotted them and asked if they minded if she took their photo on the horse, and of course they didn't mind and struck the pose, then the lady made the mistake of asking ever so nicely "what's the horse's name?" and Billy's wife replied in a flash "the horse is called Big Dick, and this is my husband Little Dick". Everybody within earshot burst into laughter.

But then this is what these Bush days are all about, rough and ready folk and locals from miles around having a marvellous day out, and the horsemen and women got to show off their skills.

I do recall one Strath Creek sports day in particular; it had been pouring down continuously all the night before, yet at 5.00 am the horse floats started turning up. It was still pouring and I thought surely the day will be abandoned, but no, as the saying goes, the show must go on. This was one year we watched the entire thing from our veranda. It really was an awful day, but the people turned up in droves. We watched as car after car, and truck after truck, went through that farm gate, and all the while the access was getting muddier and muddier.

I recall saying to Lynnie "it's going to be bedlam when all these people try to leave". The day went ahead as usual; all the events took place, including the Stockman's Cup, but they had one final event this day which was crazy to say the least. About roughly twenty cars formed a huge circle, music was blaring, and half a dozen chairs were set in the middle of the paddock, and they commenced playing musical chairs in their cars. They were skidding all over the place but boy was it funny.

And now it was time for everyone to depart, and, as predicted, the entrance was impassable. My neighbour made a fortune that day with his old grey Fergie tractor, towing all the vehicles out of the venue at a price.

I spent the day at the sports with my family one year, and I must say at this point I enjoyed a beer. I had had a few too many, and the atmosphere of the day got the better of me. I was there in me Akubra hat, overalls, and Blundstone boots etc. I was taking in all the horsemanship events and really getting into the swing of things. I made a silly mistake that afternoon however after we went home when I decided I would have a ride on Grandpa, not wise when three parts cut, and certainly not wise with what I did: I thought I would ride him bareback.

Even my little daughter Cara was advising against this, but I was thinking gee how hard can it be, it's just a question of balance. I dragged over a drum and used this to climb onto Grandpa's back, he behaved beautifully, and then I did a very silly thing, I decided to go for a bit of a canter up the paddock.

The family opened the gate, and we trotted through, Grandpa eased into a mild canter and I thought "what's all the fuss about" and then Grandpa flattened his ears and became the Concorde, and he accelerated into a full gallop.

We were heading flat out towards the dam, I started to lean to the left past the point of no return, and then I fell gracefully, though somewhat heavily, to the ground flat on my back. I made a crater that would be useful as a spare dam at a later point. Needless to say, my bareback riding was curtailed in its infancy.

End result: I was dented, my pride was severely dented, the paddock was extremely dented, and I swear I could hear Grandpa laughing at the top end of the paddock, though my family tells me he was simply neighing.

To round off The Strath Creek Sports Day, Lynnie just reminded me of a couple of events: guess the weight of the sheep, first prize a bloody live sheep; and, who can hammer a nail into a piece of hardwood the fastest, first prize (who cares?); chainsaw events, contestants had to cut slices off a log, slices no thicker than an inch, and as many as could be done in one minute. The McMahon's of Strath Creek were always right up there, and their son-in-law, Geoff Joyce, was always in the placings, and add to this the woodchop and various other competitions.

The great thing about living out in the country is the people, their friendliness and of course their dry wit and sense of humour. I recall whilst still living at Flowerdale, I arrived home quite late one night and decided to nip down to the Flowerdale pub to buy a couple of long necks of beer. The pub was quite full and I said "hi" to many folks I knew there, but little did I know what was in store for me: I was classically set up.

I purchased my beer and as I went to pay, the bar girl (a pretty young lass called Donna Evan) asked would I like to purchase a ticket in a chook raffle. Like a dick I asked what's the prize, and she took great delight in announcing so everyone could hear, "A CHOOK". I'm sure I heard muffled giggles all over the pub, but thought I must be hearing things. I purchased my ticket for 20 cents, and was told it was the lucky last ticket.

It took me ten minutes to get home, and amazingly the phone rang as I walked in the door, perfect timing really. It was Donna saying "congratulations, we just drew the chook raffle and you won". I hung up and I must say I was ecstatic: I had never won a bloody thing in my life, and even though it was just a bloody chook, it felt as if I had won the lottery. I told Lynnie the great news, and even went as far as saying "I think our luck might be changing".

We went to bed that night then at about 5.00 am in the morning I heard a car pull into the bottom of our driveway. Shortly thereafter I heard footsteps on the veranda outside our window, followed immediately by the sound of scurrying feet as the person high-tailed it out of there. Both Lynnie and I were now fully awake, and wondering what the hell was going on.

I pulled on my jocks and dressing gown, switched on the outside spotlight, and as I stepped out onto the veranda I was confronted by a large white very much alive ANGRY Rooster. Well, they said it was a chook raffle and it appears we won the chook! I was the laughing stock of Flowerdale that week, we didn't know what the hell to do with the rooster, but being incapable of slaughtering it, we decided we had one new pet.

This soon soured however as this bird's cuckoo clock was out of whack, and it would crow at the top of its lungs at 3.00 am. I would get up and throw loaves of bread at it, in an attempt to shut it up. The poor rooster met a terrible end when a fox paid a visit, and left us with just a head, it would appear some things just weren't meant to be.

Strath Creek Sports Day: Cara and Silver enter in the fancy dress competition. This really is a good example of a horse being Bomb Proof: Silver was adorned with all these dangly bits of paper, added to which was a silly hat. The day was quite windy, and all of this could add up to be a recipe for disaster, but Silver was a well behaved little gentleman all day.

### Hang the expense

We now owned three horses: Grandpa, Moonlight, and little Silver. My daughter Cara's confidence in horse riding was growing by the day. She would ride Little Silver all over our land, and even accessed next door's property, riding around seventy acres of undulating pasture. Alas now she was starting to take an interest in Show Jumping; she would set up little jumps, and take Silver over these, nothing above a foot high. She also started reading lots of horse magazines about Dressage, and Show Jumping.

A lady who lived not too far away from our place lived on a large horse property, which she rented. This property had professional stables, and a proper round yard; this was used for training her horses in an area known as ground work. Cara was invited round to help out; the only difference here was the lady specialized in Shetland Ponies. She had a number of champion horses and stallions and, much to my dismay, she helped show Cara the ropes or techniques employed in showing these horses.

It was all just a matter of time before Cara asked could she enter a show jumping competition. She had taken to riding Moonlight now because he was bigger and more suitable for her jumping requirements. I countered her request quickly with the answer, "oh! we would love you to, but it's not possible because we don't have a horse float" (I felt pleased with my answer), but Cara's lovely lady friend shot me to pieces when she offered her float for our use free of charge. "Shit".

My daughter never ceases to amaze me how quickly she can organize things when it is of benefit to herself. In no time at all she had sussed out the venue for the nearest horse jumping competition which would be held on a reserve in the local township of Broadford, roughly 25 kilometres from our place. We had all of 2 weeks to get prepared for the event.

Lo and behold, suddenly we needed to purchase a proper crash helmet, riding boots, and various other odds and ends, new bridle and reins because the horse has to look top notch, a hay net (this hangs in the front of the horse float so that the horse can munch away on a biscuit of hay as he enjoys the scenery as we cart him around the countryside), and the list went on. Lynne and I had not a clue what to expect. The day before the event I was invited to drive around to hook up the horse float. At this point I was driving a V8 VB Commodore. Fortunately the car had an LP gas tank and was therefore cheaper to run.

I hooked up the float, no towing experience whatsoever, and headed for home. Once parked, Cara embarked on a crash course for Moonlight to learn how to enter and exit a float, and to my dismay he was a natural. I was still hopelessly hanging onto anything that might curtail this venture. Alas Cara won and I lost; the day of the show arrived and we all had to get up at the crack of dawn. Moonlight had to be groomed and brushed, his nails were polished and his mane was plaited etc. And finally it was time to go.

Lynne as per usual, organized us a nice picnic lunch and anticipated we would be in for a long hot day because the weather was stiflingly hot. Moonlight was walked onto the float, introduced to his hay net, and he quickly settled in, the rear ramp of the float was closed, and I could put it off no longer: we HAD to go. Little did I know what was in store for us, or that this would be the very first of bloody heaps of horse shows to come.

The drive to Broadford was fairly uneventful; after leaving our place we would drive through the township of Strath Creek, this is a massive place consisting of a general store and a pub, and that's your lot. Once through Strath Creek the road runs reasonably flat for around five kilometres and then we reached the bottom of the Murchison Spur Hill. This is a very steep climb with nerve-wracking drops off the side of the road, and also a number of hairpin bends to negotiate. We made our way gingerly up this hill and about thirty minutes later we arrived at Broadford and located the venue.

We paid the entrance fee then found an area to park. There were people and horses everywhere. Moonlight was backed off the float and tethered to a hitch on the float's side. He was quite funny, a bit like a kid in a toy shop, his ears were up and pricked, and he loved every minute of the day. We had paid more money out so Cara would blend in with the other riders: jodhpurs or riding slacks, a nice white shirt and blue vest. And then it began, grooming and more grooming, brushing his mane, and making him shine and this wasn't even a dressage event, but we had all that crap to look forward to in the not too distant future.

### Moonlight's very first event

The time had come for Moonlight's first event and I must confess here that Lynnie and I were more nervous than Cara. The horses and riders were called forward to be inspected by a judge prior to the event. In all our haste Cara had chucked Moonlight's saddle on without a saddle blanket. The judge gave us a right royal telling off, explaining that it is very uncomfortable for a horse to wear a saddle without the appropriate rug, and, to make matters worse, we found we had left home without the horse rug. Thankfully another competitor seeing our embarrassment offered the use of one of theirs. Gawd! What a start.

The riders were introduced to the Show Jumping Course, and all the riders walked the course to acquaint themselves with the layout. All the other kids seemed to be doing these fancy walks and seemed to be doing a lot of counting; Cara just walked around and memorised the course.

The first contestant was called to the starting line and on the judge's signal (I think they rang a bell), the contestant set off. The jumps were all beginners' jumps, nothing over one foot high, however there were lots of twists and turns and a number of double jumps and one triple.

The first young lass went very slowly, X amount of strides, then over the jump, carefully turning to face the next jump, then X amount of strides and over the next jump, and so it went.

Contestant after contestant did their rounds, all very carefully and all very measured, and most of them clearing the jumps with the odd one knocking a jump over.

But now it was Cara's turn, I must admit Lynnie and I were very nervous. Cara lined up at the start and Moonlight seemed very eager. As soon as the bell rang Moonlight was off; it seemed he had a GPS built in as he absolutely flew round the course flat out. He cleared all the fences, and was at the finish in absolutely record time. I was ecstatic, and carrying on a bit; I think I might have even done the chook walk. Our happiness was short lived though; Moonlight received 1st place and a lovely ribbon, but then the judge took us all to one side. She couldn't help smiling as she explained to us that Show Jumping is an exacting science.

The reason the riders walk the course in the first place is to calculate how many strides the horse will need before being asked to jump the upcoming fence. This allows the rider time to gather the horse in and jump at a precise spot, and also the event wasn't a timed event so it didn't matter how long the riders took to get around the course, it was mainly a matter of planning and achieving a clear round.

I think Moonlight took part in a couple more events throughout the day, and I believe he won one more ribbon. We all deemed the day a great success, and all agreed Cara would have to do some study before the next show. Completely exhausted we loaded Moonlight up and headed for home. Oh! Boy what a trip to remember that was.

Everything went fine until we reached the Murchison Spur Hill: as we crested the top of the hill we started the very steep descent, the car was getting pushed faster and faster, and my brakes didn't seem to be functioning too well. I was really worried as we hurtled down the mountainside and somehow arrived safely at the bottom. There was a horrible smell of burning from my brakes, and I drove very slowly the rest of the way home.

Summary of the outing

•Cara needed to study and practice her horse jumping technique

•I needed anti-stress pills when towing a float

•I would need to work overtime to pay for the day

•$1,200 would be required to completely replace my burnt out brakes and discs

•In future, if using a horse float, check the horse float has brake fluid in the brake cylinder

What a major learning curve – ooh! I so can't wait for the next show . . . . . . . . . . . NOT.

### Molly

Please make welcome to our stables Molly, Cara's latest acquisition. Molly was described in the following way by our daughter Cara: Molly is a Rose Grey Arab Quarter horse Cross, she stands roughly 15.2 hands high.

Molly was given to Cara by a local neighbour called Paul Large. She was well educated but had a number of problems: she was hard to get onto a float, she hated being tethered, and if she was tethered longer than a minute or two she would throw herself backwards and really freak out. She was also very hard to get on, and would not stand still. Molly was also hard to catch. Cara devised a sort of trap where she would herd Molly to a corner of the paddock then would use a rope to section off this corner.

At our first meeting with Molly, Lynne and I were very dubious about allowing Cara to have this horse, even though she was free. Molly was on a property at Flowerdale, and the guy that owned her had her in a very solid post and rail round yard. Paul was a very experienced rider, but Molly would not allow him to get on her back: every time he went near she would bolt away. Another guy nicknamed Crash also tried to mount her but she freaked out so bad when he jumped on her back that Molly crashed through the railings. This put the wind up everyone, especially Lynne and I. I mean these guys were real cowboys, and were used to breaking in horses the old-fashioned rough and tumble way, but we figured if our daughter Cara got on this horse's back, she might not live to tell the tale.

I think I have mentioned earlier that Cara has a real way with horses, and we really thought and hoped that Molly's performance would put Cara off, and though Cara was in tears she in her own way is extremely determined once her mind is made up. She saw something in this horse that we obviously missed; I suppose it was this love at first sight crap, but Cara asked me if I could request everyone to go away and leave her alone with Molly. There were quite a few people in attendance but they all did as they were asked and we went inside for a cup of tea.

Apparently Cara just spoke to the horse in a soothing manner, then patted her and totally relaxed the horse. It took about an hour and when we next looked she was on Molly's' back and walking around the round yard. I must say we were all quite amazed. I took Cara to one side and had a quiet talk with her, I expressed our concerns about the horse which appeared to us to be way too flighty, and we had visions of one daughter getting badly hurt.

Cara went to great lengths to assure me that Molly was a very good horse who just needed some special attention and training. We spoke with Paul and the deal was done: it appeared Molly was coming to live with the silly Lee family. Now we were faced with the problem of how the heck do we get her home? At this point in time there was no way Molly could be floated. Cara asked permission to ride her home but we were none too keen as our property was a good 7 kilometres further down the road; the only good thing was the nature strip was very wide on both sides, so at least she wouldn't be riding on the road as such.

We put our faith in Cara's judgment and we headed off for home, and after a few hours Cara quietly trotted up our driveway.

Molly was a beautiful looking horse, very smart but with a few major problems to overcome. The first one was re-catching her once she was turned loose in the paddock. Cara persisted with herding her into a corner, but after a little while Molly soon cottoned on that if she allowed Cara to catch her she would be immediately fed, so this problem was soon nipped in the bud. Another major problem was getting Molly to stand still when putting her saddle on, and standing still whilst getting on her back. For the first few weeks Cara would have to hop on whilst Molly was walking, but once on she behaved beautifully. This problem was also overcome.

I heard of a famous chap; famous for all the wrong reasons. His name was Bluey Diamond, and he was a likeable rogue so I am told. He used to wheel and deal in horses and livestock, and to all intents and purposes could sell ice to the Eskimos. I heard when selling a horse if asked "is the horse hard to catch?" he would reply "not at all, you just need sugar". When the client asked "does the horse come for sugar?" he would reply "no you eat the sugar and it gives you energy to chase the horse" ha ha.

I heard another story about Bluey: he apparently had a number of calves for sale. A lady came to him with a view to buying one calf only, but Bluey spun the lady a story about how all the baby calves were related, and fretted if they were split up, hence she went away with the lot.

In horse circles you come across many people like this: dealers, breeders, cowboys and show people alike, and most of them have their own story to tell.

We hired floats on a number of occasions, and my towing skills improved, and also I had changed my tow vehicle and had purchased an older style Toyota four-wheel drive Landcruiser, and this vehicle was much better equipped for towing the heavy loads.

It was now becoming a regular event on weekends to load up the Toyota with saddles, blankets, brushes, foot picks, in fact with all things horse, and finally the horse would be loaded onto the float and away we would go. What I didn't like here was now Cara had become interested in dressage, and this bored me to tears. It was the same routine over and over again: find a shaded parking spot; offload the horse; clean the crap out of the float; and this mindless endless routine couldn't take place until the horse was tethered.

The horse would be groomed until gleaming, the horse's mane would be brushed then plaited, then the tail would be brushed and plaited, they would even add extensions to the horse's tail. The bottom of the horse's feet would be picked out, and the hooves would be oiled so that they shone. Next the horse's rump would be brushed first this way then that and finally a plastic card would be placed on the horses fur. This was a card about a foot square it had inch square holes cut in it rather like a chess board. Once this was applied to the horse's rump the open squares would be brushed in different directions, once this was complete the horse's hind quarters would have this lovely checkerboard effect.

Right, the horse is ready, now it's the rider's turn. Cara would disappear into the horse float and all the doors would be shut. Once in there, her hair was brushed and put into a bun or pony tail. She would don jodhpur's, high gleaming riding boots, and gloves. Next was a starched white shirt with tie, a dress vest would go over this, and then once dressed it was a waiting game till our class event was called. What used to get my goat was all this preparation. Once in the ring, the horses were paraded around the ring, they would walk, trot, canter, and all the time trying to get the horse to work on the bit so to speak, the horses had to arch their necks, and they really did look stunning. The judge would pick first, second and third, and then it would all start again.

