Visit Oz have two training farms out near Goomeri, one that is specifically a Visit Oz training farm, and one that is a working horse stud and polo cross farm; Jaylyn Downs, which was where I was. Polo cross being a terrifyingly fast game played on horses. Like lacrosse on horseback...
First thing on arriving in Goomeri was a lot of paperwork to set up for living in Australia for a year; Medicare, activating bank accounts, setting up Australian phones (Telstra network is supposed to be the best in the outback), and buying work clothes... Boots, jeans, shirts and a hat... okay so I only had to buy boots, and we were given hats. I'm now living in a broadrimmed hat! Got to admit, one of my favourite bits about arriving in Goomeri was the catered meal. Made a change from smoothies and fruit!
Jaylyn Downs at sunset.
Best thing about Jaylyn Downs; it's a working farm not just a training farm. The people were great too. They employ 2 Visit Oz partisipants as well as 2 other girls. Being a working farm theres always some sort of job to do, particularly with the horses; mucking stalls, raking yards, feeding and constantly some animal to catch and move, which was sometimes quite an effort! Getting the stallions to service the mares is a very interesting job, and not as straight forward as it might sound. Training the foals... also quite interesting. It takes long enough to catch each one, then trying to get them to get used to lifting their hooves without getting kicked... well it definately requires patience!
The group of trainees here was an internatioonally mixed group... 2 German girls, 2 Danish guys, an American, a Liverpudlian couple and a Welsh girl (me). Half the group could ride on arrival, the other half had to be able to by Wednesday. We went out riding, theres a lot of acres! For me it was an incredible experience! The four of us who could ride were taken cantering on a trail through a hilly wooded area. I was riding a huge chestnut gelding whose styrups I couldn't actually reach from the ground. It was an utterly terrifying and exhilerating ride. I know I only stayed mounted through luck not skill!
Added to the infinate amounts of horsework was machinery work! Felling trees with chainsaws in the boiling hot sun. Hard work but great fun. Really enjoyed it. We were cutting down young gum trees because they're no good for fence posts!
It rained!
The second half of the week it rained... and rained.... the coming of a cyclone!!! Was such an incredible change of weather compared to the boiling hot since I arrived! Unfortunately it meant we got up at 6.30 to muster cattle then couldn't go! It's amazing how much of a standstill things come to when it rains. There's still little everyday jobs to do, but generally we were just doing things for the sake of having things to do. However we did go out on the motorbikes... for practise. I want a motorbike!! We started on a tiny one, which was incredibly fun, just like anything miniature; then we progressed to full size! The Danish boys were great with the bikes, whilst the German girls were great with the horses. For my part I only skidded the big bike in the mud once!!
And as for tractors... front loading New Holland and a Massey Furgeson nearly identical to dads!
Then of course the main point of the training week; the job offers! I did honestly worry quite a bit about getting a job. I was the last to get an offer. There was a race horse place looking for grooms but it was=n't a specific offer to me. They were just looking for as many people as possible. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at Jaylyn Downs, if only they'd offer me a job! But on Thursday night I got the perfect offer; raising cvalves, babysitting and horses. And just a little place too!
So yeah, Goomeri: chainsaws, tractors, motorbikes, horses, a job and oh yeah, my first encounter with a poisonous animal; a kane toad, though aparently you'd have to practically kiss it to be poisoned!
Onto New South Wales by plane and train!!!
A pet fawn!
Just quite pretty!
