Ride like a girl

I went to see this movie last week with a couple of friends. They were keen to see it and I went along, it wasn't a movie that I was that fussed about going to see but I did enjoy it in the end.

It is about the life of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. She was the tenth child and her mother dies in a car accident when she was six months old. Dad was a horse trainer and all the kids bar one grew up to be jockey, two boys and seven girls. The other boy Stevie had Down Syndrome and he played himself in the movie.

It was more about how she had to make her way in what had been a very male dominated sport.

Springsure

This is a little town on the way out west. We stayed in the caravan park on our way home from our Ozzie lap. Then it was famous for having a piano up a tree. It was about twelve metres up and was the result of flooding in the area several years ago. Now it is very dry.

We didnt stop long, just a comfort stop and to check out this windmill that has been built recently. I think the windmill has been there a long time but they had made a fountain by placing rocks around it and water does pump out of the red pipe and flows over the rocks and down into a small pond.

Our mission was to identify three of  the rocks and note their character differences.

 A petrified tree was one of the "rocks".

Flowers in the bush

We went up north for a bush walk and a couple of trees were in flower.

I stopped to take a photo and Warren and Lucy got in front. Lucy was off the lead at the time but Warren set her back to me, but she doesnt like to be any more than about 10 metres away from one of us. She was in a pickle should she go or not?

She decided to wait until I caught up before she raced ahead again.

She likes to check up on us and doesnt go too far ahead.

Tambo

By all reports it is one of the oldest towns in the outback and populated by 360 people. We had coffee at the local cafe called Fanny Maes and they had some driftwood art.

It was a hot day and although there were chairs and tables inside, we sat and chatted outside on the veranda with a nice breeze every now and then.

A quirky piece of art, it was a truck but had many different bits and pieces added. The first carriage had horse shoes decorating the sides.

Then there are the bottle trees, I always feel that I'm really in the outback when seeing these.

Chook racing at Tambo

On the Saturday we drove into Tambo, famous for a few things, one more recent is Tambo Teddies which was started by three women in the district. They stayed open for us to go through and they may have made some sales but not from me. I'm sure they are beautiful but at between $150 and $180 per teddies, I wasnt going to buy one. We spent quite a bit of time at the cafe before retiring to the pub for the racing and dinner.

Bens racing chickens and Ben is a real saleman, he could sell ice to Eskimos but it was all in good fun and half the money went back to the winner and the other half to the Flying Doctors.

Aidan loves green and one chook was called Frankenhen and was green. There was Black Betty, Apricot chicken, Pinkbits and plain white one a group of four nicknamed chicken dinners.

Ben explained the how and why, they are washed, massaged and coloured with food dye every eight weeks and fed very well but they followed a car with treats in it to determine the winner.

Here is some of the chickens and the remote car.

Dingo fence

We had to go a bit out of our way to find the dingo fence and through a gate. It was a typical cockys gate with wire twitching together to hold it closed. 

Great scenery when we got there plus a small wallaby watching us from the shade of a tree. I did take a photo but because of his colour and the shade it is nigh on impossible to see him, he was still there when we came back down the rise again twenty minutes later.

There was a small shelter at the top with info boards, 33 metres away was a cache, that had been unloved (not found) in two years. I think it was the description of the road that had put people off going to find it. It was a little rough, dirt and a few pot holes but we had both driven on much worse roads.

A very easy find and a large one at that, bonus.

An Art Trail

We didnt go on the art trail last year so that was something that we wanted to do this time around.

It certainly didnt disappoint. Not sure how many there are but the trail itself is around 200kms starting at Armarac, not sure of the spelling there. It is a tiny place and famous for Captain Starlight stealing a herd of cattle including a small white bull.

First one and I wasnt overly impressed with this one but they got better very quickly.

 An emu and three chicks, motor bike petrol tanks made up the bodies of the chicks, she uses scrap metal to make them.

There were two similar but the second one was the horseman on a cliff and my first thought was The man from Snowy River.  We were driving and I didnt snap a photo of the second one.

My favourite.

Breakfast

As I was leaving Warren to fend for himself for a week, I suggested that we go out for breakfast. It seems that we rarely go out for dinner anymore, either lunch or lately breakfast.

Where we chose to go opens at seven and we were there about a minute after.

Two eggs, bacon hash brown on two slices of sour dough topped with hollandaise sauce. Large coffee on the side. I left an egg and a piece of toast. No lunch for us, even though it was early.

Dinner was at 5.30pm though.

Excitement plus today.

I was sewing today and Warren was in the garden watering our new lawn pieces when I heard him call my name, in full!

Something was up and that is a rare occurrence.

He had found babies, on our avocado tree. Cant remember when we planted iy but its been there awhile and first time for it to set fruit.

They are rather tiny but we found several.

 

Sapphire

Ha, not the gem stone but the town. We stayed in a cabin and needed to make amends from three and a bit years ago. Nothing like hanging on to things.

We walked and found six caches I think and each one had a number, found ok  ut when we had to sort out the last bit, it baffled us. We thought we had it and others talked about great looking gates etc.  We were at gates but nothing memorable about them and we couldnt find any thing.

Over time we met the owner and talked to other people and got an idea on where the final was so we ventured forth. Oh, we found it so Sapphire for us now has all smilies and no blue frown!

These were the amazing gates, they have been formed/cut from stainless steel.

This was a display of oversized equipment outside of the caravan park.

Watermelon

A big piece of watermelon would go down rather nice at the moment. We did find a piece on our travellers, although I think it may have tasted a bit plasticity.

This was in Chinchilla and their watermelon festival is in  Febuary. Never been to one but have seen it on TV. One if tge things is to ski down a hill using a cut out watermelon on each foot, lots of bruised bums I think.

Mussels, yum!

I tried mussels for the first time in Canada at the Dingey Dog hotel which is on a tiny island off Vancouver island. Its the only business on the island and people go by boat or ferry. We went by ferry and the ferry docks at the hotel, can walk off the ferry and go left into beer garden or right to continue to the island. Quite a few people live there or use it as a weekender. The pub is actually called the Dingy Dog but I read it as Dingey and so always think of it that way.

Anyway the mussels were excellent and so when I saw them in Costco, it brought back memories and surely I could cook them. I looked up recipes and asked friends.

I had a photo and now its gone, boohoo!

Anyway I steamed the mussles, I had already made the soup/sauce. Ready to hook in, hummm, they look the same as I remembered these didnt appear to have much meat and were pretty tasteless. We had a couple each and then looked at each other and said Nuh.

Maybe they were cheap and nasty $6something for two kilos but we figure we can afford to throw $6 in the bin. I will keep my memory of tasty mussles.