I must admit I developed a technique of coping with all this la-di-dah stuff; I would get a pillow, hop under the four wheel drive and have a bloody good sleep. I would stay awake and watch if it was a show jumping event, at least there was a bit of action going on, but dressage used to bore me to tears. In the higher classes of dressage I found it all rather posh, some of the people are really quite snooty, and these guys are dressed to the nines, immaculately turned out in riding blazers and either top hats or bowler hats. I am always reminded of one show: there was a lady there who was really quite obese, the problem here was she was riding the finest boned little horse you ever did see, and to top it off this lady really was very rude. Cara spoke to her and was really given the cold shoulder. I expected to see this poor little horse with all its legs splayed out.

### An unforgettable accident

Cara's latest horse Molly became her number one horse for taking to events, show-jumping and dressage and the like; by the time Cara had turned sixteen Little Silver was really now too small for her, and Silver had recurring trouble with founder, and laminitis, and was more or less put out to pasture now.

I now come to an incident that happened when Cara was sixteen. It was the occasion of the last Strath Creek Sports day that we attended. As I mentioned earlier the Strath Creek sports ground had been put up for private sale and once this property was sold, the Strath Creek sports day had no venue.

Over the big hill at the back of my place was a property owned by two brothers who had a dream to build a cricket ground modelled around the Old English style cricket grounds.

So this they did, it was nestled in a lovely valley amongst rolling hills and these guys built the Hume and Hovell cricket ground. The cricket oval was fenced all round with a white picket fence. Club rooms were also built; the clubhouse has lots of cricket memorabilia and is a great venue for various functions.

Behind the clubhouse is lots of open land and the brothers offered this area for use for the Strath Creek sports day.

It was a lovely sunny day; I believe all the events went as per usual. Lyn and I arrived quite late in the day, in fact just in time to see a horse-drawn carriage loaded with adults and kids go out of control as the horses became spooked. It was a lucky thing that no-one got hurt as the horses bolted flat out down the road. But fortunately the horse driver regained control and all was well.

Our daughter Cara had ridden around to the sports on Molly, and she competed in the horse jumping event. At the end of the day Lynnie and I headed off to our car, we said "goodbye" to Cara, expecting her home shortly afterwards.

We had no sooner pulled into our driveway than a car arrived flying up behind us. It was someone from the Sports day, they told us Cara had had an accident and was in a fair bit of trouble.

We jumped back in our car and went racing back to the cricket ground. As we approached we were met by a whole bunch of people at the side of the road. Apparently Cara had been walking Molly quietly along the verge of the road; the grass here had been recently slashed, and apparently the horse didn't see a large rabbit hole that was covered with grass. Molly stepped into this hole pitching forward onto her nose. There was no warning and Cara was thrown over the horse's head, landing heavily on her head and shoulder, the horse cart-wheeled over and landed on top of Cara. Cara was knocked unconscious, and Lynnie and I arrived just as she started to come round.

In typical Cara fashion her first words were "where's Molly? Is she alright?" I told her "Molly is fine" and how was she feeling? She replied with "where's Molly? What happened?" And this she repeated over and over again.

Molly had been taken by friends to their nearby property. She had survived the accident none the worse for wear. Cara on the other hand was in a bit of a state, she was really only semi-conscious, and was complaining of strong pain in her shoulder and neck.

An ambulance had been summoned and took about thirty minutes to arrive, Cara was assessed on the spot then loaded into the ambulance and was then taken with all haste to the Northern Hospital. On arrival at the Northern, Cara was given a number of X-rays and also painkillers. The X-rays revealed a rather nasty break to the clavicle. We thought the hospital would repair the break but we were informed that sometimes it is best to let the break heal itself as there are a lot of nerves and things in this area. We didn't know any better and just assumed the doctors know best. Later X-rays revealed this break healed itself in an awkward way, one side of the break sitting on top of the other and making the clavicle at least an inch shorter.

A week or so later Cara was back in the saddle as if the accident had never happened.

And now for the unfortunate incident part and I must nip forward two years. Cara was now 18 years old and had not long attained her driving licence. In the two previous years Cara had continued on as per usual riding all over the countryside, attending show jumping competitions and falling from her various horses at regular intervals.

Lynnie and I had just bought a near new car, a lovely unmarked Holden VT Commodore, it was Lynne's car and it was her pride and joy.

On this particular night it was quite miserable outside, dark and raining. Cara asked Lynnie could she borrow the new car to drive to a friend's place at a nearby country town called Yea. Both Lyn and I were not happy about the situation, because not only was it a fairly new car, but Cara was a fairly new driver, but reluctantly we relented and she set off at around 6.00 pm on a Friday night.

About one hour later Cara was back, no car and in the company of a couple of folk who had given her a lift home. She had headed towards Yea turning right onto the Goulbourn Valley Highway, the road was very slippery and the back wheels started to skid, the back end of the car swung and Cara panicked and overcorrected, causing the car to shoot off the road, down a ditch, then up over a hump, finally coming to rest across a mound. The accident shook Cara up; she was in tears and complaining of severe neck pain.

We rang our local doctor and were told to take her down to a major hospital first thing in the morning. This we did; we went to the Northern Hospital in Epping and she had a number of X-rays of her upper chest and neck. The person on duty at the time checked the films, and concluded nothing was wrong, he told her to take it easy and take pain killers for a couple of days.

We organized for our car to be towed to local panel beaters, and thought the incident was over. On the Sunday morning Cara went down to our local pub at Strath Creek, her intentions were to wait on tables to earn a bit of pocket money. I will never forget the phone call we got later that morning, it was from the doctor at Yea, and he asked me for Cara's whereabouts. I told him she was at the local hotel working and asked what the problem was? He replied that a Specialist had reviewed Cara's X-rays at the hospital, and had found she had a fracture in a very dangerous spot in her neck.

It was a fracture in such a place that should it open it could cause quadriplegia or, even worse, death. I was in shock; the doctor went on to say he was already organizing an ambulance to go to the pub to pick Cara up.

As soon as I hung up the phone I called the pub and asked for Cara, when she came on the phone I said to her "Cara don't panic, this is serious, find somewhere to sit, under no circumstances move your head at all". I then went on to explain what the doctor had said. Cara immediately burst into tears, and all the patrons at the pub gathered round asking what the problem was. She told them "I have a broken neck".

Imagine our shock/horror when Cara comes walking into the house. I immediately made her sit down, packed pillows all around her; she was in a real state and crying. I asked if she was ok and she nodded her head and I almost had a fit telling her to keep perfectly still.

I immediately rang the doctor to re-direct the ambulance. The paramedics turned up, and got Cara onto a gurney; they immobilized her head and neck, and then loaded her into the back of the ambulance.

I climbed into the back of the ambulance with her and then we headed towards the Northern Hospital at speed. I had to ask the driver to ease back a little as the gurney was literally bouncing her up and down.

What a different reception we received on arriving at the hospital this time. Where before we had to go all through the Emergency waiting routine, this time there was a team of people awaiting our arrival. She was lifted very gently from the ambulance and taken for a C.T. scan.

The end result of all this was that yes it was confirmed she had a hairline fracture in a very bad place, she had received this fracture when she fell from Molly two years earlier, but fortunately despite all the horse riding and falls, the fracture had repaired itself.

We have never been keen on Cara getting on a horse since but old habits die hard so to speak.

I have to go back two years again now; our horses then consisted of Grandpa, the leader of the pack, Moonlight, Molly and Silver. It was now my turn; we always had visions of us all riding together as a family, but I must say that never really happened

### Make welcome Gentle John

Our latest horse was to be my horse; he was a big horse over 16.6 hands high, what a magnificent looking creature he was: a Bay gelding, in fantastic condition, beautiful features and a white star on his forehead. He was already named Gentle John and was a former Pacer, but I would bet a million dollars he never won anything, he was indeed the laziest horse I have ever seen.

We purchased him from a family in the next valley to us, the price I cannot recollect, but when he arrived at our place he was magnificent, but little did we know all this would change dramatically and very quickly.

We had become aware over the years that horses living together in the same paddock have a pecking order; there is one boss and one boss only. Both Grandpa and Gentle John were both geldings but unfortunately both had been gelded later in life, leaving both with the silly impression they were still stallions.

Gentle John was in our house paddock, and, unbeknownst to us, Grandpa had somehow managed to get in also. I was eating my breakfast at the time when all hell broke loose; I could hear what I could only describe as a woman screaming very very loudly indeed.

I quickly raced to the back of the house and was confronted with the sight of these two large animals in the process of actually trying to kill each other. They would race at each other and then spin and double-barrel kick each other, and this was coupled with biting and tearing one another. The only way I could get them apart was to get between them with a large lump of four by two, and wave it in a very threatening manner.

We somehow managed to get Grandpa back into the main paddock, then, after things calmed down it was time to assess the damage. My beautiful magnificent horse looked as if he had just returned from the western front; he had kick marks on his chest and sides, and lumps missing from his face and parts of his back. Lynnie went into action putting him all back together.

Grandpa on the other hand was in a similar state, he looked worse because of his white coat, but on closer inspection it was all superficial, the whole thing was a massive learning curve.

We now had a problem of how do we sort this dilemma? We couldn't just let them go at it because they were both so intent on becoming boss that it would seem they were willing to die in the endeavour.

One thing I had done earlier was to build a holding yard; this was made with steel posts, with steel rails welded across them. To get into this yard the horses had to go through a large steel cattle crate, this had strong sliding steel doors. The fence was also finished with 4 inch square steel mesh. Our pet name for this holding yard was Fairlea Women's Prison, so named because all the steel mesh came from a real prison bearing that name.

I had built this yard so that we had somewhere to tend the horses in case of sickness, or if we needed to get a horse away from the pasture if they were getting too fat, and for this the pen was ideal.

Our only recourse for the time being was to assign Gentle John to this holding yard; at least we had the peace of mind that the two combatants could not get at each other here. It still went on for a full week: Grandpa would purposely come down to the yard for a visit, with full intentions of claiming his true place as supreme leader, and John on the other hand had other ideas.

We consulted with a number of horsey people about this dilemma, and they all said the same thing, you either have to sell one of the horses or allow them to sort things out. We opted for the second option and one week later we let John out into the main paddock. What we witnessed shocked us to the core; it was on for young and old straight away.

The two belligerents ran straight at each other, only this time rather than spin and kick there was no contact. What they did resort to doing was gross to say the least: they would charge one another at speed, and – wait for it – shit at one another. It straight away put me in mind of a Monty Python skit where the English crusaders were attacking a French fort, and the French were on the ramparts, bottoms towards the Brits yelling "I fart in your general direction".

The conflict came to an end, an uneasy truce was called, and Grandpa cracked the shits and wandered off by himself, and never associated with the other horses again. John was the winner but what a price for leadership. It took ages to get him back into working order, however gradually all his wounds healed, and it became time for me to put a saddle on him, and go for my first ride.

Oh what a memorable occasion – John was a gentleman, he stood still whilst the saddle blanket was placed on his back, he didn't flinch when the saddle was in place and the girth strap cinched up. He was fine with the bridle and mouthed the bit like a good horsey should. He was even fine with my boosting onto his back, and that's where it all ended.

He wouldn't move, and if he did it was one or two steps, we opened the gate to the paddock, and finally I got him to trot, with a little more encouragement he started to do what he had been trained to do, he paced. Oh what a bloody awkward feeling that is on the back of a horse, going quite fast with stiff legs, the beautiful smooth canter that I was hoping for was not available.

To ride a horse that paces, I could only describe in the following way: get two planks side by side, sit astride the planks in the middle, then get four people two at one end and two at the other, then get them to move the planks back and forward rapidly (but not at the same time); this gives a sort of sawing motion that leaves your bottom thinking it has learned how to walk.

Out of the entire time we had John, I only got him to canter (well gallop) once.

Lynnie was never really keen to actually ride the horses. She loved, as she would call it, to do the ground work with them, this involved grooming, feeding, repairing etcetera.

The one day Lynnie opted to go for a ride, we saddled John for me, and Grandpa for Lyn; by this time the two horses had sort of signed an uneasy truce, however on this particular day they must have consulted one another and formulated a plan. I will never forget this day, and I am certain it is burned into Lynne's memory.

We headed out of our front gate; it was a beautiful day, sun shining, no breeze; our plan was to ride a hundred metres down the road, then head onto the Upper King Parrot Creek road. This was a gravel road that had very little traffic on it. All went well until we reached the gravel road; this was the spot that the horses decided was the starting point of the Melbourne Cup, winner-takes-all race.

The main problem here was that the horses failed to inform us of their plans.

It was a very scary moment for me, but Lyn was terrified. The horses took off in a flat out gallop. Lynnie did as I had done years before and lost her reins; she hung on for grim death onto the saddle's pommel while the two horses raced for a good kilometre and how Lynnie stayed aboard is a mystery. To my amazement John was actually galloping; I dread to think that had he been pacing, my arse would have been in tatters.

The race was a dead heat, so horse-boss-wise, nothing had been resolved. On the other hand, Lynnie dismounted and never got on a horse again. She had been on Grandpa on one occasion prior to this when Lynnie and Cara went for a ride together but on that occasion everything went smoothly, without any dramas.

### Gentle John's time to move on

I had owned Gentle John for around twelve months, he was awkward to ride and never really got out of his pacing habits, and so I thought perhaps it's time for him to go to a new home. We advertised him at the local store, big bay gelding 16 hands high, included was the obligatory Bomb Proof rating. A couple and their teenage daughter turned up, they were very interested in purchasing John. They asked me about him, and I found I was getting into the swing of horse talk. They said they were purchasing the horse for their daughter, and needed to know if he had any bad habits.

I told them in all truth really that he was exceptionally slow, and that the previous day, I caught a couple of mynah birds building a nest on his rump. They looked at me strangely, and didn't twig that I was just joking. The young girl was boosted on board his back, and off they went at a slow plod around the house paddock. I noticed the young lass trying to gee him up, but he just plodded.

They liked what they saw and paid $400 for him, he was loaded aboard the horse float and headed south to a place called Craigieburn, and meanwhile Grandpa was standing at the fence, and he was smiling as Gentle John disappeared up the road.

We thought we had heard the last of Gentle John, but funnily enough we got a call from the new owners about two weeks later. The wanted to know if we were interested in buying him back. We replied that we were not and asked what the problem was? They said he was uncontrollable, saying that once he was out sight of his home paddock, he would fire up and run everywhere, and when he was pointed towards home, they couldn't stop him, he was like lightning.

We were gobsmacked, could this be the same horse we had sold? We told the people we were not interested in buying him back, but that we would ask the previous owners if they were interested, they replied that they were not.

The end of the Gentle John saga came when the people that bought him rang again about three months later. They said everything was back to normal with him, and he was back to his lazy plodding self and when we enquired what had happened they told us they had been feeding him Completo (ha ha ha).

The very final end to John was he apparently tripped on a rock and broke his neck, a sad end to a big magnificent looking horse.

### Comet

We now seemed to be getting a constant flow of new horses – shortly after John's departure. Cara talked us into letting her acquire a new little horse with the sole purpose, as she put it, of "doing him up then selling him on".

I don't recall where Comet came from; he was all of two years old, 13 hands high, roan in colour, pure Arab in breeding, and still a stallion. He was a very fine-boned horse with the typical Arab feature of a dished face. He was a lovable little fellow right from the word go, very intelligent, extremely nosy and always messing where he shouldn't have been.

I recall taking my Landcruiser utility up to the back of our property with the intention of picking up loose sticks all round. Comet was his usual nosy self and was very unhelpful: as fast as I could pick up the sticks and place them on the ute, he would just as quickly grab them and drop them back on the ground. Once the ute was loaded I headed back down to the house at speed, with Comet racing right alongside my window.

We decided we would have Comet gelded which would make him more re-saleable. The day of the gelding came and the local vet from Yea turned up. We put Comet in Fairlea Women's Prison in readiness for the vet. I must confess I was quite horrified by the vet's actions: he gave Comet an injection to make him very drowsy, and then he carefully removed Comet's manly bits. This was all fine and went as expected, but he threw the removed parts to my two Blue Heeler dogs. They chomped on these like no one's business.

I was a bit indignant about this and told him so; he replied "the horse doesn't know any better", I didn't altogether agree with this comment. I said "when you arrived the horse was complete with dangly bits, now he's a little bit lighter round his back end, and the dogs are feasting on two cricket balls". I don't think horses are completely stupid, especially the Arab breed.

Everything taken into account Comet survived the ordeal, he was very placid, but then again he was very placid before the gelding, he hadn't quite started to feel his wild oats.

Cara worked with Comet, teaching him all the groundwork; she broke him in to saddle using the gentler Pat Pirelli style of horse breaking, and within a short time he was saddled and she was riding him. It was only two weeks prior that she had fallen at the sports and broken her collarbone, and at that time, unbeknownst to us, her neck also.

Cara put Comet up for re-sale and sold him for I think $600 making a profit of around $250. The chap who bought him was from Seymour and had a large acreage outside of Seymour, and Comet was purchased as a surprise for his daughter. We never did get any feedback on Comet.

### Moonlight's mishap

Just when everything seems to be going along fine, something always pops up out of left field to put a damper on things. I'm not complaining however; it's lovely to have the local Vet come over and catch up on old times over a cup of tea, and leave with all my money.

Out of the blue Moonlight started limping very badly on his left hind foot. Between them, Cara and Lyn picked up his foot and cleaned out all around the frog and heel, and there appeared to be a hole there. At first we suspected an abscess but there was no discharge to be seen or hotness to be felt. There was nothing for it but to phone the vet, he was at our place in about an hour and soon located the cause of Moonlight's pain. In a freakish sort of accident Moonlight had stood on a twig, the twig had snapped and a piece had pierced into the bottom of his hoof, near the frog. Now, I'm not good with horse terms but this was the word used at the time. This piece of twig was about half an inch in diameter and possibly two inches long, and it had gone into the sole of his foot and somehow as he walked compacted dirt pushed it high into the wound.

