From Winter to Spring

Our regular visits to Freshford with Abi make us very aware of the gradual changes in the light and the temperatures as the seasons change. Abi is even more aware of it than we are with the daily decisions she has to make about how many rugs Sammy needs overnight and if his feed needs boosting because of conditions in the paddock. 

We've taken a couple of late afternoon trail rides with Abi and Sammy in the last two weeks - and we haven't been too frozen and there's been enough light to ensure we've got back to the stables before nightfall after a good long ride (and walk for us). Spring is definitely on the way! 

We looked after Sammy by ourselves last weekend while Josh, Jody and the girls were in Bowral. We managed the haltering, the mucking out of his stable, the feeding and the rugging like old hands this time. We all agree that Sammy has matured a lot over the last year and he's a much more chilled out boy than he was when he was younger. We're probably a bit more competent than we used to be at all things to do with horsey care too. We love this boy!

Our dear friends Ro and David (from Cooper Creek in the Daintree) stayed with us for a week at the start of the month too. Luckily Canberra turned on some beautiful Spring weather for them or I'm sure their FNQ temperature receptors would have quickly frozen over. They had a busy week of packing chores to do but we were able to do some lovely walks and outings and enjoy some great meals toegther while they were here.

Before returning to FNQ they took a few days break at the Burrawang property near Tomakin on the South Coast. The photos they sent me were far nicer than any I'd taken during their week in Canberra. Ro has now finished her chemo and radiation treatment and is gradually recovering her good form - it's wonderful to see!

We've just got back from 5 days in Coogee today - not great weather there - but at least we got to experience the beach like this one cool afternoon earlier in the week .........

We are waiting on the delivery of our new car from Sydney City Lexus - ordered SIX months ago. It's allegedly arriving next month and will look just like this one apparently .......  (We also agreed on a trade in price for our little 15 year old VW Golf with Sydney Lexus this week.)

We also did some DIY work in Coogee while we were there. Thor's Hammer made us a beautiful solid ash (reclaimed) timber bench top and we installled it in our sunroom to create a tiny new "office". It took Rob and me HOURS to work out the levels and the spacing for the supports, then drill the holes in these rough old brick walls, all the while hoping it would end up level. In the end we got a great result - and yes it's quite level - and we're very happy with it!

Yesterday was rainy - a good day to do some shopping in the city. We set out for the beautiful old David Jones store in Market Street which used to be renowned for its peak "shopping experience" especially at Christmas and the change of the seasons. I felt strangely moved to see the tradition is obviously continuing at this beautiful old school department store. There was a profusion of Spring flowers, the glorious old grand piano was at full volume and everything looked fabulous and opulent - just like the old days before online shopping, AI and the cost of living crisis changed everything in the retail world. So good to see!

We'd just read a great review of Mother Chu's Taiwanese Gourmet in the Sydney Morning Herald so we headed there for lunch after a successful hour or two of shopping. Among many other dishes Mother Chu's is renowned for their youtiao (fried bread sticks) - we had ours wrapped in omelette, pork floss and glutinous rice, along with steamed soup dumplings and a stir fry pork dish, all yummy. Next time we'll have to try their famous sesame crusted black pepper pork buns. 

We drove back to Canberra today on a glorious Spring day in Coogee and in Canberra too. We got back in time for a lovely late lunch with Josh, Jody and the girls at our fave The Gryphon at the Griffith shops. The Manchurian pears lining the shop froints were at their absolute Spring blossom peak - a joy to behold!

Rod's 80th birthday

We've been celebrating Rod's recent milestone birthday in true family style - an absolute milestone for him and for us, especially given Rod's accident last year. It was very hard to imagine in the early part of last year that he would be with us, eighteen months later, able to enjoy a party that achieving 80 years on this earth truly deserves....

It started with breakfast on Sunday at our fave Promenade Cafe at the Hyatt Hotel. There were 15 of us there - extended family including Ros and Pete who'd travelled up from Geelong, Ollie from Wollongong and dear friends Eric and Julie.

Afterwards we came together at our lovely St Germain Common Room for some celebratory drinks and birthday cake.

Rod truly is our Super Man ................ such a fitting theme for his birthday cake.

