The day started early with a quick cup of coffee over a fire which Roger collected the wood for in the car park of The Walgett Sale yards. Morning Rituals over, we packed up the vehicles popped into town to top the truck up on fuel. The days plan was to collect horses (all eleven of them) and a quick riding lesson after (just a refresher course, errr).
We travelled along the highway somewhere between Walgett and Lighting Ridge, we pulled over at a deserted property where our drover kept his horses. We left our car at the fence line and jumped onto the Drover's quad bike for a 20 min ride deep into the bush were the horses were left to roam free. Our drover decided it would be quicker to leave us and go find the horses by himself..... he left us deep in the bush next to a still water puddle of water and an old caravan that was not in use except for storage of farm stuff and spiders and other crawly things. The land was sparse and the trees had barely any leaves on them for shelter and the temperature was rising quickly. Roger and I decided to fill in sometime by taking a few photographs of what we could see around us .... not much. Time went on and we were getting hotter and we only had half a bottle of water between us and we started to think time is getting on and Wayne our drover should be back by now..... hang on we thought what if .... he has left us here and gone back to rob our car and leave us here to die..... how long to walk back to road by foot.... getting hotter - no water..... where is Wayne ... strange cows moving in closer and circling us ...... oh no...... then in the distance we here a slight rumble getting louder and louder and the horse burst through the dead trees and Roger turns and say "I told you he would come back".
We had to catch a few lead horses and tow them back to where our car and truck was, which the horses did not seem to mind. Once back we had some lunch and lots of water and saddled up the horses for a short hour horse ride and get familiar with the horses we were going to ride over the next few days. Roger was given a beautiful chestnut with a brown mane called Charlie and I wanted to slowest horse of the lot so I was given a retiree horse called Rebel. As we rode Wayne was telling us stories of our horses past and of course old Rebel was named for that reason... this got me a bit worried - especially cause he would not go where I wanted him to go and just did what Rebel wanted too.... I am such a push over....
As time went on and stories told we settled down to prepare dinner on the George Forman and boil some potatoes over a camp fire while Rusty the dog decided to drag around a deceased wild pig. With a full belly Roger and I organised our sleeping arrangements and took a few photos as the day drew to and end.
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