The vet began to probe with a pair of long heavy-duty forceps, and eventually he managed to remove the offending item. It left quite a nasty hole and a poor horsey in lots of pain. The vet gave Moonlight an antibiotic shot then told us to try to keep the wound dry and dirt free.

We were at a bit of a loss as to how we could do this, but horsey friends from Strath Creek lent us a special rubber boot which covered the entire underside of the hoof and also went part way up his leg. It really reminded me somewhat of a ski boots, with metal clasps that close tight on the boot, also making it water proof.

Lyn learned from the vet how to give a horse an injection in the neck: this involved holding the needle in a clenched fist. When giving the needle it was a case of giving the horse three light thumps in the appointed spot, and on the third thump jab the needle straight in. This takes the horse by surprise and most times they don't notice. Moonlight's boot had to be removed every day, two to three times a day, and the wound sprayed with an antiseptic spray.

My wife Lynnie never ceases to amaze me with her caring ways with animals, and the way the animals respond to her ministrations. Moonlight was always a good patient and never refused to let Lyn tend to his wound. He was quite lame from this injury and it took months before he could bear weight on this leg again. Eventually though he beat the injury, but he had been favouring that leg for so long, that his rump on one side was much larger than the other, and that never changed. It was a shame because Moonlight was a very beautiful looking horse, and Cara loved taking him to shows, but alas his show career was over.

Quite a long time after, Cara saddled Moonlight and had a ride, he was fine with being ridden but was so high spirited he was very hard to control.

I really don't know why at times I can be such an idiot. I said to Cara "let me hop on him, I'm heavier and I will be able to pull him up better". I should perhaps have just ridden him around the house paddock, but instead I headed off down the road. Cara and Lynnie watched me depart from our front gate. It was a shocker of a day, it had been raining heavily and the drainage ditch at the side of the road was overflowing with water.

As I got to the neighbour's driveway a car pulled alongside and slowed down. I was thinking to myself what a gentleman driver; lots of people just drive past horses at speed. No sooner had this thought entered my head than this bloody moron of a driver revved his engine and screeched his tires. Moonlight's reaction was to do a massive buck, and I headed skywards like the Space shuttle. I landed head first down the ditch, completely saturated and spluttering. Moonlight meanwhile took off at all speed back home. Cara and Mum meanwhile saw Moonlight race up the driveway and I believe their comments went along the lines of "here's Moonlight, where's Dad?" I followed a good few minutes later, looking like a sad sack, dripping wet, frozen stiff, and pretty well saying my riding career was terminated.

It seemed that Moonlight had been storing up his energy for months during his convalescence; he was now very hard to pull up. A chap across the road from us sorted the problem. This chap was employed by our neighbours to exercise their thoroughbred horses, he would be out at the crack of dawn, standing in the stirrups on one horse, whilst holding onto the reins of another horse, and off he would go galloping absolutely flat knacker across the paddocks. He took Moonlight for about a week of this treatment, and amazingly Moonlight settled back to his normal self. I couldn't believe my eyes watching this guy; I couldn't stay on one horse, let alone ride flat chat whilst leading a second.

### Tamar Park Exquisite (Babe)

Oh! my goodness, not another bloody horse. I really don't know how Lynnie and I agreed but we seemed to be blinded by the sight of a nice looking horse. Our daughter Cara had been working down the road at the lady's place, the one who owned all the Shetland stallions. Whilst she was there a horse dealing type of chap turned up with a float, and he unloaded a chestnut horse and Cara was immediately captivated. This chap told her a story of how he had purchased the horse at the sales yards at Dandenong and went on to say he had no idea what the horse was capable of because he was not a show type person.

All Cara could see was this stunning looking horse, she was chestnut in colour, and she stood approximately 16 hands in height.

Cara straight away offered to saddle the horse up and see what she was capable of. The horse was good during the saddling process; she behaved as the bridle was placed over her head. She stood stock still as Cara climbed on board, and she took Cara's heart straight away. Here, to all intents and purposes, was the perfect horse for her show and dressage aspirations. She rode the horse up and down the paddock, making her do all these fancy walks, canters and trots, then proceeded to do these sideways trots and flying changes, and all the while the horse had her head arched, mouthing the bit.

Cara had seen more than enough and had her friend Dianne drive her home, and she went on very animatedly to tell us of how she had found an absolute champion horse that would win any show she was entered in. We didn't really want to see this horse, we had more than enough, and the asking price was out of our range anyway at $1,000, but reluctantly we drove around to have a look.

Once again Cara jumped on board this rather beautiful looking horse, she put her through all her paces, and we were also suitably impressed; it seemed to us that this horse indeed would win shows on her looks alone. There was no mention of Bomb Proof as I recall, but I suppose by now Cara was feeling she was some kind of authority on horses and all things horsey. We spoke with this chap (who we instantly didn't like, he was a wheeler dealer, and we made it clear $1,000 was out of our price range) so we offered $600 and eventually a deal was struck at $700.

Please make welcome Babe – Tamar Park Exquisite was her racing name. Babe was a stunning looking Chestnut horse with a dazzling white blaze, and two rear white socks. Cara spent hours grooming, washing and conditioning this horse, and when she was done this horse literally shone, the chestnut colouring was highlighted by golden dapples, which glinted and shimmered in the sunlight. I must admit we all thought this time we were on a winner. Cara saddled her up and put her through all her paces out in the paddock, and once again she performed fantastically; all that remained now was to take her to a show, and, as they say, 'clean up'.

We will never forget that first show: Babe walked onto the float without any problem. We drove to the local township of Yea; it was their annual show day with a small horse show happening on the Footy Oval. Cara spent her usual first hour brushing the horse and painting the horse's feet with shoe black, she plaited her mane and tail, and then applied the crisscross checkerboard to Babe's rump. Oh what a magnificent sight she made; we had people come over to admire her, and there was many a comment of "oh! this horse will win everything she enters".

It came time for Cara's first Dressage event; the horse was stunning, Cara was turned out immaculately, everything was set; that is until a huge merry-go-round started up, pipe organs with the little horses bobbing up and down, and little kids yelling and screaming with delight. This panicked Babe and she began to rear and buck – she was in such a state that she started sweating profusely and had a white lather of sweat all over her.

Our first show with Babe was a complete failure, there was no way she could be calmed down enough to compete, and it was decided to load her on the float and head for home.

We took her to several more shows, and found this was the same case at each event; she would become so incredibly nervous that she would sweat and jump around uncontrollably, and now even the trip alone to the shows would have her in a nervous lather of sweat. We tried all sorts of stuff to overcome this, we were advised to give her electrolytes to keep her hydrated, we were given a calming medication from other show people, but all was to no avail – perhaps this horse had something psychologically wrong with it.

Another problem occurred when it came to getting her original papers. We were asked to prove who we bought the horse from by local police, and all we could tell them was this chap's name, but we had no address for him. We never did find out what that was all about, but in a desperate effort to find out about the horse's past we undertook a trip to Dandenong horse sales yards.

What a day this was. On arrival at the sales yards we found they had closed, nobody was in attendance except for one little sort of shop at the front of the sales yard. We went in there and explained to the chap what we were trying to achieve, and as luck would have it he had a sales list of all the horses that had been sold there in the past few months. Up until we received this information all we knew the horse as was Babe. This chap managed to provide us with the name and address of the people who had sold the horse at the sales yards.

Armed with this information we headed off for the stated address. The address was in Yarra Glen, a beautiful country town renowned for its vineyards, horse properties and of course its horse racing track. We finally found the address and met with the people. They were quite surprised to see us, and especially to hear us asking about Babe's past history. The people were very helpful indeed; they had Babe's original racing papers, and her full racing name: Tamar Park Exquisite.

This was as far as any good news went; it was all downhill from here. They had owned Babe for a number of years; I think they bought her straight from the track. They were taken by Babe's stunning looks as we were, and they too surmised that they had bought a show stopper. But they went on to say that it wasn't till much later down the road that they discovered what Babe's problem was. They had tried all sorts of professional dressage trainers, hence Babe's ability to do all the fancy steps, but it turns out she had a problem with her back, and as soon as this would flare up, that would be the end of any chance of working this horse. They persevered for ages but finally gave up on her, and took her to the horse sales yards.

Enter our chap who purchased her for a paltry sum, and we maintain to this day that he fed her some kind of drug, because she was fantastic for the first couple of days, but once the drugs wore off all the problems came to the fore. We thanked the people for their help, they gave us her papers, and we headed for home. Perhaps the saga of Babe should have ended here, but bloody Cara decided to investigate Babe's breeding and heritage – oh shit here we go again.

Cara got on the computer and followed Babe's bloodlines, only to find she was a descendent of the great Bletchingly and Star Kingdom lines. On further investigation it was found that foals from these blood lines could fetch anything up to $15,000. Yippee, we are in the money, we would go into the breeding side of things, and at least I could possibly recoup some of the many thousands of dollars we had spent over the years on the horses.

### Let's get Babe pregnant

What a fabulous idea if we were to get at least two foals from Babe; we could recoup some of our losses, at least that's was what Lynnie and I thought. I'm sure Cara would have altogether other ideas. Cara did her research on who would make the perfect daddy for our lovely Babe, and she came up with Shifting Sands Arabian Stallions. We now know the owners of this stud, Ray and Robin, quite well, and we made the journey down to their property at Wallan and they introduced us to Dowling Damien or Dee as he was known for short. Dee was the most magnificent looking Arab Stallion one could wish to meet.

He was a rich red in colour, dished face and had a magnificent white blaze, topped off with four white socks and a thick mane. They let him out so we could see his gait, and he strode around showing off for us really.

This horse had already won all there was to be won in the horse show world, and his main job now was to provide stud services. We negotiated a price with Ray and Robin, the amount of which I cannot remember, and all was settled. It was just a case of bringing Babe to her man, the horse stud would organize our horse coming into season, the deed would be done and all would be well.

We took Babe down there for her first service, and a little friend of Cara's came along, little Kerry Price, or Sparrow as she was better known to us. I took a video camera to film the happy occasion, maybe a bit bizarre you might think, but we just wanted a record of the event. I will never forget this occasion; Babe was taken over to a hitching post, not far from Dee's pen. Music was played over a loud speaker and this was a signal to the stallion that his services were required. We couldn't believe our eyes: as a tune by Beethoven rang out across the stables Dee trotted out from his stable, he trotted over to his gate and pushed it open with his nose. Now I must say he knew what he was about and certainly knew his stuff.

At this point I lost control of the camera, because quiet little Sparrow yelled out in a none too quiet voice, "look at the size of his dick", we were all taken by surprise and I laughed so much the filming was ruined by my hand shaking. The mating went as per plan, without a hitch so to speak, and all that remained was for us to return our beautiful girl back home.

A week or two went by; I can't quite recall the time frame, then it was time to take our beautiful hopefully-in-foal girl to the equine vet's at Kilmore. She was given an ultra-sound and was found to be not pregnant. Oh! Shit!

We were very disappointed, and figured it was just the wrong time or something, so we rang Robin and Ray and they were gracious enough to suggest we give her a little time and then bring her back, and they would have her re-serviced without further charge.

We did this, and as on the previous occasion, everything went according to plan. Robin and Ray went to the extra trouble of giving Babe a thorough wash out before the service once Babe was back in season, and she was mated once again to Dee.

Yet another trip to the equine vet at Kilmore, yet another ultrasound, and once again a negative result. The vet did further investigations and found all the necessary parts were there, but Babe was just too highly strung to become pregnant. The Vet felt sure Babe would never produce little baby Babes, and so it would seem our breeding program was well and truly ended.

We were rather crestfallen, the wind completely knocked out of our sails: we had a stunningly beautiful horse that couldn't be shown, couldn't have babies, and to top it all off she ate a lot of food. Babe was eventually sold on for a paltry sum, the person buying her was told of all the problems, but they were quite sure they could fix them; we never heard anything more about her.

### Gemma

Please make welcome little Gemma, another Lee family horse, and once again the results of our daughter Cara's handiwork.

Cara heard about Gemma from her lady friend who runs the Shetland stud. Gemma was a little 2 year old Buckskin living on a small block of land behind two factories. The story we were told was these people had purchased Gemma as a foal, and had just kept her as a pet, never really handling her. They wanted to get rid of her and as the story goes she was due for the glue factory in a few days' time.

Cara talked me into going to have a look at this little horse. I could see little point really as Cara was too tall for this horse already, but she promised the idea was to buy Gemma, break her in to saddle, and then sell her on to a younger rider who wanted a pony club horse.

I looked at little Gemma and she didn't seem like anything very special to me; she was sandy in colour with a dark mane and tail. The strange part was when the people brought her out to show us, they brought her out via their front door. Apparently they didn't have the keys to the factory yard, and the only way they could bring her out was through their house, a somewhat strange story, but a true one.

I reluctantly agreed to the purchase, and Cara came back down with her friend and her horse float. They picked up Gemma; her asking price was just $200.

Gemma was a 13.4 hands high Hunter Class Buckskin Pony. Her coat was fluffy and thick and sandy in colour, her mane was dark and so was her tail. She was a very smart little horse, very switched on and quite easy to train. Gemma was the first genuine attempt by Cara to buy a horse solely for the purpose of training then selling on to a good home. Well, I tell a slight white lie there, Comet was also bought with the same purpose in mind, but Gemma was the first really genuine attempt.

Cara started Gemma's training in earnest: using the Pat Pirelli method, she put her through all the ground work, day after day. She would put Gemma on a long lead rope then work her in circles, walking slowly first one direction, and then switching back the other way. I could never really detect the commands that made the horse work, but it was subtle movements and signals that the horse responded to.

It was only a very short period of time before Gemma was saddled and wearing a bridle. Cara was very gentle and very patient with this little horse, and to her credit she did a fantastic job on her. It was obvious Cara was too tall for this little horse, but Gemma was very obedient during saddling and mounting and she responded instantly to everything that Cara asked of her.

The time came when Gemma was going to be sold on to a new home. I would say Cara would have been around 14 or 15 years old at this time. Two older ladies rang up asking about Gemma, and an appointment time was made for them to come out and see her. I must admit I wasn't terribly taken with these women; they were obviously show people, and firing a thousand questions.

One of the first things they asked was, "who was the person that had broken the horse in?" When Cara replied that she had done it all on her own, the ladies were quite sceptical, and didn't hide the fact. I'm not a salesperson type and would gladly have sent these two ladies on their way, but Cara was very civil towards them, despite the fact that she was inwardly seething.

They asked about her handling, and Cara went through the entire process of lifting all her feet, walking her on and off the horse float, placing the bridle on Gemma, then the saddle cloth and saddle, and finally she hopped on Gemma's back. Lyn and I stood back and watched this whole process. Cara sat well in the saddle, and the reins were hanging loose, and then Cara set about putting Gemma through all her paces. The ladies were quite gobsmacked, asking how Cara was controlling the horse with the reins so loose. Cara explained that she could ride Gemma just using pressure from her knees. The change in the attitude of these two ladies was quite noticeable; they were very impressed yet still dubious that Cara had trained the horse. They left saying they were very interested and would ring back before the following weekend.

Meanwhile a couple from just down the road from us turned up and said they were looking for a little horse for their cousin to use as a show pony. Once again Cara put Gemma through her paces; the couple was very impressed and paid for her there and then, the asking price was $800. Part of the agreement was that Lynnie and I would deliver her to her new owners.

The following Saturday Gemma was loaded aboard the horse float, and we drove quite a number of hours' drive away to a seaside place called Hastings. Gemma was delivered to one very delighted young girl, who immediately saddled her up and started riding her around their paddock. Cara meanwhile told the people of Gemma's past history, how she had been found at the back of two factories, about how using the Pat Pirelli method she had broken the horse in and shortly thereafter we left for home.

Later that same week the two Show ladies rang to purchase Gemma, but they were just a little too late: chewy on yer boot!

### Cara has a re-union with Gemma

Strange things happen in life; things seem to go round in circles; sometimes the circles take years to complete, and then out of the blue someone or something suddenly appears back in your life, and this was the case with Gemma.

A number of years after selling Gemma, Cara went with friends to the Royal Melbourne Show; she went as a spectator with the sole purpose of watching the Show and especially the Dressage horses. We can't pinpoint whether it was the 1999 show or the year 2000, but it doesn't really matter. Cara was sitting in the stand watching the Hunter Class Ponies strutting their stuff. All of a sudden Cara burst into tears, much to the shock and horror of her friends, and when they asked her what was wrong, she replied "I think that is a little horse I broke in and sold a number of years ago".

As the young girl riding the little Buckskin horse was riding towards Cara, Cara yelled "Gemma" and the little horse immediately pricked her ears forward. The young girl rode over and asked why Cara had called her Gemma? Cara wasn't 100% sure yet, but when she looked closely at Gemma she knew without doubt this was the little horse she had purchased for $200 from the factory site.

The young girl had no idea of the name Cara was calling her horse, and it would seem now she had a rather posh show name, but as the two girls chatted the story all became clear. At first the young girl thought Cara was telling lies, because the story Cara was telling she had already heard from the people she had purchased Gemma from.

She went on to tell Cara that she had purchased Gemma with the sole purpose of entering her into horse shows. The people she bought Gemma from lived at a place called Hastings. The only difference to the story was, they claimed they had found Gemma amongst the factories, that they had broken her in using The Pat Pirelli method, and the story went on identical to Cara's story except they took all the credit for what Cara had actually done.