There were so many special moments - made all the more so by the fact that Rod is still here with us despite his terrible injuries last year - and so much of the old Rod that we know and love.......

Claire and Ollie both made beautiful, heartfelt speeches - but we were all blown away by Rod presenting a speech too - that he had written the night before ... and quite a few tears were shed ........

..... but inevitably, because it's our family, there was a lot of laughter too ........

This beautiful young man also had a birthday recently - time to bring out a favourite toy from many years ago (unpacked and freshly washed by his Mum).

...... and this pair make every party a PARTY!

We ended off that rainy cold Sunday by taking Ros out to Freshford to meet Abi's Sammy.

She quickly found his sweet spot.

Pete is dealing bravely with many health challenges these days - so it was wonderful that he could join us on a beautiful Canberra winter morning for a walk around our lake on Saturday - on a borrowed scooter .....

We headed to Coogee on Monday so Ros and Pete could check out our "new" apartment and catch up on other changes to the Sydney scene.

Pete wasn't able to join us on our first long morning walk (to Clovelly) but he was able to catch the 313 bus and join us at Tuga Bakery on Clovelly Road for a slap up breakfast at the end of our long walk around beautiful Gordon's Bay.

We only had one full day in Sydney so we packed a lot in that day. After our slap up breakfast in Clovelly we caught the 313 bus (a second time for Pete) to Bondi Junction then a train to Martin Place. From there we boarded the new Metro line to Chatswood where with minimal walking for Pete we could all experience a taste of Asia - a whole new area of Sydney that Ros and Pete hadn't experienced before - as well as a beautiful lunch at Ippudo Ramen above Chatswood's busy railway station (almost like we were back in Kyoto again).

From Chatswood we caught trains to Circular Quay before boarding the F5 Ferry to Neutral Bay - just for the fun of having a ferry ride on this most spectacular harbour on this most spectacular Sydney day, past Kirribilli and Neutral Bay, then on to Kurraba Point before looping back to Circular Quay. 

We caught the Light Rail back to Randwick from Circular Quay - meaning Ros and Pete had got to try every form of Sydney's remarkable public transport system, with so much to see and experience, and all requiring very little walking for Pete. It was just such a stunning day!

We had some fabulous meals with Ros and Pete over their stay, both in Canberra and in Sydney. Perhaps one of the most memorable was our late morning brunch at the Pool Cafe in Maroubra on Wednesday morning as we were heading back to Canberra. 

A picture is worth a thousand words!!

Katherine NT

Our last day in Katherine was a big one. First stop was the Katherine Outback Experience, based on Tom and Annabel Curtain's big working cattle property, a few kilometres out of town - off the Stuart Highway.  

At first sight - a few things looked very familiar to us - a young horse in the yard ...........

.... and quite a familiar looking arena - but about twice the size of what we're used to at Freshford/Forest Park back in Canberra ............

We sat down for the show - starting with Steph and "Espresso Martini" in the lunge arena. Steph described the young untrained horse (mare) as "spicy". She was being trained to accept Steph to approach her (without turning her hind quarters to her and delivering a kick) and eventually putting a halter and lead rope on her. 

We sat spellbound for over half an hour watching the process. Steph got within about 40cm of the horse's head eventually - but Espresso Martini wouldn't co-operate any more than that this morning. Steph had a mic on and talked us through everything she was doing - quite mesmerising really. As she says horses teach you PATIENCE! 

Interestingly, we noticed that as soon as Espresso Martini got let out into the holding pen she very quickly became more co-operative and accepted a halter and a big love up from Steph - but that was away from the main stage and everyone's attention!

There were quite a few families at this show so halfway through the Espresso Martini halter drama they offered the little ones a diversion - hand feeding the baby pigs and goats. That was very popular with the kids!  

Next we saw horses at a more advanced stage of training. This beauty had been trained to lie down on command - onto a swag. Others were just learning the early stages of this skill (lowering the head first).

They train their working horses to accept animals riding on their backs - 'cos apparently when you're out mustering in the Outback riders often have to carry their muster dogs with them - or a baby calf maybe?

They train their horses to work with buffalos too as they're a pretty common presence on an Outback muster too - along with feral goats and donkeys. This Albino buffalo was a very pretty resident on the property - and happy to accept a pat and a few snacks.

