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Hello All,
Well, what an interesting week we've just had!! We arrived in Port Macquarie at 5am on Tuesday morning last week and were planning to head to Port Macquarie Backpackers where we were getting picked up for our week on the farm. The overnight greyhound wasn't great, everytime I nodded off to sleep the bus driver stopped and made us all get out at every rest stop! It was pitch black when we arrived so off we headed with our heavy backpacks walking the streets looking for this hostel. We managed to get lost and had been wandering around for 25 minutes when a nice man stopped in his truck and offered to take us - I'm getting very trusting these days!! Obviously the place was all locked up as we weren't actually staying there so we weren't told the code to get in the front door so we had to sit on the veranda, freezing, and sleep until sunrise when someone actually got up to let us in - what tramps we are!!
We got picked up at midday by Barry who was taking us to live on his farm. It was a 2 hour drive of
beautiful scenery all around the mountains until we got there. It was 80km to the nearest town which was Walcha and obviously no mobile coverage. The nearest neighbour was a 10 minute drive away so we were in the middle of nowhere! It was just the 3 of us doing the farmstay this week which we were pleased about. We had a nice chat with Barry on the way there and we couldn't decide how old he was - we guessed somewhere between 65 and 70 but he told us he was 78!!! I didn't believe him but Deaks and Suz fell for it as he was such a good liar. To this day we still don't know how old he really is as he wouldn't tell us! On the way there we learnt that Barry had 1000 acres of land, 14 horses, 7 shetland ponies, 40 cows, 20 calves, 2 bulls, 3 dogs, 2 budgies and a cat. Once we'd unpacked Barry took us for a drive around the mountains showing us all of his land and where we'd be horseriding etc. It looked amazing and we couldn't wait to get started! It was nice to stay in the
same place for 6 days too and have some homecooked meals. On the first night I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I saw a mouse run from our bedroom into Barry's room. Obviously I screamed but we couldn't find it. The girls saw it too. It didn't worry Barry, he had no intention of catching it so we had to accept our new pet. One night Deaks could here something under her bed and freaked out and flung herself up to the top bunk for fear of getting nibbled! We never did catch it!
Barry told us on the first night that we could choose which horses we wanted to ride and that we would keep the same one all week. I chose Lady (couldn't resist the urge to call her Laydeh all week - you would have loved it Bev!!), Deaks chose Moon and Suz had Cactus. Every morning was the same, we headed out at 8am, collected our horses and then brushed them before saddling them up and heading off. I had a little chat with Lady on the first day and we developed an understanding - she was impeccably behaved all week!! She
was the youngest of the horses, only 4 1/2. We went riding for 4-5 hours a day and it was fantastic. Barry tought us how to sit on them properly and how to make them do everything you want and before we knew it we were all totally confident and thoroughly enjoying all the surroundings and trotting around the mountains, through forests and across rivers etc. I can't quite explain the feeling of total freedom you get in these settings. Some days the three dogs - Suzy, Jock and Tess would come with us and would just run alongside the horses for the 5 hours we were out. It was so sweet. I got quite attached to Suzy, she was gorgeous.
Most of the days we would go out on the horses cattle mustering. The cows are good at hiding and there's a lot of land for them to hide in so sometimes it could take us nearly an hour to find them and they are so cheeky, they would see you coming and try and run off!!! Cattle mustering was great. You forget you're on the horse after 5 minutes as you're concentrating so much on moving the
cows. The first time we did it was hilarious. Barry was up front so that he could open the gates and the three of us were behind making sure they didn't run off. One of the cows, which we named Aggy Agnes, was so cheeky. Every time we got them moving she would turn round, give us a dirty look and a big "mooooooo" as if to say "piss off and leave us alone"!! Deaks got well into character and every time the cows tried to wander off she would be behind them, screaming "where do you think you're going? GET BACK IN LINE"!! She even went as far as to threaten to turn them into tomorrow's Big Mac if they didn't behave!! I almost fell off my horse I was laughing so much!
