Japan part deux

A token photo of the van for Laur.


(Doing as the Japanese do)

Ahoy hoy from Byron Bay! I must apologize for the delays in blogs, but when you live on a station 150 k from town and the internet goes down it takes quite a long time for things to get back into action. Now, we were in Japan ages ago as you know but I had to post some photos of our time in Kyoto and Nagano. When we travel we always try and do as the locals do... with a few fun touristy things thrown in of course, so when we arrived in Kyoto and saw that as many people ride bikes there as they do in the Netherlands we had to jump on the bandwagon. This was very thrilling and rather reminiscent of our time in Toronto minus the bikes being stolen. Did I mention that the Japanese are very honest? The day passed in a blur as we visited as many temples and shrines as we could, most of the names now I have sadly forgotten.

We're alive!!

Surprise, surprise! Seeing as how I haven't sent any of the Christmas cards that we've written yet I thought I would give everyone an early gift of a long overdue blog. I know, I know, it's been a while. In the last five months we've gone to Canada and back, been to the infamous Twin Hills Rodeo, finished school for the year and finished up the last muster of 2009. I would blog about Canada but most of you were there. I will just mention that Kelly was an absolutely blushing bride and the Van Dinthers are one of my two favourite newlyweds. I would talk about twin hills but unless you live under a rock you will know from Dan's facebook page that he rode the bullock for 6.9 seconds and got an 85 in his first camp draft and made it to the final. Well done Dan! You will all be pleased to know that Tom and Josie have passed grade 2 and prep respectively and are very excited to be on their summer holidays at the moment and away from their cranky home tutor...
What you WILL want to hear about is the past 10 days spent in Japan as landing in Tokyo - one of the biggest cities in the world - was a far cry from seeing the same 5 people everyday at Mellaluka. We arrived in Tokyo at around 11pm and followed the 'locals' to take the bus into town (they know best!). Dan was hungry after the eight hour flight so we snacked on some pre-packaged octopus on the hour ride into town and some sort of jelly donut that didn't appear to be cooked as it was chewier than a mouthful of peanut butter. When we arrived at our hotel it was a touch on the small side however had the one thing that Dan had been waiting for... the electric toilet. It comes complete with a heated seat, bidet, some other spray thingy and a fan to dry your bottom when all is said and done. Unfortunately Dan turned the pressure on the spray up to its maximum then called me in to check it out. I wasn't overly impressed to be sprayed in the face with toilet water but have to admit, in hindsight, it was rather funny. The next day we spent exploring the area we stayed in, Shinjuku, as well as Shibuya and Harajuku. There are loads of department stores in Shinjuku and we spent a good few hours exploring the store Tokyo Hands, which sold everything from 'smile straighteners' to butt lifting underwear and naughty santa suits. Once we had worked up an appetite we did what does us best and followed the locals to a cozy looking restaurant in Shibuya. It was a touch complicated as you order from a machine outside - this worked for us not knowing a word or symbol of Japanese so we picked the picture that looked like it had something interesting, paid, got our ticket and in we went. We were greeted by cheers as we went in and felt awfully important until we realized that the staff do that to anyone who enters - even if they just came in to use the toilet. We then sat in a circle around the kitchen and watched as they prepared the food which was pretty cool. Next came the difficult part, eating a bowl of soup/noodles with chopsticks surrounded by Japanese people trying not to make a fool of oneself. Fortunately for us, slurping is practically obligatory, as is shoving as many noodles in your mouth at one time so we did just fine.
We spent the next couple of days in Tokyo exploring the imperial gardens and the electronic mecca that is Akihabra. WE (note) bought a very reasonably priced ipod touch that proved to be quite the bargain however I haven't used it since nor have I seen or heard from Dan so I'm not sure it was the wisest move.
We then headed out of Tokyo to spend two days in the region of Hakone where you can get excellent views of Mt Fuji and stay in a traditional Japanese Inn. Unfortunately it poured rain the entire first day we were there. Not to be brought down by a tiny bit of bad weather (torrential downpours) we took the boat tour and the cable car up the mountain with the idea that it may clear up and we might get some hiking in. Sadly we saw no more than five feet in front of us and by the time we'd done these things we were soaked to the bone, carrying all of our things which were drenched and emitting a very questioning scent from our muddied shoes and socks. We prayed for better weather that night and woke up to clear skies! We went up the mountain for the second time and had a fantastic day taking loads of pictures of good old fuji and visiting Owakudani where there are 80 degree springs that they hard boil eggs in (although I am not entirely sure why). ANyhow, we enjoyed our black shelled eggs, which are said to add 7 years to your life which means that Dan will now live an additional 28 years as he scarfed four of them. We headed that afternoon for Kyoto which is quite famous for its traditional temples and Shrines.
More to come later!