.... as were the resident donkeys.

Australian Brahman cattle are the foundation of the beef industry in the NT. They easily handle tropical conditions and are resistant to ticks and parasites. The station horses and working dogs are all trained to work with these massive, powerful beasts - although Steph demonstrated to us how gentle they can be once they're used to humans (although their tongues are like sandpaper she says).

We saw working dogs at various stages of their training working with the goats - and then the goats hopping up on the backs of the horses. The goats couldn't wait to do this after all those young muster dogs had finished herding them around and around the arena!

They wait until the dogs are at an advanced stage of training before they work with the Brahman cattle.

A demonstration of Australian Stockmans' Challenge skills and what's involved with Camp Drafting was pretty thrilling!

Although this looks a pretty showy trick in the pic below it was explained as getting the horses trained to cope with all the demands of an outback muster: being able to

jump up on a truck or float without ramps etc, coping with whips cracking, scary big animals everywhere etc etc.

The last demonstration was about training horses to be led as a group on short ropes.

Steph was using Tom Curtain's old roping saddle for this work - a fact I wouldn't have even noticed a few years back before I started to learn things about saddles.

These horses looked pretty chilled after their hard morning's work in the arena.

We really enjoyed the show at the Katherine Outback Experience. No doubt this was due to our increased interest in horses these days (thank you Abi and Sammy) but also because Rob and I still have some strong Queensland Outback DNA in our blood (thanks to our grandparents) that must score us some recognition with the dust, the animals, the harsh environment and the resilient characters who work with all that. 

Afterwards we enjoyed a simple but delicious lunch at the Pop Rocket Cafe under the trees outside the Tourist Information Centre, probably the only classy, hipster type experience you'll find in Katherine township.

We visited the highly recommended Top Didj Art Gallery a few minutes drive from our Discovery Park on Gorge Road after lunch. The gallery, which has been in existence for around 30 years, represents around 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait artists including Judy Napangardi Watson, members of the Pwerle family, The Nnapurulla family, Makinti Napanangka, and the Tjampitjinpa, Tjapaltjarri and Japaljarri clans. There were big prices on the works in this room.......

... and more affordable lesser known works in this area of the gallery where local and interstate artists come and work when they want to. An amazing gallery!

We were booked into a Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge Cruise on our last afternoon in Katherine. The Nitmiluk National Park is part of the traditional lands of the Jawoyn people and the whole of the gorge area is a very big part of Jawoyn dreaming.  We set out in the late afternoon for a two hour cruise of two of the thirteen gorges of Nitmiluk.

The gorges are home to many fresh water crocodiles (and the occasional Saltie!). It's nesting season and we saw a number of plump looking females sunning themselves on the sandy edges of the gorge. 

These sandstone rocks are over 1.6 billion years old - they were once part of a river delta when seas covered much of Northern Australia. They make a dramatic backdrop to the gorge.

At this point we disembarked our first boat - and walked for around 400 metres before boarding a second boat to cruise the second gorge........ allowing us to get this close up view of some Aboriginal rock paintings.

Not long after we started cruising the second gorge the so called "Jedda Rock" came into view. The 1955 film Jedda was the first Australian feature film shot in colour and the first to star Aboriginal lead actors. It was largely shot in Nitmiluk Gorge. The water near the rock is tied to Jawoyn Dreaming stories, specifically the Rainbow Serpent, and is a sacred site.

In times of flood in the wet season the water in the gorge can reach above the level of the second small "cave" in the pic below.

Returning to our boat parked in the first gorge, before the trip back ................

The cruise was a lovely experience and in the quietness of our return to the landing jetty I had time to look at my sneakers after our 3 weeks in FNQ and the Top End. They were new sneakers for this trip - the red dirt and the wear tell a story of the amazing holiday we've had. In a way it will be a shame to wash it all off when we get back to Canberra.

This tree lodged at height in the branches of another tree also tells a story of the flood damage of the last wet season.

We made our way back to our Discovery Camp cabin as the sun was dipping below the horizon. We were met with another distinctive Territory sight along the way - a "controlled burn" at the side of the road - making for a dramatic ride home and an even more spectacular sunset - and a fitting finale to our last day of Outback travel.