Horse Riding
At last I went horse riding.
We went to Glenworth Valley which is about 1.5 hrs away from Sydney. At first we had to take another route since the harbour bridge was closed to due to a marathon race passing onto the bridge. So we took the harbour tunnel which was luckily not packed with cars.
Anyway, we got to the valley just b4 10am. There was around 10 of us UTS student. They were Irene, Mike, Sandi, Laura, Laila and 2 other guys and girls which i dunno their name. There was around 50 horses or so in the small field surrounded by a fence.
My first impression was that the horses were old. But then, the horses in the movies r always young and fine! Then there was the smell of shit everywhere. Thankfully my nose is use to bad smell, though horse shit is not as bad as cat shit, especially after they have been dumped in an enclosed room, and dried up with Mr bacteria doing what it does best.
Anyway, back to the horse riding..... I was dissapointed that I had to fill in a form and was advise to fill in the space where i was suppose to wear a helmet! I had brought my expensive, world famous, Pitter cowboy hat, just for that occasion. But like everything else in this country, there r liability and stuff and the ranch did not want to be responsible if I fall down a horse and get my head smashed up. So I relanctly wore a helmet. But next time...
My horse name was horsy. Well, actually I forgot the horse name, and rename him horsy:). Horsy is a lazy bastard. According to the lady rider(the nice one, not the old_most prob owner of the ranch_bitch) which was going to accompany us told us that we have to make the horse know who is the boss. To do that, we have to use strong language to push the horse into doing things, like walking and running, and to use our legs to kick into the body of the horse. mmmm Sounds easy enough.
I used my strong masculin tropical voice to order horsy along. However Horsy is an old cowboy himself, and did not give a shit what I had to say. COME ON!!! COME ON!!! That's what everyone was shouting, at the top of their voice. Horsy started to walk lazily down the road, with the other horses in our squad. After around a hundred metres or so, we started to force the horses to give a little trot for us. We wanted some action! But it was to be a long ride:( The horses would not listen to anything we say, and continued walking, in single file, down the track. The scenery was good mind u! Finally, we moved into the last stage, and started kicking the horses in the body. That did not work either. I think the horses were used with bloody students kicking them, and they did not do anything else but walk. For the animal lovers, our best kick is way too weak to hurt the horses.
The lady worker was a legend. Everytime she ran by with her horse, which was by the way a few classes above ours, she shouted COME ON to the horses and they all started to trot. That was fun. They listen to her. But not to us:(
So we rode down the track, in the aussie outback, up and down hills. Every now and again a miracle would happen and Mike and his horse(who was always in the lead) would break into a trot, and then all the others would also start trotting. This would last for about 10 secs, and then Mike would walk again and the others would follow. We found out that horsy had an attitude problem, cause he did not want to run, and he did not want anyone else to overtake him. So other horses were relanctant to overtake him since he becomes very aggitated when that happens.
In the end, horsy decided to follow Irene's horse for the last km or so back to the ranch and would simply not run anymore.
We put the horses back in their fence place and took some memorable pics. Everyone was content with their adventure, though the thigh muscle had started to hurt a bit.
Then we jump into the UTS van and head home way above the speed limit, since the driver was in a hurry to get back to Sydney.
We went to Glenworth Valley which is about 1.5 hrs away from Sydney. At first we had to take another route since the harbour bridge was closed to due to a marathon race passing onto the bridge. So we took the harbour tunnel which was luckily not packed with cars.
Anyway, we got to the valley just b4 10am. There was around 10 of us UTS student. They were Irene, Mike, Sandi, Laura, Laila and 2 other guys and girls which i dunno their name. There was around 50 horses or so in the small field surrounded by a fence.
My first impression was that the horses were old. But then, the horses in the movies r always young and fine! Then there was the smell of shit everywhere. Thankfully my nose is use to bad smell, though horse shit is not as bad as cat shit, especially after they have been dumped in an enclosed room, and dried up with Mr bacteria doing what it does best.
Anyway, back to the horse riding..... I was dissapointed that I had to fill in a form and was advise to fill in the space where i was suppose to wear a helmet! I had brought my expensive, world famous, Pitter cowboy hat, just for that occasion. But like everything else in this country, there r liability and stuff and the ranch did not want to be responsible if I fall down a horse and get my head smashed up. So I relanctly wore a helmet. But next time...
My horse name was horsy. Well, actually I forgot the horse name, and rename him horsy:). Horsy is a lazy bastard. According to the lady rider(the nice one, not the old_most prob owner of the ranch_bitch) which was going to accompany us told us that we have to make the horse know who is the boss. To do that, we have to use strong language to push the horse into doing things, like walking and running, and to use our legs to kick into the body of the horse. mmmm Sounds easy enough.
I used my strong masculin tropical voice to order horsy along. However Horsy is an old cowboy himself, and did not give a shit what I had to say. COME ON!!! COME ON!!! That's what everyone was shouting, at the top of their voice. Horsy started to walk lazily down the road, with the other horses in our squad. After around a hundred metres or so, we started to force the horses to give a little trot for us. We wanted some action! But it was to be a long ride:( The horses would not listen to anything we say, and continued walking, in single file, down the track. The scenery was good mind u! Finally, we moved into the last stage, and started kicking the horses in the body. That did not work either. I think the horses were used with bloody students kicking them, and they did not do anything else but walk. For the animal lovers, our best kick is way too weak to hurt the horses.
The lady worker was a legend. Everytime she ran by with her horse, which was by the way a few classes above ours, she shouted COME ON to the horses and they all started to trot. That was fun. They listen to her. But not to us:(
So we rode down the track, in the aussie outback, up and down hills. Every now and again a miracle would happen and Mike and his horse(who was always in the lead) would break into a trot, and then all the others would also start trotting. This would last for about 10 secs, and then Mike would walk again and the others would follow. We found out that horsy had an attitude problem, cause he did not want to run, and he did not want anyone else to overtake him. So other horses were relanctant to overtake him since he becomes very aggitated when that happens.
In the end, horsy decided to follow Irene's horse for the last km or so back to the ranch and would simply not run anymore.
We put the horses back in their fence place and took some memorable pics. Everyone was content with their adventure, though the thigh muscle had started to hurt a bit.
Then we jump into the UTS van and head home way above the speed limit, since the driver was in a hurry to get back to Sydney.