In the afternoons we did various different things. On the first day we met one of Barry's neighbours, Shane (37) and his son Ethan who was 11. Shane was quite a character. He looked like a yeti and in need of a good wash!! He's married to an aboriginal woman who never gets out of bed and he only takes Ethan to school when he
can be bothered as it's over an hour drive away. Barry told us all about his wife and the 6 kids she had before she met Shane some of which were criminals and on probation - nice! We went with them into the forest to collect wood for the fire. I had a go at sawing and then we went to collect some earth for Barry to use and found lots of witchetygrubs. Barry told us to eat them but I couldn't bring myself to do it. They were quite big and looked disgusting - there was no way I was putting that in my mouth - eeeuuuwwww!!
Another afternoon we had a go at whip cracking. I got the hang of it quite quickly without any injuries. It was good fun. Another day Barry took us on a 3 hour round trip firstly to Tia Falls and gorge, secondly to Apsley Falls which were cool and then lastly we went into Walcha as Deaks was in serious need of some chocolate and we got some ingredients to make cookies. We turned into old ladies for the whole week, horseriding was exhausting so we'd be ready for bed at
9pm! Most evenings were spent reading books, watching tv or making cookies etc. However, Suz and I did sneak a box of goon that we'd bought in Byron Bay and couldn't bear to waste so there was the odd glass of wine too to liven things up!!
A couple of afternoons Barry wanted us to do some yard building - he wanted to modify his cattle crush so we had to dig out posts and move them in order for him to put a gate in so that he can preg test the cows more easily - not a nice job!! That was tiring - it was a shock to the system all this manual work!
One of the days Barry also took us for a drive to Werrikimbe National Park. The scenery was amazing. We went looking for kangaroos. We've only seen ones in captivity so far so we were looking forward to seeing some in the wild. We found some eventually and got out of the car and one of them had twin joeys in her pouch. I got very excited but every time I got near her she hopped away so I couldn't get a
good look! Rubbish!
We saw Shane most afternoons, he always seemed to pop up wherever we were. He was a really nice man but not much to look at and Barry found this very amusing and started joking around with us and asking if we fancied him. We decided to wind him up and tell him that Suz fancied Shane and he fell for it and couldn't quite believe that anyone could fancy him!!! It became a long running joke and one of the days Barry even told Shane that Suz fancied him in front of us all and he got a bit excited and said he should get her number before she leaves!!! He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once!! From then on Suz blushed every time we saw him as she wasn't sure what Barry would say next! Very funny.
On our last day we went out riding for 5 hours. By this point my backside had fully recovered. After day 1 I couldn't walk properly and nearly fell out of bed when I tried to get up the next morning. Getting back on the saddle was painful!!! Thankfully I must have a
very toned bum now!! One evening, Deaks came running out of the shower screaming "Lisa Phillips, Lisa Phillips, look at my bum!". Clearly she has very sensitive skin as I went to have a look and she had what looked like an angry nappy rash all over her bum from bouncing up and down on the saddle! Have never seen a reaction like that before! Suzanne offered to rub some cream into it for her but she wasn't too keen!! The last day was really cold so we were absolutely freezing and the wind felt like it was cutting my face! When we got back I said a tearful goodbye to Lady before running into the house to warm my feet up. I was really sad to leave her. Every morning I would talk to her while I was brushing her and she would look at me as if to say "I can't understand what you're saying you mad woman" but we loved each other all the same! I bid a sad farewell to Suzy, Tess and Jock too. I get attached to animals so easily, what a nightmare!!!
