Karl contacted me a couple of weeks ago saying that he was organising a trip to his parents' farm and that I should come along to tick his item off the list. Great! Someone being proactive about their list item! That really helps!
I, of course, responded positively and revisited the list of things we'd have to try and get done while I was down there. It was going to be fun!
Karl's farm is a little bit outside of Forbes where Karl's family raises sheep and grows alfalfa. I hadn't been up there in eight years, but remembered it being extremely hot when I went before (for a couple of Karl's birthday parties).
I caught a lift up with Fergus and we headed off after work on Friday afternoon, arriving around 8:30 or so. The others had already set up camp and we quickly joined them tucking into a few beers (and thereby straight away achieving one of the goals for the weekend!). Soon we were out on the river in the boat, scanning the banks and logs in the dark for fishing lines the others had set up earlier in the day. Unfortunately, we were only able to spot a few of the lines and they had not yielded any catch. We "celebrated" with a few beers anyway. Then we had a few more.
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| Daybreak fishing trip |
The next morning when I woke up Karl, Pang, Michelle, Dan and Age were already out on the boat checking the lines... No haul. :-( Despite it being 8am, we "celebrated" with some beers.
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| 8am celebration (Karl holding bucket) |
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| Age BBQs up brekky |
We then headed up to Karl's parents' house where we BBQ'd breakfast. I was in a pretty sleepy early morning state, so I didn't know what was going on when some of the others got into their utes/bikes and started rounding up sheep. We headed down to the woolshed to see what was going on.
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| City boys show off herding skillz |
To a symphony of "Maa"s, the gang was herding the sheep to separate the lambs.
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| The "hospital" at work |
It was really quite interesting (if a little sad). Once the lambs had been separated, they needed to be injected with vaccinations, tagged on their ear and have little rubber bands put on their tails and balls (for the boy lambs). Plus a little cleaning squirt on the nether regions. Poor things looked extremely uncomfortable! Being male, I can imagine how "uncomfortable" the poor things were with rubber bands round their balls so tight they'd eventually fall off!
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| Dr Pang - Expert Interrogator (or Lamb Castrator) |
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| Age and Michelle land the fish |
Hard work done, we headed back to the campsite to check the fishing lines. This time we were more successful as we caught a decent looking cod. It would be eaten later on with dinner, but for now it was time to "celebrate" (more beers)!
After lunch, it was time to address a few more of the goals for the weekend. First up it was time for river swimmin' and rope swingin'. Karl and I got changed into our swimmers and headed out into the river and across to where the old rope swing was. It was quite pleasant in the water, but the current was pretty strong and therefore logs and things had been shifted around and may have been a danger using the rope swing. Karl kind of paddled about the area feeling for things, and when nothing was found we declared it safe for swingin' (or safe enough anyway).
We climbed up onto the bank and I took the rope first. Grabbing hold of the stick tied into it, I hollered "wee" and swung out when *snap* the old stick fell apart in my hands and I plopped directly into the water. It was hilarious, but unfortunately that was the end of the rope swingin'.
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| Totally not posing |
Next on the agenda then was bow shootin'. Unfortunately, nobody had brought their bow! So Karl's Dad brought out his rifle and we took turns shooting at some jerry cans a hundred or so metres away.
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| Idiot |
Personally, I'm not totally sure if I hit my first target, but I definitely got the second one I was aiming for, as the Coke can sitting on top of it leapt in the air after my shot. I know what else I hit too - my forehead with the gunscope! I'd had my eye too close to the rifle scope when I took the shot and the recoil smacked me in the head! Boy, did I feel stupid.
Unfortunately, the yabbies Karl had brought had died, so we couldn't race them. Instead we combined the yabbie racin' and the quad bike riding into "quad bike racing" (this may have also been due to a misreading by me of the list item). We were a little unsure of how to do quad bike racing when we only have one quad bike, but we came up with a plan. And, well, the following photo and video should tell the story...
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| On your marks... |
All in all it was a great weekend and I was glad I finally got down for one of Karl's farm trips. Thanks for having me Karl! Next year we'll have to do the 4WD Boonzin' (whatever that is!)!
Oh, and yeah - we took the best planking photo yet!