Cara and the young lady exchanged names and email addresses, and Cara sent the young lady photos of Gemma at our place when she was training her. I think the young lass is called Haley King, not sure if the spelling is right. I believe they paid considerably more than what Cara sold Gemma for. Gemma became a Champion showing horse, and Cara was always very very proud to have been a major part in Gemma's success.

### We say farewell to Grandpa

Dear old Grandpa was approaching the end of his reign as leader of the pack at Strath Creek. He was becoming quite strange, with some odd habits. Now when saddled he would become extremely nervous, his eyes would roll, his ears would flatten, and he would trot in an agitated fashion on the spot. No amount of soothing would calm him down, and it seemed his riding days were over.

Rather than have him put down we thought we might give him away to a new owner. I advertised him at the same local shop where we had originally bought him. The ad went as follows: "16 hands high Grey Appaloosa Gelding, free to good home, low mileage". I didn't however advertise him as bomb proof. The silly state he was getting into lately, he could very well have hurt someone.

A couple turned up one weekend complete with brand new horse float. They looked at Grandpa, liked what they saw, and concluded with, "we only want him for a pet" so the whole situation was ideal, and everything was perfect, that is until he was loaded onto the float. The minute the tail ramp was lifted Grandpa went completely berserk, kicking the float walls and rear ramp, we really thought he was going to destroy this expensive item. We quickly undid the ramp and he shot out backwards; he was lathered in sweat, and obviously out of his mind.

The poor people quickly shut the horse float ramp, jumped in their car, and without a word left. I must say Lynnie and I were very embarrassed by the whole thing. It took ages before Grandpa settled back down, and with this we let him back out into the main paddock.

It was with great regret that we finally called the local horse knackery, they came out, dispatched Grandpa humanely and quickly, then loaded him onto the back of their truck and left. They paid us a sum of $300 for Grandpas remains, but the whole thing was not about the money, it was quite heart-breaking. We never did tell our daughter Cara the true story of Grandpas departure; I think she was told someone had come and taken him free of charge to a good home. She never really understood why we didn't have a forwarding address of where he had gone to.

### We say farewell to little Silver

I think the worst thing about owning pets is their limited life span; we have always treated our animals like human children, talking to them and including them in our day to day lives.

Silver was the most endearing little horse and he was loyal to my daughter Cara from day

one.

One of the problems with the smaller horses and ponies is they are prone to founder. This is a horse problem where they eat too much, become too fat, and their little legs and feet get extremely sore. I suppose comparing it to human illnesses I would perhaps compare it to a human version of gout. I have suffered from gout over the years, and would wish it on neither man nor beast. In humans it is caused by an over-accumulation of uric acid which crystallizes in the joints and causes swelling and heat and unbelievable pain. This is perhaps not a good comparison, but I believe the horse condition is very painful; sometimes the horse will lay down to take the weight off its feet, and it then becomes reluctant to stand.

I am not really sure of the cause of Silver's lameness; I have read it can be caused by eating too much grain, being housed in lush pastures, drinking very cold water after being worked, any of a number of things really.

Our local farrier was a chap called Don Robinson, a wonderful caring man, one I would describe as a horse whispering type. He had a very gentle nature and was such a tiny man; his waist was so small that he used to wrap a Hawthorn scarf around his midriff several times for extra support. Don used to make up his own feeding formulas, and had his own special remedy for founder and Laminitis, it was a dark oily looking liquid, and the secret ingredients he passed down to his equally tiny daughter after he passed away.

We had the Vet out to Silver on a number of occasions, but his condition just seemed to get worse, and it was eventually decided it would be kinder to put this little gentleman out of his misery. Silver is buried in the middle of the paddock at Strath Creek, and it broke my daughter's heart to say goodbye to him; he will always hold a very special place in all our hearts.

### Lofty

**Oh! Shit, we have purchased a Giraffe**

Meet Lofty, or Coy Beau as he was known in racing circles. The first time I laid eyes on him, I really thought we had bought a Giraffe.

Sometimes I have to wonder where my head is at. By this time in our lives I was over horses. I think we had had enough, more than enough really, and the last thing we needed was yet another one.

At this time in my life I was working in my own mowing and handyman business. I had spent the week sub-contracting to my brother-in-law Geoff, working in the Melbourne suburbs doing building work. It involved a very lengthy drive back and forth each day, and I would alternate the drive sometimes going what I would describe as the back way home.

Driving the backway involved going through the lovely Victorian town of Yarra Glen. This is a quaint little town, with a row of shops down either side of the wide main street. It is a very horsey area, with lots of race horse studs, and of course a large race track. I had gotten into a bit of a habit of stopping off at Yarra Glen at the fish and chip shop, where I would buy a couple of dollars worth of chips and a piece of flake to munch on during the drive home.

This particular afternoon I called in and placed my order, and as I sat down I tuned into a conversation between the young girl behind the counter, and another young customer who was obviously a friend of hers. It's a wonder I didn't fall asleep, because the conversation was about horses, shows and show jumping. The young lass serving was saying she had found the most magnificent horse, 17 hands high, straight off Flemington race track, and he would be ideal as a show jumper.

She then went on to say her parents would not allow her to have another horse (smart people) because she already had too many, and that anyway the horse was way too big for her. The young girl was quite indignant because the owners had offered to give the big fella to her.

I should have just filled my big gob up with chips and walked out but, for reasons unknown to me, I asked the young girl if I could possibly get the owner's number, as my daughter did show jumping, and this horse sounded ideal. How bloody stupid was I? I have since adopted a different attitude called 'mind your own bloody business John'.

However on getting home I passed all the relevant information on to Lynnie and Cara and they immediately rang the owners.

I went to work the next day, and Cara and Lyn arranged to go see this so called magnificent horse. He was kept at a racing stud, the story was as the young girl had said: "Lofty was straight off the track at Flemington". The chap who trained him was dubious about letting Cara have the horse because she was still only around about 15, and this horse was huge and very tall. He went on to say that the horse had one very major problem, and rather than try to explain he decided to show them first hand what the horse's problem was.

Lofty was brought out of the stables, he was walked onto a rather large oversized horse float. The ramps were closed, and then the chap and his wife ordered everyone to stand well clear. The float was the type with two doors, a ramp that lifted up. and a smaller door above the ramp that closed across the float. When everyone was clear, he undid the bottom ramp and lowered it, then with a final word of warning he undid the top door.

As soon as this door opened the horse launched itself out of the float and landed some ten feet behind the ramp. Once landed he behaved like a perfect gentleman and didn't move, but this was a very dangerous situation and one that could not be ignored. Cara demonstrated that she was not frightened of the horse, and rode him around for a while, and reluctantly the chap agreed to letting her have the horse. Miraculously, somewhere along the line, a fee of $600 was placed on the horse, although we were told the former owners wanted at least $100 each for him, and off course there was six owners.

The trainer delivered Lofty to our property at Strath Creek the following day, I had gone to work, and as yet had not seen him. When I got home I was greeted rather excitedly by Cara and Lyn who said the horse had been delivered, and that he was huge. I walked to the gate and looked out into the paddock, Lofty was right at the very back corner, and didn't look all that impressive to me, however when Cara called him and banged a feed bucket, he ran down to us. I watched as this thing approached getting bigger and bigger and bigger. When he stopped at the gate my words were "shit! we've bought a giraffe"; he was so tall that standing alongside him it was not possible to see over his back.

### Pony club with Lofty

Please make welcome Lofty – what a huge horse, he stood 17 hands high, grey in color, and he was a Thoroughbred Gelding.

Cara had joined the Yea Pony Club and wanted to take Lofty to a pony club day. The problem here was he was too big for a standard sized horse float. A friend from Flowerdale offered his services, he owned a horse truck, and as he was taking his daughter's horse to the Pony Club, he offered to take Lofty as well.

Things went well, Lofty boarded the truck no problems, however when we got to the pony club grounds and it was time for Lofty to unload, this is where the problems started. I myself was not aware of Lofty's problem when alighting from horse floats. The other young girl's horse came off fine, but as soon as Lofty's door was opened, he came out in one flying leap, scaring the crap out of everyone in the area. It was just sheer luck that no-one was standing close to the door opening because Lofty would have flattened them. Once on the ground he was a perfect gentleman, but this situation had to be fixed, the sooner the better.

I was not impressed at all, and made it quite clear to Cara that until this horse knew how to walk on and OFF a horse float in a normal manner, he would not be leaving our property. The rest of the day went well, Lofty looked magnificent, he arched his head, and mouthed the bit like a good horsey should, and the day was labelled a great success. We managed to get Lofty back home, and all stood clear while he did his Olympic dismount. Now it was entirely up to Cara to retrain this huge beastie.

I cannot recall who lent us the oversized float, but someone did. It was parked amongst the trees, and now it was up to Cara to retrain Lofty in the correct etiquette for dis-mounting from said float. Lyn and I were amazed at Cara's patience in this regard; she spent endless hours teaching Lofty how to get on and off the float without the huge leap that he preferred. She would go to walk him up the ramp, and would say "one step", the horse would respond and if he stepped too long she would back him up and start again, and so it went, one step, and one front leg would advance, another step and another leg would advance, and the same applied for getting off the float, one tiny step at a time.

It was quite amazing to see the transformation that Cara managed with Lofty, he went from doing his almighty backwards leap, to taking ten little tiny steps to get off the float. He now actually looked a bit silly, because he was such a big horse and two steps would have seen him safely grounded, yet he took a whole series of little tiny steps, however, to Cara's credit, she solved the problem. The whole retraining process took her about two months. When talking to other horse people you hear all sorts of remedies and cures for horse-related problems.

We heard from one horsey person that a chap who lived at the seaside town of Frankston had a horse that liked to perform the backwards leap. His cure for this problem was a lot quicker than Cara's method, he backed his float onto Frankston Pier, opened the rear door of the float, and the horse leapt straight out into Port Phillip Bay, problem cured instantly. Whether or not this story is true one can only surmise, but it makes an interesting tale.

Cara absolutely loved this big hulk of a horse and went full on into the Pat Pirelli training method, working Lofty with all these psychological moves. He was quick to learn, and I must say Lyn and I were quite taken aback at the transformation in this horse. She would work Lofty on a long lunging rope, round and round in large circles, first one way then the other, slow walk to a trot, then a canter, then everything in reverse.

By the time she had finished training him he was amazing to watch. Cara could walk up to Lofty anywhere in the paddock, and without lead ropes or head stalls or anything, she could get him lunging in circles around her, just by the use of signals. We thought it looked rather funny to see this big horse munching away out in the paddock and the next thing he would be running in circles around Cara, first one way, then the other, walks, trots, canters, and all without any ropes or harnesses.

Another thing she used to do was to bring Lofty into the house paddock, and there she would play chasey with him, she would run, and he would follow practically with his head over her shoulder, whichever way she ran he was right at her heel; the love between Cara and this big grey lump was amazing.

We had a friend come over one day, a big man known as Big Joe, a big imposing type of person and quite loud. He is a chap who is not too fond of animals. Cara was out in the paddock working Lofty and Joe walked over to say hello. Joe was being his usual self, and stepped too close to Cara, and Lofty immediately lunged past her and almost bit Joe's face off. Joe was quite indignant saying "that bloody shit of a thing nearly bit me", but Cara just explained "he thought you were threatening me". I must admit I have never seen this behaviour before – from a dog perhaps but a horse?

Lynnie and I now got really carried away: in order for Cara to take Lofty to shows we decided to buy our own float and we needed to buy a float much higher and longer than a standard float. We shopped around and found a float maker at a place called Coldstream near the township of Lilydale. We paid out $5,000 for a brand new float, cream in color with red pinstripes. The first thing I did when we got it home was to build a small tack room inside the front. Just near the door in the rounded front of the float, I built a shelf with cupboard underneath it and with this Cara had somewhere to store all her gear, saddles, bridles, reins, and various other gear.

Here is a typical picture of a trip to a horse show, my old Toyota Landcruiser which I loved, and the brand new horse float, the 'big grey lump', and my daughter Cara. Lynnie was always on hand to help with the grooming and preparation

### Shut your big mouth John

I used to take great delight in taking the Mickey out of my daughter Cara. She would go to show after show, and get the odd ribbon, but never really did overly well. I remember mentioning this to Cara one day, and it didn't sit well with her. I should have left it at that but I went one step further and said "if you ever get first place I will give you $100 for every first place ribbon". Well, I mean after all, she hadn't done overly well with all the other horses. I hadn't taken too much notice of how well Lofty was looking, or how well he was behaving when put through show and dressage routines, that is until we took him to his first show.

I can't recall where we went, somewhere miles away (it was always miles away) but Cara did her usual routine, brushing the horse till he shone, painted shoe black on his big boof feet, plaited his mane and tail, fancy pattern brushed onto his rump, then she disappeared off into the float to change into her show gear: jodhpurs, top boots, white shirt and tie, and show helmet. Then it all began, off into the show ring for what I expected to be the usual result, except this time Cara was called back and given first place, a lovely Blue ribbon.

Seriously you would have thought she had won the Lottery she was so proud.

I was thinking oh shit! this is a turn up for the books, and by the end of the day it seems she had won the lottery. Six first place ribbons! I was cursing and hoping beyond hope that Cara had forgotten my promise, but alas, no such luck. I was up for $600. A compromise had to be reached, and we agreed that I would pay for four tickets to the Equitania Horse Show in Melbourne. Gawd this was worse than paying cash up front, it meant I had to go with them to a day of nothing but bloody horses.

This show was held in a huge industrial shed right in the centre of Melbourne right on the Yarra River bank. Oh what a long and trying day! The highlight for me was when two Tennessee Walking horses had a slight meltdown and almost ran over some of the show patrons. There was one rather interesting part though: in a large arena a heap of people were gathered with their horses. All these horses had been trained in the Pat Pirelli method, and they did some quite amazing things. None of the owners used reins or lead ropes, yet all their horses followed them as if attached. I really must calm down – that bit almost sounded like I enjoyed it.

### Almost a nasty accident

Cara would quite often ride Lofty down to the local store, a ride of about two kilometres. Once there she would team up with her mate the Sparrow, and together they would take their horses on a bit of a ride. They rode up past the Strath Creek Tennis Courts, and then accessed a paddock here via an unlocked gate. Not far inside the paddock was a fairly decent sized dam. The girls stripped down to their bathers and removed the saddles, blankets and bridles from their horses. Then they proceeded to ride the horses into the dam.

All appeared to be going fine, but as Cara rode Lofty out of the water, he suddenly took off at a full gallop out of the paddock and onto the Strath Creek/Flowerdale road. At this point the road has several sharp S bends, and then turns onto a straight back towards our home. There is a long slightly downhill stretch, and then it levels out for the run home. Cara was riding bareback, no reins just a bunch of Lofty's mane to hang onto, and Lofty was lengthening his stride by the second. It seemed he was having flash backs to racing at Flemington Race Course. She was so fortunate because there is usually traffic on this road, but not this particular time thank goodness.

He got faster and faster, and in the distance Cara could see our wheelie bin by the side of the road and it would seem Lofty had this in mind as the finishing line. Once past this he started to ease up, and a further five hundred meters up the hill he finally stopped, and Cara very very shakily dismounted and then walked Lofty back to our place. When we came out to see what all the fuss was about, Cara looked like she had seen a ghost, Lofty was gasping for breath, so was Cara really. She explained what had happened and we all realized she was very lucky to be alive. To have fallen from Lofty racing at high speed, from such a great height onto a bitumen road, and only in her bathers, would have been tragic to say the least.

Cara went on to say, that it was the most terrifying thing she had ever experienced, yet the most thrilling, however she did go on to say she would never ever let that sort of thing happen again.

### Lofty goes for Show jumping training

Cara had read up about a place where she could have professional show jumping lessons.

This was held about a good forty minute drive from our place at a township called Whittlesea. We took her for her first lesson, these being given by a chap called Russell Johnstone and his wife Melanie. Russell had enjoyed a great career in showjumping and had represented Australia in the Olympics. The venue was a huge indoor arena, down one side of which was a sort of mini grandstand with bench seats.

The lessons were a personal one-on-one affair, and it was here that Cara learned all about pacing the horse between jumps, knowing which leg to start the horse on, flying changes and all sorts of stuff connected with Show Jumping.

I particularly remember Russell would be constantly calling out, "half halt, half halt". Lynnie and I had not a clue what he was on about, but Cara was in her element and loving it.

We took her for quite a few lessons, until one day she decided she would compete in a show at this arena. We were all quite excited by the prospect and, don't tell Cara, even I was vaguely interested.

There were quite a lot of people in the grandstand, and etiquette requires (in horsey speak) that one must remain very quiet whilst the competitors are doing their rounds.

Lynnie and I were so involved in this whole day that we invited both our parents to come along and watch this great spectacle.

A few other contestants completed their rounds, and then it came to Cara's turn. Cara was on the biggest horse by far, though the jumps were not overly high. She had done the compulsory walk around, calculating how many steps or paces were needed between each jump. She had done as the other contestants had done and had memorized the route around the jumps. She was quite keen and secretly confident in Lofty's new found abilities. There were only two small contingencies we simply hadn't allowed for.

### Lyn's father, Pop, and my dear old mum

Oh dear what a disaster: my mother Annie was profoundly deaf, and likewise Lyn's father Allan was also almost deaf, both owned hearing aids, yet both never wore them. Allan's hearing aid sat atop the refrigerator at home, and spent its time listening to the sound of the freezer motor working. My mum's hearing aid on the other hand was also at home in the bathroom cupboard.

