update!

ello all!

Yes I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this and I am really sorry! Heaps of stuff has been going on and I’ve been working pretty hard (and playing hard of course!)

During June and July we did a lot of mustering and branding, my horse riding skills are definitely improving and can only get better! I’ve ridden a few of the horses here now which is really good as they all have their own personalities and move differently.

We branded 972 wieners in 3 days during July, really hard work but so satisfying!

The end of July was the Quamby Rodeo, day full of bull rides/bronc rides to name a couple and a fair bit of drinking. It was great being behind the scenes as you see how much work goes into it.

I entered two events, the barrel race and the station buckjump. The barrel race is where you have to do a clover shape ride around three barrels in the shortest time. Some of the women and horses were amazing as they basically just train their horses to do barrel racing so the competition was incredible. I managed my run in 35 seconds which was pretty good and I have something to aim to beat next year! The barrel race is a womens only event however my other half has started a tradition of entering dressed as Edwina Hamburger! I think we must have been the first couple to have entered it before!

The station buckjump is where you have a station stock saddle on the back of a bucking horse…silly idea but I’m so glad I did it! I think I got thrown with the first buck but it doesn’t matter because I gave it a go! I did land on my head, literally straight up and if I wasn’t wearing a helmet it could have been so much worse!

Ed was driving the water truck and so for most of the day we were able to sit up on top and have a really good view of everything. We even chucked the swag up there and that’s where we camped, best idea as we were completely out of the way from everything and everyone, though we had be careful when getting dressed in the morning that we didn’t inadvertently flash anyone!

The weekend after Quamby Rodeo was the Merry Muster Festival in Cloncurry. This is the single biggest payout rodeo in Australia and lots of pros come down as it’s before the Mt Isa Rodeo.
We hit up the races Saturday morning which was really good, love going to the races! The Rodeo started at 5ish so we went there next and straight to the bar, didn’t actually see much of the rodeo in the end but there were some amazing buckjumps and bronc rides, the horses are so powerful its scary!

August has been pretty quiet so far, Ed is back in the UK for a month so I’m keeping myself busy!

Have been getting into governessing, teaching Georgia (6) at Jessievale which is…interesting! She’s pretty hard work but it can be really good fun and though it’s not what I came out here to do it’s such an important part of outback life that I’m really enjoying it!

Starting to ride more now as well and I didn’t think I would love riding as much as I do. When I’m at Jessievale I ride Holly who is Tom’s horse…little bit on the fat side but he’s a brilliant horse and is teaching me a lot! With no riding lessons I’m just picking stuff up as I go along so it’s a pretty steep learning curve and it takes a while to get it right! People like Mark, Tom and Willy have been riding since they have been walking though so I don’t feel to bad!

We’ll be starting the second round of mustering soon and I can’t wait! Ed is going to teach me how to ride a motorbike and since doing that buckjump I think I can give anything a go!

September should be pretty chilled, I’m heading down to Brisbane to meet up with Ed when he gets back and also see the family again. Will be spending my birthday there to so it’s going to be perfect! It’s 24 hours to Brisbane from Cloncurry on a bus so I reckon I’ll be taking a lot of books!

I’ll also be going back to Glenoak farm for a few days and catching up with them, hopefully Nhera (the white horse) will be good to ride…have a feeling she would be awesome!

You all probably know that I’ll be in England on the 2nd December…I’ll also be coming back out here for new years so I’m hopefully leaving the UK on the 28th December so it’s going to be a quick trip round to see everyone!

Will update this again soon…don’t think it could get much more exciting though! Maybe a few more Quamby nights!

Loads of love to whoever reads this and I miss you all!