Yeehaaa, I wanna be a cowgirl, lol

A couple of weeks ago, our cook asked me if I would like to go to a Camp Draft - had never heard of a camp draft before and had no idea what I was saying yes to - she said a sort of horse competition and already had me at that point, lol. Her son was one of the organisers and both he and her granddaughter were riding. We would camp there for maybe two nights. Sounded like another great Aussi experience to be had, and it was. As the week unfolded it was decided we would stay at her place in Dongara on Friday night and head down to Eneabba the next morning as her grand daughter wasn't riding until 10.30am. In the meantime, I had sourced a tent and swag from school, and packed for several contingencies, lol.

I can tell it is nearing summer again as there are numerous bobtail lizards out and about crossing the roads - saw three and a half, lol as one had been run over and a part of it was missing. Had a narrow escape when a smallish kangaroo leapt out towards the ute as I was driving and thought I might have clipped it, but luckily missed (and dodged all the lizards, lol). Got to Dongara just before sunset. Jude's unit is directly across from the beach and the wharf we have fished off before. Who knew she was so close!!!! and definitely have her marked now for a coffee next time we go over (if she is in fact home). We had taken food with us but decided without any arguement from me to go to the local tavern for dinner and am glad that we did. Had avocado and mango salad with salt and pepper calamari on top as I was hankering for some decent greens - very yum. We went home and had coffee and a relax in front of the telly. It is only a one bedroom unit so put my swag out on the floor and went to sleep with the sound of waves crashing on the beach - bliss.

After poached eggs on toast for breakfast, we repacked the ute and were off, driving down the Brand Highway to Eneabba. The wild flowers and shrubs were out along the way and different again to the ones around here. Had an excellent run and just past the Eneabba turnoff, turned into a gate and we were at what I would describe as showgrounds in NZ. We found Jude's family, parked behind Jude's son's camper trailer and quickly put our tents up and then went to watch the competitions.


Now will try to explain what a camp draft is. First of all the place was knee deep in cowboys, lol - by that I mean blokes in a variety of akubras, wrangler jeans, plain or checked shirts, wearing boots and spurs and riding some of the finest horses I have seen in ages. The horses were decked out with stock saddles and bridles and reins like I have never seen. Some were just rope reins (synthetic rope) or very long reins that were not joined like a normal bridle but crossed over when held and nearly went to the ground. The women were all dressed much the same and when rain was in the offing later that evening every second person was in a dryazabone!!!

Back to the competition - basically it is rider and horse, cutting a cattle beast out of a group of about seven and getting it from one end of the stock yard to the other and then when ready, yelling gate, whereupon the gate at the bottom end of the yard is opened, beast leaps forth to escape and horse and rider leap our after, heading said beast left first around a pointer then across the field right, round another pointer, then veering right and left through two pointers which are called a gate. Cutting the beast out of the group is done in a time frame as is the part out in the paddock. If the beast gets back to the top of the stockyard twice amongst the others or just to escape being hearded, the rider is disqualified. Once you have picked your beast you are not allowed to change your mind. There was a judge and time keeper. The judge sat on a variety of horses during the competition and was located to one side of the gate, and carried a bull whip cracking it once if you were disqualified or missed getting round a pointer to say you were out and twice if you were sucessful. There were several classes, juveniles, novices and open. Juveniles - self explanatory - were from kids as young as 8 through to teens. Novice was related to the horse - you can win 5 novice events before you have to ride in the Open class. The oldest rider there was an American bloke, - 77yrs - and he was one of the top riders!!!!!.

All cattle once they have been picked to herd, whether they get out the gate or not, are cut out and sent to a holding pen as they are not herded twice during the event. A new beast is let out of another pen to join the group and then after three or four drafts, the whole group is turned out, to keep the cattle reasonably fresh. Over the course of the weekend 900 cattle went through the yards. They were delivered from a local station in double decker, double trailer trucks that arrived and departed several times a day. The cattle were brahmin and angus, and a mixture of steers and heifers and not like our domesticated moos at all, hence there was a fair bit of skill to complete the moves of the competition. Some never got out of the stock yard with the beasts hightailing to the top of the yard twice. Quite a few of the horses were quarter horses and I was amazed how some of them didn't fall over as they were at such a lean as they rounded the pegs after the beasties and were going like the clappers to keep them on line for the next peg. The palaminos were the horses that I noticed most as a group, their colour was amazing - kind of burnished coppery/gold with creamy manes and tails.