We made the vital mistake of sitting these two alongside one another. It came time for Cara's first appearance. Lofty pranced up to the starting point looking magnificent, and so did Cara who was immaculately turned out. You could hear a pin drop as the bell rang for the start of Cara's round. As Cara approached her first jump, my little old mother's voice rang out right across the arena: "HOW'S YOUR PROSTRATE ALLAN?" Allan answered immediately in an also very loud voice, "GOOD THANK YOU ANNIE, HOW'S ANDY'S BOWEL MOVEMENTS?"

The place erupted in laughter, with Lynnie and I and Lyn's mum shushing the offenders.

Unfortunately Cara heard this exchange; she immediately turned bright red, and completely lost concentration which caused her to knock over a couple of jumps, and totally ruined her first professional show jumping experience.

I will never forget the look on her face when she came up to us later. She said "did you hear what Gran and Pop were talking about?" We said "yes we did" and she went on to say "they were having a conversation about prostrates and bowel movements."

We agreed with her and tried so very hard not to laugh, but I suppose she had put a lot of time and effort into the preparation for this event, but as we said then, "never mind Cara, there's always next time" and she replied "yes and don't bring Pop and Grandma."

Lynnie and I attended another one of these training days, and this time we took the Sparrow with us. Sparrow, or Kerry as she's known to her parents, has a wicked sense of humour, and she and I together are not a good combination.

During one of the training sessions we were sitting in the grandstand eating pies. The next chap came out on his dapper little horse. He was a tiny framed man, sitting very high and straight backed, he was in full dress outfit, gleaming top boots, white jodhpurs, white vest with black frock coat and gloves, all rounded off with a gleaming top hat. His horse was very fine boned, magnificent looking, and they seemed to skip around the arena.

I don't know what came over me but the tune "A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go, hey ho! The merry oh! A-hunting we will go," burst forth and who should join me in lusty voice? Answer: the Sparrow.

Cara was shushing us and other folks were giving us the foulest of looks, but each time this chap came a prancing around it was just irresistible.

### Chocky Muffin

Aaah! Chocky Muffin! Now who would name a horse Chocky Muffin? This was yet another horse that Cara talked us into purchasing, the sole intent being to break her in then sell her on. Chocky came from a New Zealand racing stud, which was just up the way from us. As with Lofty and Babe, she also was straight off the racetrack. The difference with Chocky Muffin was that she was still high on the food they pour into a horse in preparation for a race. She was super hyped up and raring to go. The day she came to our place the owners had to walk her down, Cara could not keep the horse under control, and she was rearing and pulling, and generally carrying on like a mad thing.

Once at our place it all began in earnest again, with Pat Pirelli coming to the fore, lots and lots of ground work, and all the usual stuff required to settle a horse down in readiness for day to day riding.

The idea behind the purchase of Chocky was to sell her on to a show home; her confirmation and condition were excellent. Cara took her to a number of shows, and Chocky came away with several ribbons.

Perhaps Chocky should have been Cara's number one horse, but Lofty was her pride and joy, and considering his vast size he was very gentle with Cara. Chocky was sold on to another show home, and I have not heard any more about her.

### Introducing Sally

Sally was yet another horse to add to our menagerie; Cara had purchased her from a breeder in Southern Victoria.

Sally is an Arabian Warm blood cross, black in colour. Sally was purchased during a period of severe drought in Australia, so Cara was able to get her for quite a reasonable price. The horse was still a foal and not long weaned from her mother.

At this point in time we still had Moonlight, Lofty, and Sally; Sally was basically left to roam the paddock eating to her heart's content. Later Cara put quite a lot of time into Sally, training her in the Pat Pirelli methods. Sally was a very smart horse and quick to learn; we always put it down to the Arab side of Sally's breeding accounting for the smartness. Cara had taught Sally how to rear on command, how to bow, and how to lie prone, and Cara could lie across her.

Both Lynnie and I never really trusted Sally; we always felt she had a bit of a sly side.

Cara one day asked Lyn to hold on to Sally's lead rope whilst she did some thing or other with her. Without warning Sally reared backwards, and then started up the paddock with Lyn still hanging on for grim death. Lyn fell over and jarred her left shoulder. We thought at first that she might have dislocated it, and there was no other choice but to cart Lynnie down to the hospital in Melbourne.

I have to relate this little interlude as it still tickles my fancy to this day. The attending doctor was of either Indian or Pakistani descent and had a very heavy accent. He asked how the accident happened, and after hearing the story he ordered X-Rays.

He then asked a series of questions: firstly he asked did Lynnie smoke? She replied "yes up to a packet a day". He tut-tutted about this, then he asked did Lynnie drink? She replied "yes but not alcohol, just coffee". He then asked how much coffee she would drink per day." Lynnie replied "about 30 cups a day". The doctor then started saying "oh! dearie, dearie me". He then asked if we had any children. Lynnie replied "yes two, a boy and a girl". The doctor then said" well you better tell them they will be orphans soon". Now this didn't impress Lynnie, but it really tickled my fancy. The doctor concluded with "there does not appear to be any obvious fractures, it would appear to be just a case of ligament strain" and then discharged us to go home. I asked could he please supply some pain killers for Lyn. And he replied "wouldn't she prefer a bucket of coffee". I laughed all the way home, but Lynnie failed to see the funny side of it.

### Cilla and baby Miracle

Mother and daughter both doing well, Cilla and her beautiful cheeky foal, Miracle

This is a tale of our final horse. At this point in time we had all the horses one could possibly wish for, and another horse was really quite out of the question, and yet this last horse we could not blame Cara for at all.

As I mentioned in previous chapters, across the road from our property was the old Strath Creek Sports ground site. It had been sold privately, and a Serbian family had purchased it, and it was now divided up into various paddocks in which they ran cows, sheep and two horses.

One of the horses was situated in the paddock right opposite us; we had noticed that this horse was a Grey Arabian Mare heavily in foal. On this particular day it was my day off and we were just heading out towards Melbourne, the day was very hot and as we passed the neighbour's paddock I noticed the grey mare standing in the middle of the paddock looking quite agitated. The grass was all dead because of the heat, but still quite high. We could see lots of crows standing around the horse, and some were darting towards the mare.

I mentioned to Lynnie that it appeared that there was something wrong with the mare. We stopped the car and climbed over the gate and as we approached the mare what we saw shocked us to the core. She had given birth to the tiniest little foal you would ever wish to see. We didn't know at the time but the foal was six weeks premature.

The mum had licked the skin covering the foal, but there was very little sign of life. Lynnie amazes me at times: she sprang into action. First of all she got me to help try to get the foal to a standing position but we found this was not possible as the foal was like a tiny little spider, and when trying to stand, it was standing on its heels.

Lynnie was determined to get some colostrum into the foal to help with the energy levels; however this was just not possible because the foal had no strength at all. Lynnie then dispatched me back to our place to get a babies' feeding bottle with teat. On my return Lynnie decided she was going to milk the mare. I was dubious because we knew nothing about this animal or its temperament. But Lyn went to work, and to our amazement the mare actually lifted her hind leg so Lyn could get to her teats. This lovely horse stood still as Lynnie managed to milk about 50 or 60 mls of milk.

She then cradled this tiny creature and managed to get this rich formula into her mouth.

She then dispatched me home again to get some warm water with glucose; this she also fed to the foal. The mare stood placidly and watched this entire thing; the next thing was to ring the Equine Vet's at a place called Avenel. I also rang the owner and explained what had taken place, he agreed to the Vet being called out, and answered a few questions we had for him.

The mare had at some stage gone through a wire fence; and on her back hind leg was a horrible looking growth, from the front of the knee right the way down to the shin bone. This growth was the size of a soccer ball and right the way around the leg. It really was a very evil looking injury, and when I questioned the owner he said she had ripped her leg open on a fence, he had called the Vet who had dressed the wound, and then it was left at that. The dressing eventually fell off, and the horse was left to fend for itself.

Now this wound was terribly infected and full of maggots, and when the Vet finally arrived he immediately assessed the foal's chances at about 10% for its survival. He really had no idea of the fighting spirit of this tiny creature. He examined the wound on the horse and said this was the reason the horse slipped its foal. He also said she had a raging infection in her system, and to prove the point he cut open the afterbirth and it was just full of evil smelling brown pus.

Our next problem was transporting the mare and foal together, without the foal getting trampled. We solved the problem but it wasn't an orthodox idea. The horse was led onto our new float, and Lyn climbed on the back of my Toyota four wheel drive ute. I passed her the tiny foal, and Lynnie wrapped it in warm towels and allowed it to have its head on her chest so the anxious mother could see it through the float window.

I then rang the police at a township called Seymour to explain what we were doing because it is highly illegal in Australia to travel in the back of an open Ute, however the Sergeant who answered was very understanding, and told us if we encountered any trouble en route, we should contact him.

The trip was uneventful, and about an hour later we arrived at the Vets. They had prepared a lovely stable ready for the mother and baby, and from here they took over.

It was about four days prior to Christmas and we rang daily to ask about the mother and baby, and miraculously the baby continued to thrive. We drove up there on Christmas Day and found the tiny foal standing on its tiny spindly legs, however it still could not stand on its hooves, and it stood on its little heels so its little feet splayed upwards like shoes worn in the days of Aladdin.

The vets were amazed at the resilience of this tiny creature and told us she was by no means out of the woods, but her chances were improving by the day. Lynnie and I had been totally sucked in by this stage; we spoke with the owner and offered him a deal: we put it to him that we would look after the mother and foal at our place until the foal was old enough to be weaned. The owner had no real interest in the mare but he wanted the foal, so a deal was struck we would look after the two, and then we would keep the mare and he would take the foal. We honestly were not at all happy with this as we had fallen in love with this little mite, but the situation was they belonged to him, so we would have to settle for the mare.

Back at home I had a fifty foot long by twenty foot wide steel shed, and decided to turn the last bay of this shed into a stable, and so while mother and foal were slowly mending at the vets, we set about making them a comfortable shelter to come home to. The stable I built was twenty feet long by 12 feet wide, I lined the walls with upright timbers, and made a half gate that the mare could look out from. We placed a large drum for water in there and a special feeding trough, all this was rounded off with comfortable bedding.

I can't quite recall just how long the horses stayed at the vets but it would have been quite a considerable time, and eventually they were discharged to come home to our place. We had explained to the vets about the deal we had struck with the owner, and we went on to explain that we wanted to try to save the mare's leg. Fortunately we had a good relationship with the vets and he allowed us to have an account with him.

We made arrangements for him to come to our place initially to tend to the horse's leg. I must let you know that the horse was a pure Arabian mare, her name was Cilla but this was short for a very elaborate Arab name which I cannot recall. The tiny foal meanwhile we had named Miracle, because none of us really expected her to survive.

The first time the vet came to dress Cilla's leg I must admit we were not prepared for what we were about to see. To describe the horrible growth on Cilla's leg I would say picture a wasp's nest made of mud, plastered in a solid ball right around her lower leg. The vet produced a scalpel, no pain killers, and just started to pare off large slices of this black mass, the mare never flinched, and the Vet went on to tell us that there was no feeling as the nerve endings were dead, and he continued to shave this huge mass until finally blood started to ooze from healthy flesh.

He then produced a thick yellow liquid, I believe it contained lead, and was used to prevent the scar from re-growing. He showed Lynnie how to clean the wound, then how to apply this lotion and finally how to dress and bandage it. The wound had to be bathed and washed and re-treated every day up to three times a day. Also Lynnie was given a large dose of antibiotics to inject into the horse each day.

Lynnie never missed doing this even once, for months on end, and to the horse's credit she stood perfectly still and allowed Lynnie to do what she must. The bond between Lynnie and Cilla was obvious; Lynnie loved this horse with all her heart and soul but I on the other hand was completely smitten with the little foal.

It became our fortnightly sojourn to load these two critters onto the float, and then drive all the way to Avenel for more debridement of the wound; the wound would be re-bandaged and back we would come.

It finally became time for the little foal to be weaned from her mother

Neither Lynnie nor I were looking forward to this moment, but the time came, all went to plan and finally the chap came to claim back his foal. It was with very heavy hearts that we handed him the little lead rope, and we said goodbye to our little Miracle. The owner very soon had her sold and she was off to a new owner but we never did find out where she went or what became of her.

Miracle oh what a cheeky little girl, she loved to lie with her head resting on my knee She had the typical Arab face: very dished, and ran in typical Arab fashion with tail up like a flag on display.

Cilla however remained with us. Lynnie never ever rode her but loved to go out daily and brush and generally fuss over this horse. Cara saddled her up a number of times and rode her around the paddock, but she declared the horse too smart. It was quite amazing to watch how Cilla cemented her place amongst the other horses. She would start neighing early in the morning for her breakfast; Lynnie would go and tend to her needs then let Cilla and Miracle out into the paddock. They would both strut around in typical Arab fashion with tails held erect; I always thought Cilla looked down on the other horses with a bit of a snooty look.

She loved showing off this little foal to the other horses, as if saying check out what I have made, and the little foal would cheekily prance up and down it typical Arab fashion. If any of the other horse got too close Cilla would immediately step between them; she was an excellent mum.

Come 5.00 pm she would be standing at the main gate waiting to be let back in to HER stable. If any of the other horses made any attempt to go near the stable she would quickly send them on their way.

The last time we went to the vets he asked us did we want to just keep on dressing the wound, or would we like him to perform a skin graft on her leg. The cost for this would be $3,500 and we agreed to go ahead with this providing we could pay it off. The vet explained what he would be doing; he would punch a series of holes in Cilla's side, taking small round plugs of live skin and hair, then he would make a series of holes into the wound and all these tiny plugs would be transplanted into the wound.

To describe the site where he took the skin graft from, I would say it looked like a peg board that would be used to hang tools in a shed, lots and lots of quarter inch round holes in a square of about two feet. It was a painstaking operation, with lots of blood everywhere, but Cilla stood perfectly still and allowed the vet to do his thing. Once finished the vet re-bandaged the site and instructed Lyn on how to re-dress the wound at regular intervals.

This surgery worked a treat, her hair grew back but it was all in little twirls, but once it had taken hold all further wound dressing was no longer required.

Hats off to Lynnie she would have made a superb nurse or even a veterinary nurse, with such patience.

### LET'S BUILD SOME MORE STABLES

I at some point in time had acquired four large steel gables, ideal in fact for a 40 feet by 20 feet shed. I discussed the matter with Lynnie and Cara, and drew up a rough plan.

We contacted a local old chap who owned a bobcat; he was hired to flatten out a site for the new stables. He cleared an area of roughly 70 feet in length by 30 feet in width, and he sloped the site slightly from back to front to allow for any heavy downpours, and it would be useful in keeping the area dry. The plan for the stable block was to build a 40 by 20 foot steel shed, this would contain three separate stables, and each would be approximately 13 feet square, leaving a 7 foot corridor across the front inside to allow access to the stable doors in all weathers.

It was a lot of hard work; the first requirement was for Cara and me to dig 8 holes for the uprights, each hole measuring ten inches in diameter and approximately two foot six deep, the holes would be bell shaped with the larger area at the bottom. I made up my own steel uprights and welded steel lugs for the gables to bolt on to. We set these all in place using levels and lots of concrete, and then we erected the gables. It is amazing how well Cara can work when the end result is of benefit to her! Once the frame of the shed was up I attached top hat steel bracings the corrugated iron would screw to. And the same applied to the roofing, top hat steel across the gables at 6 feet centres, and then the roofing iron was screwed onto this.

A mate I mentioned earlier, Big Joe, turned up with some large wooden pallets he had acquired from somewhere, and these were taken apart to act as upright timber lining for each individual stall. I had also inserted framing timber to separate each individual stall, and the final crowning moment was to hang the half stable doors so the lovely horses could look out and talk to each other. Final requirements: water drums, then feeding troughs. Well actually the feeding troughs were made from old tires: the top side of one of the tires would be removed, and then the bottom side would have a light steel plate cut to fit. These were ideal because you could pick them up and chuck them around and they were hard for the horses to flip – cheap and nasty perhaps, but quite practical.

The final requirement now was to fence the stables area in. We sectioned off roughly an acre of land. We dug the holes and inserted wooden posts about every 50 feet, and in between this would be rammed in a steel star picket post. A large farm gate was placed close to the front of the stables, and I think it was about six highly strained wires were run to make up the fence.

We bought special plastic covers for the tops of the star pickets, and the top wire of the pen was a special white flex, all designed hopefully to prevent the horses from hurting themselves.

It's funny but even to this day I find myself glancing at horse properties as we drive past and I would comment to Cara "Amateurs". When erecting the nice looking white post and rail fences that you see on the posh properties, it always makes us laugh to see people spending so much money and going to so much trouble to build a fence pleasing to the eye, and yet they in many cases have the oversight of putting the cross rails on the wrong side of the fence.

The whole idea of the cross rails is that they present a smooth surface, so if the horse is galloping alongside the fence line, there are no protuberances for the horse to smash its shoulders on. We have seen lots and lots of properties with their magnificent looking white post and rail fences, and they have the roadside view looking spot on, long lovely lines making the place look rather swish, yet they have the upright poles on the inside where the horses are, and many a horse has copped some horrific injuries from this costly oversight.

### Practical joke

I have always been one for practical jokes; if ever the opportunity presents I would jump at it. I remember one freezing cold frosty morning, middle of winter, I was about to set off for work at 4.00 am, but first I would have to have my breakfast and a nice hot cuppa, and then off I would go into the miserable darkness and fog.

This particular morning I had something of a small brainwave: I switched all the lights on and woke the family up in a feigned panic. I was yelling and carrying on that the front gate had been left open and also the gate to the main paddock. I was yelling that all the horses were out on the road, and a nasty accident could be imminent. Mayhem ensued with the kids and Lyn as they pulled on their dressing gowns and boots, and then out into the freezing cold we all went.