This comes to the end of our farm stay. What
an amazing experience but this didn't come without a dark side!!! That being that Barry went from being a nice old man who we had such a laugh with to a miserable, scary man after the second day! He was such hard work. It all started when I asked him one day if I could let Suzy off her chain to play with her. He said it was fine and the girls went to play with Tess too. 20 minutes later he came out of the house and told us that we shouldn't be playing with them as they are working dogs and not pets. We said ok (even though it was fine when I asked him!) and he was in a mood with us the whole of that night and wouldn't talk to us and went to bed at 8pm without saying a word!! We couldn't believe it! The next morning he was still in a mood and barely spoke to us while we were horseriding so we left him to it and then an hour later he would tell us off for not talking to him!!! WHAT! We quickly worked out that unless you spoke to him 24/7
about things he wanted to talk about he got the hump. He even told me and Suz that we were rude for reading our books and not talking to him even though he was watching the football! Eh!
On the 4th day, after lots of up and down mood swings (he was worse than a woman with PMT!) we had a chat with him one lunchtime and told him that he was really hard work and sometimes rude and that we couldn't work him out. He laughed it all off and said that some days he doesn't want to talk to anyone and was there anything wrong with that! That's fine but you don't have to be rude with it - which Deaks was quick to tell him. He perked up a bit after that and we thought we had a breakthrough until that evening. He disappeared off to bed without a word again really early and we stayed up to watch Castaway. Deaks went to brush her teeth and called us in the bathroom to look at something and he shouted at us from his bedroom!!! It was only 9.30pm and he wasn't even asleep. He was weird,
he didn't sleep until we'd gone to bed and then he would get up again. Freak!
Things became a lot worse on our last day. We were all really angry about the way he'd been treating us and we'd tried our best with him so Deaks got up and told him that he was rude and that he better not speak to us like that again. 10 minutes later he muttered something rude to Suzanne about us "sneaking off to our bedroom" in the evenings and not talking to him which made her really angry and she ended up telling him what she thought of him too and ended her rant off with "It wasn't in the brochure that we had to entertain you 24/7"!!! I've never met anyone like it before in my life. I don't know why he invites backpackers into his home - he doesn't like people!!! If we dared have a shower in the evening and were gone for more than 30 minutes he would sulk and tell us we were rude for not sitting and talking to him!!! We even had to make our own dinners at the end of the week as he
wouldn't cook for us!!! We spent our last evening hiding in our bedroom as he kept being nasty and rude to us.
This morning when we left, he got the hump as I wouldn't sit in the front seat and talk to him so he drove around the mountains like a maniac. If he wanted me to throw up in his car he was going the right way about it! After 10 mins or so he declared that he was going to drop us off in Wauchabe and not Port Macquarie and that we'd have to get a bus. I don't think so!!!!! The three of us, in unison, told him that he would take us to Port Macquarie whether he liked it or not and he just ignored us again and we carried on the scary journey. We arrived in this little town and he got out and told us to get out. Suz, who was fuming, grabbed his mobile phone while he wasn't looking and we decided we were going to sit tight until he agreed to take us back to Port Macquarie or the phone would get it!!!! Eventually he got back in the car after
realising we weren't going to move and took us to Port Macquarie. We got our bags out of the boot and he slammed the door shut and drove off!! What a strange man!!!!!
All in all, it would have been my favourite trip so far if it wasn't for Barry. It was still amazing but he ruined it a bit. We told Shane one day that he was being horrible to us and he told us that he's always like it and we met some other neighbours who told us the same too. If you don't like people why let them come to stay with you?!! We made him chocolate chip cookies twice - who wouldn't love us!!!!
We are currently back in Port Macquarie before heading down to Sydney tonight where I will need a very large glass of wine but, in the meantime, and more importantly, I am off to break my pizza ban after 8 long weeks (the girls say I deserve it after this last week!). Wooo hoooooo!!!
xxx
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Sarah Hodder
non-member comment
How funny are you!?
That just made my day! What a complete weirdo but how cool did your experience look and very natural on horseback Ms Simpson! Do I detect a new hobby when (and if) you come home? Love reading your blogs, keep them coming and keep enjoying xx