Unbelievably, we sat for nearly four hours before taking a break. Nothing could be predicted, naturally as there were times when both cattle had horses displayed minds of their own, lol. I am sure a couple of the horses could have drafted cattle on their own and they were brilliant to watch, anticipating where the beast would try to run, heading them off and moving them turn by turn to the gate. Have no idea how points were allocated for all these moves but I understand, the more you have to turn the beastie in the yard to keep it moving towards the gate, the more points you get. It was a fine line trying to go for higher points, only to blow it when the beastie bolted through being blocked to the back again, or getting it down to the gate relatively easily and just going for it. Watching the kids was great - the difference for them, was they only had one beastie to get from one end of the yard to other though having only one to work with was not necessarily easier, lol. Another part of the competition involved one rider in the yards cutting out a beastie with two riders either side of the gate out in the paddock and the three riders had to herd the beast round the pegs, staying in correct formation. Jude's son was in two teams and got placed in both of them.






About 4.30pm went back to the tent as wanted to shut my eyes for half an hour and get warm as there was a coolish wind where we were sitting. I was only two metres away from the family's three horses that were only corralled with electric tape! I had already caught one of the horses earlier when we first arrived as it had somehow walked out of the pen!. As I lay down and closed my eyes, horses were screaming out all over the camp ground and the thought went through my mind, how safe would we be in a stampede, would I be trampled where I lay, lol. Must have dozed off cos the next thing I heard was the thundering of hooves and shouts, and then Jude called out to see if I was OK as someone elses horse had escaped and was being rounded up by a group of riders ......... Decided to park the ute behind the tent so at least had some protection during the night, lol.

Although we took food to cook, there was too much going on and the local netball club and school were doing barbeques to raise money so decided to go for that instead. At around 6pm it started raining but it had cleared by about 7.30pm. An auction was held to raise money 'buying' both horse and rider for the next draft competiton. This was held for the top riders and horses only and was a great spectacle under lights. The business end of things finished, we gathered round the campfire that had been lit and listened to the band that was playing until just after midnight.

Slept like a baby and was up by 8am as competition started again at 8.30am and this was run offs and finals for ribbons and prizes. There were some tired horses as it had been three days riding for some of them. One came out of the gate and spectacularly bucked right round the paddock, naturally losing the beastie with a rider who was less than impressed, lol. The other laugh of the morning was seeing one of the cattle run straight towards the haybale barrier where the cattle who had already been in the competiton were herded before going back to the station. It ran straight for the gap in two bales and went with such speed and force, it got wedged in and had to be hauled out.



Four cattle escaped confines completely over the weekend but no sooner had they got away than a group of riders would be on them, with one lad leaping off and hog tying three of them. I thought one of the cattle was dead as saw Jude's son moving it in the scoop of a John Deere tractor, but he was just moving the immobilised animal (legs were all tied together) to the truck.

We left not long after lunch to come back to school. We were meant to take a short way home but ended up on the wrong road so came back through Three Springs and Morawa. However, it was all good, got to see another chunk of countryside and found at least five new flowers to take photos of, lol. I did ask Jude if there could be snakes in the undergrowth where I was gingerly moving to take said photos and she said yes, just make a noise and they will go away, and they can't bite you if you are wearing jeans. Hmmmmmmmm, have no intention of putting that to the test, lol but did procede to crash and jump about on the ground to let any slithery things know I was there.

As we had thawed out some steaks to cook over the weekend we decided to invite ourselves to the DP's home for dinner as he has the biggest kitchen between Jude and I. I cooked and it was a nice end to a great weekend. Australian Idol was on following dinner so stayed and watched that. They had Harry Connick Junior as an extra judge, and he managed to get through the night without any controversy, although Dicko gave one swipe about the hoo ha Harry CJ caused with his comments on a black face skit in the previous weeks 'Hey Hey its Saturday Reunion Special'(which caused comment around the world it would seem!). Definitely slept the sleep of the dead Sunday night, lol.

Speaking of things celeb - caught Tim Finn on one of the morning TV shows last week -promoting his latest album which from memory is an anthology. He still sounds good. Liza Minelli is the guest judge for this weeks Idol so will definitely be front and centre on Sunday night.

Breaking news: got my second assignment back yesterday - 42/50 so am happy with that. Got the fourth one posted so only two left to go, woohoo.