The fog was so thick, you couldn't see ten feet up the road, and we all spread out as we walked towards Strath Creek yelling the individual horse names but there was no sign of any of the horses. After about 100 meters walking that way we turned around and headed back towards the Flowerdale side and as we got to our driveway I suggested we all walk up it and see if any of the horses had returned. As we got to our front gate I took great delight in yelling "APRIL FOOLS".

I discovered there and then that my family had very poor senses of humour; there was swearing, and insinuations that I wasn't quite the full quid, two cabbages short of a vegie patch so to speak, and my practical joke was not appreciated at all, bloody sooks. Ah well there was nothing for it but for me to head off to work, the only downside for me was I had made myself late for work, but never mind.

Another night I recall the horses actually did get out on the road, and as before it was freezing and very foggy. The neighbours over the road had alerted us to the problem: they had spotted Moonlight on the side of the road about half a kilometre towards the Strath Creek side, so we all set off together along with the neighbours and their teenage sons.

We located Moonlight, Lofty was found, and there was only Sally still to account for. I was walking along the verge of the road, whilst one of the neighbour's teenage sons was walking along the fence line between the trees. I heard a commotion followed by a huge splash and a scream. This poor young chap had walked straight into a small dam near the fence; he plunged in head first in his pyjamas, and was soaked from head to foot with the freezing waters.

We helped him out of the water and he headed for home post haste. Finally Sally was located and all the horses were brought home with no harm done. It is always a worry when owning livestock of any kind; all the fences must be constantly checked, and all gates must be shut at all times.

### Gates

A final tale of silliness: we always had dramas with our two kids when it came to opening and closing the main front gate when we took them down to the school bus. The morning would always begin with an argument about whose turn it was to hop out and open the gate.

Then it would all flare up again in the afternoon after the kids were picked up. It should have been straightforward: one would do it in the morning, and the other one does it in the afternoon. One day this all came to a head: I had driven up to the gate, the usual war started, and I lost the plot so to speak. I told the kids sort this out now, you must decide which one opens and closes the gate in the morning, and which one takes care of it in the afternoon.

They bickered for a while but then my son Troy had something of an epiphany. He worked out (hang on we go out more in the afternoons than in the mornings) so he nominated himself to open the gates in the mornings and Cara would open it in the afternoons.

This should have sorted the problem once and for all, but they soon forgot what the agreement was. I remember we had all been down town shopping or something, it was dark when we had arrived home, both kids had fallen asleep on the trip home. I called out for one of them to please open the gate, and then it started, "it's your turn Cara", "no it's not" she replied, "I do the morning, you do the afternoons", and on and on it went.

As they say in the movies I sort of lost the plot. I came up with the solution, from this moment on, we would ALL open and close the gates as a family. Lynnie thought I had completely lost the plot, but I insisted if they couldn't agree, from now on we would all open the gate as a family. And we did, we all got out, we all helped unlatch the gate, we all swung the gate open, I jumped in the car then drove through, I then got out and we all closed the gate and applied the latch, there the problem was solved.

The kids were rapt, what a great way to do things, this I could not believe and the next time we set out as a family I went ballistic, both kids were very willing to open the gate if I would just calm down. Who knows maybe they had schemed to pay me back for my April fool's day prank, but never mind this major heart shattering problem was sorted.

### I am sorry but I must digress for a moment...

Please accept my apologies but I feel I have to mention this: living in the country is always full of surprises. We had friends visiting for the day when suddenly there was a knock at the back door. I answered this and was met by two elderly gents, they said they had spotted a cow on the property next door that seemed to be having great difficulty giving birth, and could we possibly contact the owner to let him know. With this they left us to it.

The property next door was owned by an elderly gent who came to the property on weekends only. This was fine but he had a hell of a lot of cows there all week unattended.

My friends, and Lyn and I walked over to the ailing cow. The cow was immensely fat and appeared as the old chaps had said" to be giving birth". There was what appeared to be a partial birth hanging out the back end. The cow was in obvious distress and was arching her head round onto her side. I tried to help by straightening the cow's head, but this appeared to make matters worse.

We rang the local Vet who was situated in the township of Yea some thirty kilometres away.

I explained the situation to him, and his reply was that the cow was suffering from bloat. I also told the vet the cow was bending its neck around, and that I had tried to straighten the cow's head. The vet said" don't touch the cows head, it is bending its neck so that it can breathe". He said the cows diaphragm has been pushed up so far that the lungs are unable to expand, and that my innocent assistance was more likely to kill the cow than help it. He then went on to say that in all likelihood the cow would perish before he could attend, he did go on to say however that if we were willing to stab the cow in the stomach, therefore releasing pent up gasses that the cow might stand a fighting chance.

Oh what a dilemma! I certainly couldn't stab the cow, my friend's wife was a nurse but she was also reluctant, so up stepped Lynnie with a rather sharp pointy knife. She patted the cows side then plunged the knife in, the cow didn't flinch, but this horrible smelling gas was released, the cow appeared to smile. What we didn't know was, Lynnie had come mighty close to killing the cow: because it was so bloated, what Lynnie thought was the cow's stomach was almost the cow's chest, but luck was on our side, or at least on the cow's side. Minutes later the vet arrived, by this time it was now very dark, the vet parked his Land-Rover aiming his headlights as makeshift operating lights.

What he did next left us all in shock: he took out a scalpel and sliced into the cows side, no needles, no preamble, just straight in there. He then cut into the cow's first stomach and with the help of long rubber gloves he reached in and started pulling out lots of cow poo.

After a while he said" ah! Here we go" and with that pulled out what appeared to be a rugby ball. It was cow poo with lots of hay binding, all bunched together in a solid mass.

We thought that was it, but then he reached into the second stomach and extracted another huge matted ball of poo and hay binding. He repeated this process in the third stomach, and finally once more in the fourth part of the stomach. By this time there was a mound of poo a meter round with four huge clumps in it. Finally, satisfied that all was well, he then proceeded to sew the poor cow back together.

I was a bit squeamish when the vet got me to hold the cow's stomach together whilst he sewed between my fingers. He had also placed a foaming antiseptic pessary into the open wound. Finally he sewed the cow's hide back together and the operation was finished, and all that remained now was to get the patient back onto her feet.

The vet grabbed hold of the cows tail and began pulling on it. I tried to warn him that the cow had been having spasms and had been kicking its back legs out rather violently. The vet said "don't worry he had done this many many times before", and no sooner had the words left his mouth than the cow kicked him in the shins, sending him sailing through the air.

My thoughts went along the lines of "oh! Shit! Now we have to call the doctor to attend the vet". Fortunately he got back to his feet, and the cow walked off and started eating as if nothing had happened. Isn't it amazing: if that was a human being we would be in a sterile operating theatre with a high likelihood of catching a hospital super bug, yet we had just witnessed open cow surgery in a paddock lit up by car head light?

Three weeks later that cow gave birth to a healthy calf, the owner copped a bill from the vet for $400 and I received a slab of beer from him for our troubles. Oh the joys of country living.

### Life is full of surprises

Living in the country is a wonderful thing, the ever-changing landscape as the seasons pass and the independence one must have when you're nearest neighbour lives at least half a kilometre away.

There are always unexpected surprises literally just around the corner, some pleasant, some not quite so pleasant.

One evening around ten pm there was a loud thumping on our back door, it was mid-winter, freezing, and raining cats and dogs outside. The sudden interruption gave us all a fright; we were all just sitting in front of the log fire watching television at the time.

The sight that greeted me when I opened the back door will stay with me for a lifetime: standing there was a young Asian lady; she was soaked to the skin and shivering. Her face was a mass of blood which appeared to be pouring from her nose, she was dressed head to foot in black leather but we brought her inside and applied a towel to her shattered nose, all the time she was babbling on something about a crash.

We finally managed to calm her down enough to elicit the following story from her: it appears she was the pillion passenger on a motorbike being driven by her husband, a former policeman, and they were headed for home after a trip to Melbourne. It appears that as they rounded the bend out front of our place they had a nasty collision with a Jersey cow.

The cow was in the middle of the road and they slammed into the side of it at speed. The poor lady's nose was splattered when her husband acted as her personal air-bag as she cannoned into his back, and he had unfortunately taken the brunt of the collision with the cow. It was at this point we now came to understand that he was still lying on the side of the road at the crash site. I quickly grabbed a flashlight and some towels and Lynnie and I drove down to the area post haste.

Oh what a horrific sight, the bike lay across the road, there was no sign of the cow at all, the poor chap was in a helluva state; he was lying in the gutter at the side of the road, his head and shoulders on the grassy bank, his torso submerged in freezing water, and his legs were on the verge of the road. He was coherent and insisting that we not try to move him at all. He told us he had broken his back many years earlier, and was sure he had repeated the injury. Fortunately more neighbours turned up, and a local emergency nurse was called. We tried to comfort him as best we could until an ambulance could be summoned.

The chap was taken to the trauma room at the local hospital at a township called Yea and was going downhill rapidly with severe internal bleeding. He was quickly transferred from Yea to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne by helicopter. The final outcome for him was a ruptured spleen, and, as he had stated a broken back, but after a lengthy stay in hospital he made a full recovery minus one spleen.

The Jersey cow was nowhere to be seen; the police and local ranger patrolled up and down the road with all lights flashing, but were unable to locate one cow. At around midnight this poor creature came walking up my driveway, closely followed by the local ranger. She didn't appear to be marked externally and the ranger suggested we lock her in our paddock.

He went on to explain to us that it is quite common that when a cow is involved in an accident they will wander off to somewhere quiet until they can recuperate.

And what a miracle the following morning: I went out to see how the cow was getting on, and lo and behold the cow was gone, and strangely enough all the similar looking cows from next door had also disappeared. Could it have been an act of God (perhaps) or a nifty neighbour who made the evidence disappear? The answer we shall never know?

### Both of our kids move to Queensland

My daughter Cara had met a young chap from Queensland; it was only a matter of time before he talked her into moving back there with him. This was not good; lots of horses everywhere and we were not particularly happy about being left to look after them all.

Cara decided to sell Chocky Muffin on to another show home, and the money she made from this sale paid for the transportation of both Lofty and Sally up to Queensland.

I will never forget the evening that Lofty and Sally went; it was a terrible evening with a pea souper fog on the ground. The people with the horse transport truck wanted the horses down next to the road; this was quite dangerous because we lived on a bend, but fortunately all went well and the two horses headed north for their new life.

Lynnie and I had been thinking of a sea change for a couple of years, the constant travelling to Melbourne and back was taking its toll on me, the very early starts and dodging animals on the way was all starting to become a bit much. We made the decision to also move to Queensland; Lynnie flew up and found a lovely two storey house in a small township called Mooloolah. This house was set almost in a tropical rainforest type setting, beautiful flowering trees and shrubs everywhere, lots of palm trees, and even various fruit trees out the back. The house was ideal for us: it had a fully self-contained two bedroom house upstairs, complete with a 40 foot by 15 foot veranda. Downstairs, on the other hand, was another fully self-contained two bedroom house with covered in 40 foot by 15 foot veranda.

A date was set for the big move and the removalists were all booked. We now had two more horses that needed to go to good homes. Moonlight went to some people with kids just down the road from us, and Cilla went to some horse people directly opposite them.

It was a terribly heart breaking day for Lynnie when the last of our own horses left us.

Moonlight had an ideal life, he was basically a pet, and was still with the people when we finally moved back from Queensland. Last we heard he was about 28 years old, and the last time we saw him was about two years ago although I think he may have since passed away. Cilla on the other hand lives the life of Reilly, she is on a very large acreage, over 100 in fact, and we just get to see her in the far distance as we drive through Strath Creek.

I intend, before I finish writing this book, to call into the property where Cilla lives, and see if I can take a few pictures of her.

We sold the horse float for the same price we purchased it, tied up loose ends, and I gave two weeks' notice at work. You wouldn't bloody read about it, but one week out from our big move I ran over a huge wombat on the way to work. The wombat was killed instantly, and my lovely station wagon car was damaged to the tune of $3,000, not a great start.

We made our move to Queensland's Sunshine Coast, and settled into our new house, we had a 40 foot by 20 foot concrete swimming pool built, and I managed to get a job at a local hospital. Cara had Lofty and Sally on agistment, on a small block of land near the town centre. Though Queensland is always very lush and green along the coastal areas, the grass is very low in nourishment. Lofty was not coping at all well with the sultry heat, and the cost to keep the two horses fed was astronomical up there.

Cara eventually found a much larger property for the horses to stay at, but despite the huge amount of lush pastures, the horses both lost condition. Lofty was losing weight at a rapid rate, and his ribs were starting to show so Cara called the local vet and he gave her the sad news that Lofty had cancer of the bowel and back passage. The only humane thing to do was to have Lofty euthanized. A chap with a bulldozer was summoned, and Lofty was buried on site.

Cara later also moved back to Victoria and is now situated at a country town called Wesburn. Sally was transported back and is agisted in the same street were Cara lives.

Since coming back to Victoria, Sally was mated with an Arab Warm blood stallion on two separate occasions, and she gave birth to two jet black foals, Ferrari and Sambuca.

I must admit I had never felt completely safe around Sally; she was great around Cara but Lynnie and I did not trust her at all. However when Sally gave birth to her first foal, I personally noticed an amazing transformation come over Sally, it sounds silly to say, but her eyes became very gentle and contented.

Her first foal was born in 2004, Cara named him Ferrari, and he was jet black and the devil incarnate. Right from birth he was a nasty little fella, always trying to bite you.

Sally had her second foal in 2005 he also was jet black and named Sambuca, he was the total opposite to his sibling, gentle and easy to manage, both of these guys have since moved on to new homes.

This has been a story of our horses over the years; I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

It's funny but even as recent as yesterday, Lynnie and I was still arguing about these costly beasts. I happened to mention as we were driving home the other day that should we ever win the lottery I would like to buy another property with maybe two acres. Lynnie immediately said "oh yes and then you would call Cara to bring Sally back to our place". I denied this vehemently and we actually argued the point, seriously though I am done with horses, thank you very much.

I now classify myself as an admirer from afar.

### THE END

### Bonus Extra Story

OUR ROAD TRIP

### JOHN LEE

### Prologue

I thought I would perhaps write this as a separate little book, but then thought "what the heck", I would include it as a bonus section. It tells the story, silly but true, about a trip I undertook with my lovely wife Lynnie, our six month old son Troy and my now dearly departed yet hilarious parents, Annie, my pint sized mum, and my little bow legged dad, Andrew.

At the time this trip took place I was about 22 years old and my wife Lynnie was around 20.

It tells the tale of a road trip across Australia, from Melbourne, Victoria, to Perth, Western Australia.

One would think a trip such as this would be fairly straight forward, a long and somewhat laborious drive across three states, throw into the mix a 20 foot caravan, and a total lack of towing experience, and it becomes a disaster in the making.

My parents had decided to buy a camper trailer; we all agreed this would be a much easier

type of vehicle for them to tow, and with this in mind I left them to their own devices to go and purchase one.

Imagine my shock and surprise when they came back with this rather large heavy caravan.

Sit back and buckle your seat belt, and come and enjoy a leisurely jolt across the Australian outback.

**Special thanks to**

My dearly departed parents,  
(Without whom this would have been a rather long and boring trip.)

My lovely wife Lyn,  
(Who fortunately shares my sense of humour?)

And finally to Helen Townes, my mate from Sydney  
(Who tirelessly reads and corrects all my typing mistakes.)

### My Parents

I thought I might begin by introducing two of the star players in this story. They are my dearly departed parents, both born in the North of England in a tiny place called Radcliffe.

My father, Andy, was a short stockily built man, rather large tummy at the time, with little bowed legs. At the time of the trip he would have been about 64 years old, he loved a beer and a smoke, both of which he would give up on his 65th birthday.

I always thought had his legs been straight, he would have been a good six inches taller.

He was an intelligent man, a hard worker, and possessed of that typical North of England sense of humour. He had been known in the past to tell jokes non-stop for an entire night, never repeating one, and the only noticeable difference being a slight slurring of speech as the beers went southward.

He had fought and died three times during the Second World War, as a member of The Lancashire Fusiliers, hence when it came to our road trip, he personally thought we were on something of a Route march.

My father was something of a nightmare passenger in a car, he was nervous because he never ever drove personally, and yet he always had his handy map on his knee. He had a sort of paranoia about driving through large towns and cities, and as a result would consult his map in a constant quest for alternative routes.

I think had he been alive in the present day, he would have made an ideal voice over person for a personal GPS system.

My little old mum, Annie, was also possessed of a wicked sense of humor.

She surprised us all when at the age of 54 she announced she was having driving lessons.

And further to our surprise, she got her license. In the UK we never had a car and travelled everywhere by bus, but here in this land of vast distances she decided she would also become mobile.

My mum was only 4 foot two in her stocking feet, but always added on an extra half inch when asked about her height.

She could only just reach the pedals in the various cars that she owned over the years, but this didn't stop her at all. She was once pulled over by a policeman who claimed she was speeding. She was very indignant claiming it wasn't possible for her to speed, and when asked why this was so, she said" she couldn't push the accelerator hard enough". Needless to say, she still got booked.

The car they owned was an old Holden Kingswood. We always thought it was a bit too big for my mum as she always seemed to be struggling to see over the dashboard, but to her credit she got from A to B and managed to avoid most things blocking her way.

I mentioned in the Prologue that I made the mistake of allowing my parents to head off alone and unsupervised to purchase a camper trailer. I should have realized that my dad would be persuaded otherwise, and I could imagine the salesman rubbing his hands together with anticipation.

They came back with a large twenty foot long Millard Caravan; it admittedly was in very good order, but it really was way too big for their requirements.

