Week-End With The Solo Man

Weekend before last, I spent a beautiful day in the country on a magnificent thoroughbred horse stud enjoying a lovely ladies high tea.  Weekend just gone? Hmm. Well read on and you choose which week-end you'd prefer.

I knew going out to the 'still-setting-up-of-the-house' in Goondiwindi had some challenges. No water, no sewerage, no power, no gas. "Why can't we just have it easy for once"? I plea. "Think of all the fun you'd miss out on if you simply walked into a house ready to go" Hubby cheerily replies. I say nothing.

A Country Reflection

The weekend almost over and the tasks we set out to do now complete, Hubby dashes off to see the farm manager before we head home. Strapping on my camera, thongs and wearing simply a T-shirt I go walk-about with the sun streaming warmly on my back.  Half an hour later I hear the quad bike start up and I see Hubby tear up the drive to the little house. He calls for me. Thinking it's time to go home, I wave and start walking back when he rides up to me and says "hop on and I'll take you to see the lagoon". I make the mistake of hoping on.

One minute into the ride and I'm freezing. With no flannie or jumper, no proper shoes I get off to open a gate and ask "how far is the lagoon"? "Well do you want to see it or not?"  I say nothing.

We reach the lagoon after sidetracking when he sees some cows and wants to check them out. Our place in Gundy is not easy to muster as there are so many trees on the place, except for the cultivation areas.  Hurrah made it in one piece; take a few pics and head back - is what I'm guessing.

If you look closely you can see pelicans stretching across the middle of the sky

I check out all the pelicans on the lagoon. We call it Pelican Pie Lagoon. Aptly named. Next minute the quad starts up and as I'm racing back, Hubby tells me he's trying out a new route. Oh great. When I see what's ahead, it's more like 'oh ****'!!

Before me lies an endless sea of grassy water, apparently water that's spilled over from the lagoon and spread across the land for what seems like kilometres. Turns out it was kilometres!  And deep!
After knocking out branches from shrubs and thumping over loose logs we lunge into the sea with a thud. The tyres become three-quarters submerged in the water and my 'Solo Man' decides to 'kayak' on regardless.

At this stage my friends I've forgotten that I was feeling cold and needed my flannie. As I hung on for dear life I prayed that we please make it to dry land.  After getting over my inital fear, I take a good look around me. You wouldn't read about it. Who does this? Am I lucky or what? I'm on safari and I didn't even ask for it!!  This is risky, scary and way out of my comfort zone - but fun.

I manage to turn the camera on with one hand and take a few snaps as we bumpily wade through the grassy sea.  I'm sure the pics don't do the scene justice; but here's a little view anyhow.

Just before we reach the end of the sea, there's a fence that's been pushed half way down ahead of us. Oh no - how can the quad go over that - I don't want to turn back!! My "Solo Man", half hops off the quad with one leg holding down the fence, one leg leaning onto the seat and with his hand, gently accelerates the bloody thing over the fence and then dives back onto the seat. I was in too much stress to take a pic of that moment - you'll just have to take my word for it.

Phew - out of it thank goodness!

Thank god that's over. I enjoy seeing our the Numinbah steers who still recognise Solo Man and despite a little coaxing, eventually come over to say hello. I forgot to mention on the ride to say hello, we had one last obstacle. I managed to duck my head up just the once and take a quick pic of the long tall dried out grass that scratched the hell out of my arms as we flew through the entire paddock to get to the cows.

Hello Cows - what I've been through just to say hi to you guys!!

 Would you believe that by the time we got back, instead of freezing my tail off, I actually felt hot!! - despite being somewhat wet! I guess that's what an unpredictable adventure can do. Life with Hubby ain't a bunch of roses that's for sure; more like an armful of scratches, a sore,wet bottom and mud flying up onto of my glasses. As I sit here recollecting it all and smiling, I guess that must be a good thing.

Sunset in Gundy