We had a bit of a slow start to the day today as the social calendar was looking decidedly (and blessedly) bleak. The social secretary must have forgotten about today as we had absolutely nothing planned and wasn’t it good to have a few hours break mid-day and then not have to fly back to the motel and get organised and head out again!
On the trip to the stables we stopped in at the service station to fill up with fuel. They have a bowser monkey to do the work for you and these services stations are always packed. If you don’t move off the minute the man hands you back the change then horns start tooting and don’t stop until you’ve pulled out of their way! Luckily for us there was a Baskin & Robbins (or Buckskin & Rabbits according to Naomi) shop so we had the best ice-creams there. I had a Love Potion 31 which was strawberry and vanilla with big choc bits and a raspberry syrup. Very delicious! Naomi had a very decadent chocolate drink and Kristie had the biggest cone you’ve ever seen in your life with a couple of scoops of different flavoured ice-cream.
Water bottle practise was on the cards again today and we had some fun doing this with Kalahari starting to wriggle away or trying to canter off again! Our ever present guardian must wonder what we are up to sometimes. Every time we go out we are accompanied by a man in a ute but we’re not too sure what is role is. Apart from occasionally flashing his lights at some on-coming traffic he just tags along behind us. It makes it absolutely impossible to have a squat if you’re caught short and need to go to the loo on track as he always stays behind us.
Saw heaps of camels again with a mob of free running camels running along the track. We saw two riders get off their horses and try to lead them past the camels. The camels got a bit excited and started heading towards the horses to investigate and that sent the horses skating sideways. The riders were very lucky to hang onto the horses.
We decided that discretion was going to be the better part of valour with Kalahari who already was up on her toes doing the spaz attack walk! We headed off the track and gave the camels a wide berth. Some of the camels started running off and the men following them were chasing them back with the camels. Combine this with the water truck and the graders doing the track and the girl coming behind us on the horse that was going crazy and it was absolute mayhem but very, very funny. Well, probably only for Naomi and I who were laughing ourselves silly watching all the horses going every which way.
Once the workout was finished we were able to return to the motel for some chill time. It was great to be able to have a bit of quiet time although I had a lot of emails to catch up on. The internet connection here is really crook – you have to pay about $10 per hour and you can only log on once. If you don’t use the full hour then you lose whatever unused balance you have! It is such a rip off and I’ve spent about $50 already on internet access.
After the afternoon chill we headed back out to the stables. This afternoon we needed to give the horses a good long in-hand walk so we headed out and spent 1 ½ hours walking. We travelled a fair distance in this time as Kalahari is a strong walker. On the way back Kristie showed up at the top of the hill with some refreshments for us. Naomi was behind me and decided to do a sneak attack by running up the hill. I caught on just at the last and we had a dash to the top with Kalahari and I winning by a very short margin. We then stood there for a while catching our breaths and laughing at our stupidity!
Back to the stables with the horses, give them their night feed and then we headed back to the motel. Dinner was the usual fare – salads, hot meals, soup, about 8 different breads and heaps and heaps of different desserts. We are pigging out big time on the desserts and I’m thinking of becoming a HWT.
We retired to bed after that and I got a call at 9.30 p.m. advising that someone from the Duabi Equestrian Club was here and needed to see me. I went out and Jolanda, who is helping with the organisation of the event, had arrived and had jackets and caps for us. The smallest jacket was a medium so I grabbed four of them. We also were given a bright green cap – very bright and I’m not sure I’ll be wearing it anywhere!