Fun pictures

This is what you look like after Dan drives....


I'm not sure if this is legal but why not?

I definitely had a bruise on my shoulder after this.

Dan and I with Michael Jackson and Vicki.

Dan driving the Argo in the river.

Me burning some rubber with the kids in the back - scary!

Never a dull Sunday at Mellaluka

I figured I might as well keep the blogging on a bit of a roll as I have been going through our photos and realised just HOW much time has past since we updated you! Now I am going back a few weeks after the droving trip, just before the July muster started at Mellaluka. (Basically we rounded up all of the cows on horseback and brought them into the yards to preg test them, vaccinate the young ones and decide the ones that have left us babyless are going to the meatworks.) Before these hectic two weeks started Sam and Bruce thought we ought to have a relaxing weekend outing to go koala hunting. As you all know Dan and I have been a few times to seek one out and are STILL waiting. The day was pretty much Dan's fantasy outing. We all squeezed into their Argo - a 6 wheeled machine that drives on both land AND in the water and the best part about it? It was made in a little place called New Hamburg, Ontario. We headed down to the creek for a morning breakfast of pancakes on the fire and set the net to catch a few fish. While waiting for the fish to swim our way we headed off into what Sam and Bruce call "koala country" to try our luck. After a few hours of craning our necks at every gum tree known to man Sam and I were about to give up when we heard frantic cries from Bruce and Dan's direction. It turns out they had stumbled on to a litter? (perhaps pod, who knows) of baby piglets, probably 8 or 9 of them. Then we did what every family in the bush does on your average Sunday - we surrounded them and tried to catch as many as we could. Needless to say Dan and I came up empty handed but Sam and Josie both caught one while Bruce and Tom came back with one in each hand. We decided to keep one to eat for Christmas dinner but then got into a heated debate over whether or not it would be lonely, so ended up trekking a couple of miles back to the truck with three tiny piggies in our hands. They were quite cute but of course covered in ticks and mine peed on me (a recurring theme with animals and me). We named them after the recently deceased Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson and named the third Vicki in honor of Vicki Goodson's birthday*. After dropping the pigs off to a safer location we went off for an afternoon of clay pigeon shooting (as I said, Dan's dream day). All went went well and I even managed to hit one albeit after firing a shot straight into the ground 3 feet in front of my feet. FOrtunately no one was injured during the escapade except perhaps a few earth worms.
As the sun was about to set we got back into the argo to check on the progress of our net ... and found one measely fish in it which we proceeded to take back home in an old potato sack. Bruce then forgot about it and left it in the sack overnight so although he ended up in the garbage we could still say we caught a doozy.
All in all it was a very exciting way to spend a Sunday and although I am not much of a shot Dan has been shooting at anything without a first name and is improving at quite a rate! Enjoy the photos and look for an update of our trip to the Whitsunday islands - coming soon to a blog near you! Much love, ash and dan xxoo

Drovin' pics

Blong over due...

THIS IS FOR YOU MOM! I had a rather curt email from my mom this morning claiming that her fingers were getting sore from checking our blog so she wasn't going to bother anymore - imagine that! So I have decided that since Dan has fallen off the blog wagon I will have to jump back on it for the both of us. I am going to go way back to the second week of June and give you all a long overdue update on the infamous droving trip!