### The Caravan

The inside of the van was quite nice; the access door was at the front left hand side. As you entered the van on the left were two bunk beds, straight ahead was a bench-style table with seats either side. The table folded down and formed a double bed at nights. Directly opposite this was the kitchen consisting of stove, small fridge, a sink and small work bench. There were overhead cupboards all around for storage. Half way along the van was a sliding concertina door that separated the main bedroom from the rest of the van. Beyond this there was a wardrobe and a large double bed. The whole thing was quite nicely set out really, and the heating was via a small fan forced blow heater that sat on the floor.

None of us had any previous caravan towing experience and were unaware that you could purchase attachments called Anti Sway Bars; I suppose it was a case of the old adage of "What you don't know can't hurt you."

There were no checks to see if the caravan was towing level.

We purchased towing mirrors, the type that hook on to the front quarter panel of the car, and attach via a hook that sits between the car bonnet and the body, another two hooks attach to the top of the wheel arch, and the whole thing is stabilised with the use of stretchable octopus straps.

The caravan was in as new condition, white with two lemon coloured stripes along the side.

I believe the brand name was a Millard; we made all the necessary checks, made sure all the electrics were working, brakes, driving lights, indicators, brake fluid, and everything seemed to be in perfect working order.

On the night we selected to start our trip, the caravan was hooked up to my car in the driveway, the plan was at around one o'clock in the morning, I would back the van out and hook it up to my parents car ready for the big trip (this was our first mistake).

### Our Cars

We would be taking two separate cars. My parents' car was an older style 1969 Holden HT Kingswood six cylinder automatic car. It was still in quite good nick, and was white in colour. The car Lynnie and I would be driving was only two years old, we had a 1976 Holden HX Station Wagon, this also had six cylinders, and was really more suited to towing a large van. It was also a manual geared car, and also all white in colour.

Lynnie and I wanted to tow the van for the first section, thinking this would get us a good start on the trip, but my father was adamant that they would do the first tow.

Now let's not argue, after all it is their van and we really are just along for the ride. I had spending money, but my parents had generously offered to pay for our fuel.

The year was 1978, our son Troy was just six months old, and this was going to be quite an adventure.

It was now one o' clock in the morning, and time for me to back the van out onto the street.

Such a simple matter, nothing could go wrong (WRONG) – I hadn't allowed for my father: unbeknown to us he had decided to do a pre-flight check.

We were all set for our 7,058 kilometre drive; I jumped in the car and warmed up the engine.

Everyone stood back as I attempted to back out of the driveway, I put the car in reverse and started letting out the clutch, I stalled the car, and once again repeated the process with the same result, something wasn't quite right here.

With just 7,058 kilometres to go I was having trouble with the first six inches; my clutch was starting to burn but I was going nowhere.

I had all sorts of thoughts: my gear box can't cope? the caravan wheels have seized?

Nothing left for it but to get out and check everything. I finally located the problem: as my dad had gone around checking everything he had decided to put the caravan's brakes on.

I called my dad over and pointed out the problem, and his answer was he didn't want the car and caravan to roll out into the street.

Our little mishap out of the way, without further ado I managed to reverse the car out onto the street, I disconnected from our car, then reversed my parents car up to the van, and coupled it all up; at last the Lee family road trip was about to get underway.

### Melbourne to Ballarat

At last we were finally on our way, just a short commute of about 140 kilometres to our first short stop at Ballarat. Under normal circumstances this drive would take approximately two hours if just driving a car. I had foolishly allowed around two and a half hours considering the caravan, and the fact my mum was towing a van for the first time etc.

We made our way very very slowly down towards the Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong; I couldn't believe how slowly we were travelling. It would appear my father was already giving directions via his hand-held map, we passed the huge shopping centre called Hi-Point West, down to the end of the road then turned left, then left again.

Within a matter of minutes we passed Hi-Point West once again, and then off we went again round to the left and left again. I couldn't believe my eyes; my estimates for us arriving in Perth Western Australia were five solid days of driving, but at this rate it would take us three weeks.

There was nothing for it, I signalled then shot around in front of them and waved to them to pull over. My father was quite flabbergasted and really didn't know what all the fuss was about? I pointed to the huge shopping centre on our left and said" do you know what that is?" My father replied" aye a bloody shopping centre". I said "correct, but do you realize this is the third time we are passing it?" My father was a little indignant about this, but in the end he agreed to my suggestion, that they follow Lynnie and I until we were on the Western Highway; at least once on this road it was a straight run to Ballarat.

I guided them onto the appropriate road; I then allowed them to regain the lead. It was very frustrating; we were pottering along at about 70 kilometres per hour in a 100 kilometre an hour zone, on a couple of downhill sections we acquired speeds of up to 80 Kilometres. I moaned and groaned as we made our way at snail pace towards Ballarat.

### Lynnie, I think my parents are about to die . . .

As we approached Ballarat the road turns into a proper three lane highway and it was here I truly thought we were about to lose my parents. The road went steeply downhill, my parents taking up the centre lane; they had now gone up past the 80 kilometre mark speed-wise. To our horror the caravan began to sway, slightly at first but then really swaying across three lanes. I flashed my lights and honked on my car horn but to no avail, they kept going. It truly was a terrifying thing to watch, rather than Western Australia I thought more along the lines of the nearest hospital via an emergency ambulance, actually hold that thought because yes we would finish up in hospital but for an entirely different thing.

To add insult to injury, their driver's side towing mirror fell off onto the road, and very shortly afterwards, their passenger side towing mirror fell off. Lynnie and I pulled over and picked these two items up fully expecting them to be smashed beyond repair, but amazingly they were both still intact.

I don't know how: perhaps God was watching over us, but they made the bottom of the hill and once the car was actually pulling again the van straightened up. I said to Lyn "we need to unhook the van from their car, and attach it to ours before someone gets killed". And so as we entered the City of Ballarat I pulled in front of them, and signalled for them to follow me into a service station.

Once safely stopped we walked over to my parents' car. They were both quite pleased with the progress so far. I said" what about the spot where you very nearly crashed?" They both looked at me in bewilderment. "Whatcheronabout" my father replied, "we never nearly crashed?" Both Lyn and I tried to explain to them how the caravan was swaying back and forth across three lanes, surely they must have noticed the front of the car was weaving, but no, they hadn't noticed.

I walked over to my car and produced both of their wing mirrors, they looked at the mirrors, then back at me, then at their car, and then they proceeded to have the most amazing argument, my mother claiming that my father had failed to put the mirrors on the car in the first place. I assured them the mirrors had fallen off on the highway, and that we had to pull over to retrieve them both.

All that remained now was to enter the van to see what was going on in there, and then hook the whole shebang onto the back of my car. As we entered the van it soon became horribly apparent where most of the problem lay. My father had insisted on loading up the caravan himself and it kept him occupied so no-one bothered to check on his progress. He had piled everything up on one side of the van, suitcases and food, and also he had filled up the very large water tank which was situated on the same side.

We drained the tank and completely re-arranged the contents of the van, and all that remained now was to make a calming cuppa, fill up the fuel tanks and we could be (safely) on our way again. This was the plan, but our second major mishap (adventure) was about to take place.

### Lynne's little adventure

Things had settled down, I had transferred the caravan onto my car, and re-parked it in an appropriate spot. My little old mum put the kettle on, and we were all in the process of re-charging our somewhat frazzled egos. It was during this interlude that my six month old son Troy decided now would be a great time to fill his nappy with, for lack of a better word, a giant number two.

Oh my gawd! In such a confined space it was hard to breath, but the two ladies set about changing his bottom. They used the table as a nappy changing area, the offending jobbie was removed from the premises, and all that remained was to clean Troy's bot bot. To achieve this Lynnie produced a plastic container that contained nice smelling wipes. These things are called Wet Ones, they come in a circular plastic container, and the Wet Ones pull out individually via the plastic lid.

In the centre of the lid is cut a sort of six point inverted star, a piece of the wet one sticks out of this star opening allowing you to grasp it between two fingers and pull the thing out. This should have all been straightforward, but somehow the next available Wet One was not sticking out of the lid. My little old mum was having a personal struggle trying to grab hold of one of these paper wipes, and in doing so got the tip of her index finger stuck in the opening.

She didn't half carry on in her lovely Lancashire accent, but with much ado she managed to retract her finger tip. You would think the rule of thumb, or finger as the case may be, would be "once bitten twice shy". But no, enter Lynnie saying "here let me do that", and what did she do? She stuck her entire finger into the inverted star right past the main knuckle. The container and Lynnie were now as one, and now Lynnie was in considerable pain. We all had a bit of a giggle at the predicament, but as the minutes passed her finger was getting more and more painful. The more that we tried to remove the lid, the more the star points dug into her flesh.

The obvious way to fix a problem like this, should it occur again, is to simply remove the entire lid, and poke the tip of the Wet One through with the handle end of a fork or spoon. Hindsight is a great thing, however now we were stuck with a perplexing problem. I managed to get the lid off the main container, and then we trudged somewhat red-faced into the service station. The owner produced a pair of side-cutter pliers, but the more we handled Lyn's finger the more severe the problem became.

### Ballarat Base Hospital

It was now around 4:30 am in the morning; we trudged into the Casualty Department of Ballarat Base Hospital. We were greeted at the reception by a very bleary-eyed Triage nurse. He didn't seem at all happy to be receiving customers at this ungodly hour. He asked in a very bored sort of way "what is the problem", and with this Lynnie stuck her finger under his nose saying "I've got a Wet-One stuck on me finger". On seeing this, the male nurse burst into laughter, and proceeded to call over anyone within earshot to come take a look.

Lyn was taken into Casualty and was seen by the doctor, he immediately realized her finger was in the process of dying, it had turned a terrible whitish colour below the offending plastic lid. He immediately took her into the Casualty Operating theatre, and with the help of a local anaesthetic he managed to cut the offending item off. Poor Lynnie suffered from chronic pins and needles for days after this incident, but needless to say, she never pushed her finger in a Wet One's lid ever again.

### We set off for far away Adelaide

From Melbourne to Adelaide is quite a long drive, 726 kilometres to be precise, and as we had only managed a measly 140 kilometres so far, it was obvious we needed to press on.

Lynnie and I now took the lead, with the caravan firmly attached to our car. It seemed our vehicle could handle the load much better, and we started to make good progress. I could have easily sat on 100 kilometres per hour, but settled for about 95 kilometres per hour to ease my father's nervous disposition.

We had pre-arranged that we would stop about every two hours and set up a little table and chairs and have a cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich or a cake. These were good times and lots of laughs were had, and of course we wouldn't be English if we didn't stop for our cuppas. It also gave us time to feed Troy and change his bottom without further incident.

We continued our sojourn through lots of country towns, places like Ararat, Horsham, and Nhill. We had a bit of an incident in Nhill: as we were approaching Nhill a car loaded with young blokes was tail-gating my parents, and unbeknown to me my father had wound down his window and given them the bird. This caused all sorts of drama with these hoodlums driving in front of us then hitting their brakes, then they would allow us to overtake and they would then harass my parents. Fortunately our luck held and a police car drove up behind us, the local louts soon turned off the highway, and we decided our next tea stop would be somewhat further on down the road.

Ever westward we drove, things were going quite smoothly now, and we planned to stay in a caravan park in Adelaide on that first night. We crossed the border into South Australia going through the townships of Keith, Tintinara, Coonalpyn, Tailem Bend, and stopping for a break at Murray Bridge. It was here that both my father and my wife needed to pee so they both hiked off into the bush at the side of the road. Behind the thick bush was a paddock full of cows, and as Lynnie was doing her thing, she decided to talk to the on-looking audience. I will never forget my father's words as he returned to the van. I said" where's Lyn, is she alright?" to which he replied "she's bloody mooing".

Our trip was full of fun, my dear old parents were very funny people indeed, there always seemed to be lots to laugh about.

We pressed on passing through a lovely old German town called Hahndorf, then Stirling, and it was somewhere around here that things went a bit pear-shaped.

### Scuse me Dad, but we appear to have lost the ladies

At our last tea break we had decided on a bit of a change, my father decided he would like to ride with me because I was in the leading vehicle and he wasn't getting any use out of his trusty map in the second car. Lynnie would hop in with my mum and take turns driving with her for a while.

We wound our way all through the Adelaide Hills; I kept glancing in my mirrors but could not see the women anywhere. I mentioned this to my father but he didn't seem concerned. I decided at the bottom of the Adelaide Hills I would park off to the side and wait. This was well before the days of mobile phones of any kind; all we could do was wait, and wait we did for about an hour and a half. I was getting really concerned by this point fearing the worst.

My father came up with the ridiculous suggestion that we proceed to the other side of Adelaide and it took some persuading that if we moved from our present position chances are we would never see the ladies again.

Meanwhile, in the ladies car, pandemonium and panic had broken out: my mother was driving in the left lane of a three lane highway. All of a sudden Lyn yelled out Adelaide left, my mother executed a somewhat manic turn to the left, and off they went via an off ramp. They drove down this road obviously for quite some distance before finally realizing they had made a mistake. They then backtracked the way they had come, turning back onto the highway, but they had turned onto the highway back towards Melbourne. I have no idea how far they went before they realized they were now heading east instead of west.

Finally the penny must have dropped and they managed to turn themselves back in the right direction, then déjà vu, the whole thing happened again, Lynnie once again yelled out Adelaide left, and off they went again, roughly an hour and a half later they finally appeared coming down the hill. I quickly waved them down and listened to their tale of woe, and looking at the map the only word I could find that had even a slight resemblance to Adelaide was Aldgate, so my guess is Lyn had mistaken this exit sign as Adelaide and so off they went time and again.

We then swapped our partners back to their rightful vehicles after having a calming cup of tea, then we turned onto Port Rush Road following my father's instructions on how to by-pass Adelaide city.

### Our first camp site in Adelaide

We finally located a nice caravan park on the Western side of Adelaide; we negotiated the fee and parked the van for the night. We levelled the van, plugged in the power and settled down for a nice meal. I was thinking well this has been a long and eventful day, maybe now we can relax, have a few drinks and perhaps a game of cards, but Lyn had other ideas. She thought now would be a great time to visit her Aunty and Uncle who lived in Adelaide. I must admit I really wasn't keen, but Lynnie insisted.

When I asked what the address was, the answer I received left me bloody flabbergasted.

Lyn said "I don't know the name of the street or the suburb, but there's a tree in the street".

This was amazing: Adelaide's a big place, and a tree in the street hardly gives one something to go on. But she insisted that Port Rush Road looked familiar and she thought if we were to retrace our steps, and look up the streets on the left that she would recognize her relative's street. I was beyond arguing the toss and thought what the heck, I will just humor her. We drove along for quite a while with me starting to get a little sarcastic to say the least, when all of a sudden she yelled out "that's it."

I turned around and drove into the street as directed, and bugger me; it did have a tree in it.

But the weird thing was the tree was not on the side of the street, it was a full grown gum tree right smack in the centre of the street, no garden beds around it, no fences just a giant tree right in the middle of the road. Lyn's auntie's place was just a little further up on the left hand side. We enjoyed a pleasant night with Lyn's relatives then headed back to the caravan (with me still scratching my head in bewilderment).

### The bed incident

Our sleeping arrangements were as follows: my parents would have the lovely comfortable double bed, whilst Lynnie and I would have the double bed that could be made up by collapsing the legs on the dining table. This then dropped down and suspended between the two bench seats, and the seat cushions then formed a double mattress. This wasn't as bad as it sounds and the bed was quite comfortable and quite easy to set up.

That first night went without incident, that is until my father's army training came to the fore.

My dad Andy never ever got out of the habit of rising at 4 a.m., his years in the Second World War had conditioned him, and the fact we were on holiday never really entered the equation. To his credit my father was an excellent cook, and his intentions that second morning was honourable to say the least: his intention was to make us all a cooked breakfast, then we would all be full and satisfied and ready for the day's route march, but, good intentions or not, it certainly didn't all go to plan.

Lynnie and I were still sound asleep, my father was short and rotund, and unfortunately the plates he needed for our breakfast were beyond his reach in overhead cupboards above our sleeping heads. This didn't perturb him in the least, he stood on the side of our bed in the middle, grabbed four plates, and it was then that all hell broke loose.

Our bed snapped in half with an almighty CRACK, plunging Lynnie and I into the gap between the seats, my father came crashing down on top of us, there was yelling and screaming and crockery breaking all over the shop. We were all in a tangle of arms and legs, Troy had been woken during the melee and was bellowing at the top of his lungs, and meanwhile my mum was calling out "eee bloody eck, what's going on?" It took quite a few minutes for everything to settle down, we untangled ourselves from the mess, and my dad was muttering something unintelligible as he carried on making breakfast.

Troy was pacified with a nice warm bottle of baby's milk, meanwhile we disassembled the broken bed cum-dining table, packed away all the bedding, and made me mum a cuppa.

Well that was an interesting start to the day, I don't think. It wasn't the greatest start to the second day, but boy have we laughed about this when we reminisce. The upshot of all this was my father blamed us for breaking the bed!

We now struck a deal with the olds: one night they would have the good double bed, and Lyn and I would use the bunks, and the next night we would swap and Lynnie and I would get the double bed, but somehow this deal never ever happened and we were condemned to sleep in the narrow bunks for the rest of the trip.

### Adelaide to Ceduna

We set off bright and early in our quest west, our next overnight stay would be in the township of Ceduna. Ceduna is situated right at the top end of The Spencer gulf 740 kilometres north of Adelaide, and we had now decided on trips of between six and seven hundred kilometre drives which would allow us to arrive at our destination with plenty of time to find the caravan park, and set up at our leisure.