Dan, Sam, Tom, Josie and I packed up our swags and horses and headed off early Monday morning to meet up with the rest of the drovers. In case you were wondering, Sam's father had donated nearly 1700 cattle to a local camp draft (rodeo style event). The drove consisted of walking these cattle from a station 80 km outside of Clermont into the showgrounds in the town. In total there were about 30 people involved (and over 50 horses) and Dan and I were very lucky to be the only foreigners so we really got the outback experience! I rode my horse, Gorie and Dan rode the new love of his life, Bow. In fact, I often found Dan snuggling and hugging Bow when he thought I wasn't looking but we won't tell anyone else about that.
We would rise every morning around 5 and be greeted by our cook, a lovely VOLUNTEER named Vicky who would cook 4 meals a day for all 30 of us on a camp fire. Pretty impressive work if you ask me. After a hearty meal involving as much beef as you could ask for we would set off for the day. There would always be 5 or 6 people leading the cattle, 6 or 7 on the end bringing up the tail, while others floated along the side to keep any strays off the road or to chase any back into the mob that were brave enough to escape. Needless to say I usually stuck to the rear (where the cattle were especially slow) but did manage to chase a few back in from time to time (which was pretty tricky as Gorie was more interested in eating than chasing). We would stop for a couple of hours at lunch time to let the cattle rest and would take turns eating and being on "lookout" for any wanderers. At this time I would get out of lookout duty as I would watch the kids while some of the parents would go back to our previous nights camp, pick up the trucks and any spare horses and take them ahead to our new spot so they would be there upon our arrival. We would usually roll into camp at around 5 or 530, just in time for a few beers around the camp fire and a necessary strech of the legs. It was definitely a shock to my system to ride a horse for 8 hours a day (considering I had been on one about 6 times at that point!). Sore knees and raw backsides are definitely an inevetible part of a droving trip. In the evenings Dan and I slept in our tent while other people slept under tarps or in the backs of their trucks which they used to carry their horses. It was definitely different to camping in Childers as we did EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) outside, including eating, sleeping and showering.
I think the highlight of Dan's trip had to be when a group of backpackers pulled over to the side of the road and asked if they could take a picture of us... as we had on our full bush get-up* we blended right in - I guess they didn't notice the accents.
After 5 solid days on horseback hearing Dan say "This is the life" we finally arrived in Clermont, very dusty, dirty, tired and in desperate need of a hairbrush (we lost ours a while back). We then headed back out to Mellaluka, enjoying the prospect of a bed, shower and toilet but very, very thankful for the experience and all of the amazing people we met along the way.

Needless to say a lot has happened since the second week of June and I will add some photos this evening of the trip and some more details and goingson in the world of Dan and Ash. Until next time ... the cowboys.

*When dressing in the bush it is compulsary to wear the following, with absolutely no exceptions: blue jeans, collared shirt, cowboy/riding boots, spurs, bandana around the neck for ladies, widest/biggest cowboy hat imaginable, leather belt.
It also helps to fit in if you have a sun burn/tanned skin on the lower half of your face and a stark white top half and say the phrase "fair dinkum" as often as possible.

Map of Mellaluka

So what i have done (mainly for Dads benefit) was plot on this map where we are and how much land it covers. Along with the neighbours places (both of which i have worked on). If you zoom in you will get the idea... it was just an experiment so hope it worked!

All the faint lines inside the boundary are fence lines, paddocks range from 9,000 acres down to 50 odd, and lanes.

Anyway, all is great here, we are off droving on monday for 4/5 days. What we are doing is walking 2,000 head of cattle from a station into town on horseback across the old stockroutes. Its around 80km and involves camping out, really looking forward to it. We have both been getting our horses and ourselves ready for it this week. We both have new horses; Ashleys is called Gory (a moody and grey horse that kicks up often but she has been cantering this week!!! sammy is very proud!) and mine is a large palamino horse (sandy colored) named bow (who walks faster than all the other horses trotting due to his size).
Nonetheless we are pumped up and ready to go!! Another once in a lifetime experience!



View Map of Mellaluka in a larger map