It had been decided at some point that Lynnie and I would tow the van for the whole trip, with one exception. We had discussed the idea that once we had reached Norseman in Western Australia, Lynnie and I would go on ahead and let mum and dad tow the van into Perth. The idea was we would go on ahead, organize a nice van site near the beach, and then meet our parents at a relative's house and from there we would guide them to the caravan park. However this was a little further down the track, and turned into a little adventure my parents never forgot.

But back to the present and our Northwood push continued. The drive from Adelaide to Ceduna is mainly through open grazing country; all sorts of crops can be seen growing.

To the left of us was the Spencer Gulf and this became visible as we approached Port Augusta. Our routine was working quite well now, two hours driving, then a break in a truck stop for a rejuvenating cuppa and a sandwich. Troy was a very well behaved and satisfied baby and provided no problems whatsoever, well with the exception of his regular nappy gifts.

We went through numerous outback towns; one that springs to mind is Iron Knob, and this place is obviously named after the iron ore which is mined there. It's funny how this name would spring to mind later in my life. When I turned 40 I was diagnosed with a hereditary disease called Hemochromatosis which is a gene defect that causes the body to produce too much Iron, and the only medical treatment is to have half a litre of blood removed from my body every three months for the rest of my life.

I have received much flak from my work mates and family over the years. For instance it was suggested by my brother that I have inscribed on my tomb-stone "RUST IN PEACE".

Another time I was working in Brisbane building the new hospital there. I needed to go to the toilet and as I sat on the loo my nailbag tipped, emptying loads of screws onto the tile floor, it made quite a noise and lo and behold one of my workmates was in the next cubicle.

He took great pleasure in calling out, "is that you John?" Other suggestion was "you'd better stay away from Magnetic Island" and even my doctor, when he diagnosed the condition, couldn't help himself. He was a dour sort of chap, not normally one to crack jokes, but when I asked about my Iron levels, he quipped as he walked out the door, "most people produce enough iron to make a pin head, and you could run a nail gun". I must admit this stuff really tickles my fancy, and hence Iron Knob would raise its ugly head on many occasions, so to speak.

However back on the road we passed through Kimba, Wuddinga, Minnipa, Poochera, and various other small places, finally arriving at Ceduna in the afternoon. All of these names are Aboriginal names and have aboriginal meanings.

We set up the van in the caravan park, and then decided to drive down to the foreshore. We decided we would have a stroll out onto the local jetty. It's a lovely looking place, the Spencer Gulf is a lovely deep blue here, and oh how I wished I had taken my fishing rod along.

Whilst we were standing on the Jetty a fight broke out amongst a group of Aboriginals who were sitting on the grass opposite the foreshore, but it was getting quite nasty so we decided best to go back to the caravan.

### Oh! My gawd, I think I'm going to be sick

We had lots of fun and laughter; in the early evening we would cook tea, and then settle down for a game of cards. My father loved his beer, I also enjoyed a drink at this time in my life, but once I was diagnosed with the iron disease I had to stop, the iron is very toxic to one's liver, and so it was in my best interest to give the booze away. But that was still to come and at this time in life I enjoyed a beer. So once the meal was cooked and eaten, the dishes done and stacked away, we would sit and chat and laugh and play cards or just talk, and get quite merry.

On the morning that we were due to leave Ceduna it was freezing cold but my father was up at four a.m. cooking up a storm. As I mentioned earlier our heating in the van was provided by a small blow heater that sat on the floor. This heater had vents on the top to draw air into the heater, below this vent was a high speed fan, and this blew warm air out of the front. Why so much detail about a heater? Bear with me and I will explain.

Our breakfast was consumed with great gusto; it usually consisted of bacon and eggs, sausages, fried tomatoes and toast, and once we had eaten we would clean everything away, tend to our son Troy's needs then hook up the caravan and away. This particular morning however, Lynnie was away having a shower, my mother was doing something near the sink, and I hadn't really looked at what she was up to.

It was then that it happened, she turned holding something, and a large cake of what I presumed was green fairy soap flew out of whatever she was holding. This cake of soap landed on the vents of the blow heater, I immediately bent down to pick it up saying" oh Mum, you've dropped the soap", and with this I grabbed it, and it squelched between my fingers, falling through the heater vent and onto the rapidly rotating fan. Here it was chopped into fine pieces and shot out all over our lower legs and the cupboards.

And then the smell followed, it was not green fairy soap, it was a giant green jobbie that Troy had produced, my mum was changing Troy's bum, and as she turned with the soiled nappy, the lethal green missile was launched.

I spent many minutes outside retching my stomach contents onto the ground; meanwhile my mother busied herself cleaning the floor heater and cupboards. Oh what a bloody nightmare, the shit really had hit the fan. I don't know if this type of thing is peculiar to the Lee family, or if all folks have these types of troubles . . .

Incident resolved, the van was hooked up and we now started heading west. Our next destination point was out on the Nullarbor Plain at a little stop called Mundrabilla, approximately 563 kilometres away; this would be a shorter drive today.

We headed off bright and early, passing through the small town of Penong, and from here on in it was due west across the vast Nullarbor Plain; this name means "place of no trees" and that pretty well sums it up, mile upon mile of vast open plains, only small shrubs and red soil, the road disappears into a heat haze as far as the eye can see.

It really is an eye opener for anyone contemplating this trip. I had been across here in the past by car, the first time I did it there was still 375 kilometres of dirt road, back then it was a real adventure to make this drive because you never really know if you were going to make it to the other end, but now it was a lovely sealed road all the way to Perth. I think that because we were towing a caravan the sealed road was a blessing in disguise.

Somewhere along this stretch my car started playing up, it was sounding more like a Volkswagen than a six cylinder car, and it was in serious need of mechanical help. We managed to make it to the Nullarbor Homestead – this is a large roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, and we had to wait ages for the resident mechanic to finally drag himself over to our car. I started it up, and he immediately diagnosed that we had blown a manifold gasket. Our luck was in, he had a spare, and many hours later and lots of money less we were able to proceed on our way.

The rest of the day went without drama; we passed Border Village, Eucla, and finally made our way to our stop at Mundrabilla. Mundrabilla is basically a motel with bar, and petrol service station. We found a spot and parked the van, then went through the daily routine of preparing tea, and settling down for the night.

### Lynnie, is that an earthquake?

I feel a little nauseated recalling this part of our road trip, but unfortunately it was a part of the day-to-day unexpected happenings.

Almost every night we would finish tea, then wash and dry the dishes, Troy would be snuggled off to bed then we would get comfortable and either just chat or play cards. Every night was the same thing, my father would always drink long necks of Melbourne bitter straight out of the bottle, and he would drink maybe three to four a night. I personally could manage about two and that would be my lot, I would be well and truly merry.

I will never forget the Mundrabilla night as long as I live: all the routine stuff was out of the way and Troy was asleep, so I asked my father if he would like a beer. To my shock horror he replied "no thanks". I think we all asked if he was feeling ok but he insisted he was fine. I drank my usual two bottles, and was a bit perplexed as to what was wrong with my father. We all stayed up till around 11 p.m. then bade one another goodnight and all went off to bed.

I was in the top bunk with Lynnie down below when all of a sudden the caravan began to rock, and I wondered what the hell was going on, and peered over the side to see Lynnie laughing her head off. Then it dawned on me: the relics were making love. Oh shit! Surely they must have realized we were in a caravan and it was the equivalent to being in a rowing boat on rough water. Lynnie and I were trying to stifle our laughter and managed to ride out the storm.

In the morning my mum walked in bold as brass in her dressing gown, and said to us "you two are immoral, you were jogging last night" – this was her way of saying "making love". I said" you have to be joking, Lynnie and I had to hold on to the sides of the bunks to keep from falling out, and Troy had to be strapped down in his baby basket". It never ceased to amaze me over the years some of the conversations we heard my parents having whilst we would be eating tea. One thing springs to mind and it stopped both Lynnie and I mid forkful. I cannot mention it here, it wouldn't be appropriate; perhaps I shall tell you another time.

One thing was for sure, I made sure my father had his regulation bottles of beer for the rest of the trip.

### Mundrabilla to Norseman

Once again breakfast was made and eaten, we all showered and spruced ourselves up in the motel, then we headed back onto the highway, our destination Norseman a mere 635 kilometres away.

The drive across the Nullarbor is quite boring; at one point there is 90 miles in the old scale of dead straight road, the road rises and falls as far as the eye can see, and as the day wears on a shimmering heat haze makes like a watery mirage. The only animals to be seen are the occasional dead kangaroo, and large wedge-tailed eagles feasting on the rotting carcasses.

Late in the afternoon a car flew past us, we were sitting on 100 kilometres an hour now and the car that past us made us feel like we were standing still. Miles away in the distance was a slight hill, there was a car making its way up this hill. We saw the car that had passed us shoot past the first car, and then all we saw was a large puff of dust.

It took us ten minutes to arrive at the scene, and what we saw gave us a bit of a fright. The second car had shot past the first one, and then quickly zoomed back onto our side of the road; he must have hit the dust on the verge of the road, because here he lost control at speed. He became airborne over the batter created by road graders and landed some twenty feet sideways in the bush. All four tires were pushed off their rims, and the car was buried up to its body in soft sand.

The young couple on board was in shock when we pulled up to offer them a cup of tea, whilst the other people checked them for injuries. The young lady from the crashed car seemed quite happy all things considered. She told us she had jarred her neck in a crash years ago and as a result always suffered from a painful neck, the jolt of this latest crash seemed to have freed it up somehow and the pain had gone (how peculiar). We were hundreds of kilometres away from any help, but a strange thing happened. A car of the same make as the crashed car turned up, in it was a family from Western Australia heading over to the East for a holiday.

This chap had four spare tires and rims, and offered them to the crash victims to help them on their way. They exchanged names and addresses, and the young couple made an agreement that they would drop the tires and rims off when they reached Perth. Isn't that a nice story – these days the people pulling up to help would be more likely to run off with your luggage?

Without further ado we continued on our journey to Norseman, we continued on for perhaps 50 kilometres past Norseman, then finally feeling rather tired we pulled into a truck stop. This was our first night roughing it so to speak, no power to be had, we had parked quite a long way off the road, and our lighting on this night consisted of candlelight. It was a fun- filled night, with the regulation bottles of beer consumed. My mum was funny this night, she kept on about us being attacked by Zulus. I said" perhaps Aborigines", but she insisted it would be Zulus, ha ha.

As soon as we pulled up at the truck stop, I immediately unhitched the caravan from our car, I then hooked it onto the back of my parents car; it had been suggested the day before that once we had reached Norseman, Lynnie and I would forge on ahead in our car. We would find a suitable caravan park on the beach in the north of Perth, and then meet my parents at my cousin's place, and from here we would guide them to the van site.

### Norseman to Perth

The day started as per normal, we all had a wash and breakfast, then washed and cleaned the dishes and then it was time for Lynnie, Troy and I to depart. We were a bit dubious about the whole idea considering my mother had only had the short amount of towing experience, but they assured us they were perfectly alright, and would see us in Perth later that night.

It really was quite a long drive for that last leg, 799 kilometres to be precise. We left them bright and early to have their own personal little adventure. And an adventure they did have.

After we left them my mum and dad pottered on ever westward. It must have been a very long harrowing day for my poor old mum, because my father would be eagerly sitting with his map poised keeping her informed of every guide post along the way.

To her credit she made it all the way to Perth, but not without incident. As you approach the suburbs of Perth you wind down through the hills, but once into the suburbs it becomes quite busy. Unfortunately as my parents arrived at this point it was absolutely bucketing down with rain.

As I have mentioned earlier my little old mum had trouble seeing over the dashboard, and with all the traffic and rain it must have been quite frightening. My father was looking for alternatives on his map, but at this point there is no choice but to stay in the traffic. My mum panicked and yelled "where do I go now Andy?" to which he replied "follow that bus" and so she did, straight into the bus station, she got herself sort of blocked in, and prevented all the buses from entering or leaving, and by this point they were both in a real flap.

Fortunately for them a bus driver came to their rescue, and backed the car and van back onto the highway. I would love to have been there with one of our modern video cameras.

But no harm was done and very late in the afternoon they arrived at my cousin's place. Once there my cousins decided it would be far nicer if my parents would park the van in their driveway, this seemed to suit everyone, but I think the idea of being closer to the beach would have proved better.

Lynnie and I were going to stay with good friends of mine; I had lived over in Perth two years prior and knew quite a lot of people over there. It was great catching up as my friends had a little baby about the same age as Troy.

We spent two whole weeks in the West, went and saw all the sights, Rottnest Island, the City, London Court, and off course you cannot visit Perth without walking around Kings Park. This park is a massive nature park sitting atop a hill, it provides panoramic views of the Swan River and the City, and in fact it is right on the very edge of the city. When I lived in Perth I worked as a Storeman in Hay Street at a place called Ramsay Surgical which provided surgical instruments for hospitals and doctors surgeries. It was a very short walk from where I worked to Kings Park, and most days I would walk across and have lunch there whilst admiring the views.

### Time to go home

We had spent two full weeks in the West and now the time had come to rejoin my parents and head back home to Melbourne. We hooked the van back onto our car and bade farewell to our relatives. The trip back went far more smoothly, with only one mishap. It is such a long way, and gives one an appreciation of how vast this country really is. The return trip went pretty much the way of the first half of the journey; we would travel between five to six hundred kilometres then pull up for the night. Fortunately my dad drank his quota of beer every night, and so there was no replay of the earth tremor we endured earlier.

### "Lynnie, let's play a trick on the olds"

The trip was getting a bit tiresome by this stage; we had entered the long straight on the Nullarbor that stretches for ninety miles without a single bend. The monotony was getting to me that is until I came up with a silly idea.

My idea was to increase speed and leave my parents in our wake, there was no possibility of losing them completely, as there was no turn-offs to be found on this stretch of road.

I put the foot down then sped on ahead, and once my parent's car was completely out of sight I started looking for a truck stop that I could pull in to. I finally found one and pulled off the road, they couldn't possibly miss us as there was nothing for miles and miles, and no other vehicles in the parking area.

As soon as I stopped the car I filled Lynnie in on my silly plan, the idea was we would get into the caravan, hop on the double bed, and then when my parent's car came into view we would jump up and down on the bed to see what they would do.

Sure enough their car pulled in behind the van, they both got out, and I heard my mother proclaim in a loud and happy voice, "Bloody ell Andy, the buggers are jogging". This was bad enough but, not satisfied with that, they tried to peer in at the windows, and finding no satisfaction there they came traipsing into the van. Lynnie and I were in hysterics, my parents were two bloody old perverts ha ha.

After this little incident it was decided to set up the table and chairs and have a nice cup of tea, and something to eat.

### We part company

We had now driven back across the South Australian border and had arrived back at Ceduna . It was here my father put a proposition to us: he said "what about you two take the van, and Annie and I will just potter along and stop in motels for the rest of the trip?"

Lynnie and I were not overly keen on the idea, but agreed anyway. At 4 a.m. the following morning my parents followed the standard routine of wash dress and breakfast in that order, then they bade us farewell. The strange part is we didn't see hide nor hair of them after this, so just where they got to we never did find out.

That same day, Lynnie and I slept in till about 9 a.m., and then set off at a slower leisurely pace, there was no need to drive the entire day as we had been doing previously. We did have one major mishap though.

### Oh! Shit is that all there is?

When Lynnie and I left Ceduna we had three quarters of a tank of petrol. I studied the map to see where the next service station was and spotted a little town well within our petrol reserves. By the time we reached this town I was on empty, so imagine my shock and horror when we arrived at the place marked on the map only to find it consisted of a large wheat silo and a railway siding. My comment was "Oh! Shit, is that all there is?" It was hundreds of kilometres back to Ceduna, but a much shorter distance to the next place, so we had no choice but to press on and hope for the best.

A short time later we ran out of petrol, oh! Dear what to do? I had an empty jerry can in the back of the car so I told Lyn to get in the van with Troy and lock the door, and I would hitch hike to the nearest town and get back as soon as possible. I had no sooner stepped out of the van and stuck out my thumb, when a car pulled up and offered me a lift. Gee perhaps our luck was changing, or maybe not?

The couple that picked me up where in their sixties, they were on their honeymoon and heading from Perth to Sydney. Now I don't wish to seem ungrateful but the guy driving was sitting on one hundred miles an hour, not kilometres. That was bad enough but what was putting the wind up me was the fact that both of them were drinking can after can of beer, they were both legless really. They offered me beer but I was too busy hanging onto the door handle. Well, they dropped me off at the next service centre and I gladly got rather shakily out of their car. I take it they made their destination because I never heard of any fatalities that week.

I filled my jerry can in the servo then walked back out to the highway and my luck held; a family in a four wheel drive picked me up straight away. I sat in the back with the full Jerry can on my knee; there was nowhere else for me to put the can because their car was loaded up to the gills. It turned out this family were moving their entire engineering business from Adelaide to Perth, and following them was a large truck with all their business gear on board.

We finally arrived back at the caravan, and Lynnie and Troy were still safe thank goodness. I thanked the people for their hospitality and offered to pay for my passage but they were having none of it, lovely people – such a difference to today – in this day and age I would have more likely been mugged and had my petrol stolen.

### Home sweet home

We finally arrived back at my parents' house; they had enjoyed the rest of their trip stopping at motels, and who knows if my dad gave up his beer on those nights. Oooh! Stop it, I can't bear the thought. The caravan was parked, and strangely enough it was never used again, my parents sold it to my cousin Ann and her husband Neville who live in the seaside town of Warrnambool and they kept the van for thirty odd years. I recall Lynnie and I calling at their house one day many many years later and seeing the old van sitting out the back of their place. It was still in really good condition, and brought lots of fond memories' flooding back.

Well this is the end of the Lee family road trip; I hope you have had as much pleasure reading about it, as we did taking part.

### THE END
