Now the time has come for my second work-experience down here, and I got picked up early from a nice lady, Bec, who took me to the ranch 30 mins drive from Coffs Harbour, after some food shopping was done. It was so sweet, she bought me lots of food and was talking the whole time about things out there on the ranch, what my job would be and so on. As we arrived, she showed me the little cottage about 1km away from the main house, where I am going to live the next couple of weeks, together with another guy, Sean, who also works temporarily on the farm.

After I got myself sorted, we met up in the stable and we got some of the horses in. Wyndyarra Estate is a professional stable where they train young horses in carriage driving and dressage riding. They are moving to Denmark to compete for some years from April on.I will be training horses plus taking care of her 5 months old baby and a 6 year old son sometimes - it's really a dream job. Anyway, we saddled two of the horses up and went into the arena. I was riding a huge (we are talking over 170cm here) black frieser horse, and wow, it was absolutely awesome!! Such a talented horse and I had no trouble at all, even though it has now been seriously long time ago I did any "proper" riding. WOW!! I felt really good, the family here is so nice, the place and work is perfect.

As evening came with darkness and silence, I actually appreciated the other guy, Sean, a lot. We talked, had a cup of tea and I think that alone in the quietness and so on out here, I might have felt a bit strange, but this is just great. I live again in the bush, have no internet, no electricity (it is a solar powered property) and toilet is really bush-camp-style with just a hole in the ground. The shower is funny too, just a soft bucket that one fills up with water, and by turning a tap a bit, the water can run slowly out again (I have to heat up the water over the gas cooker first, and then I have water enough for approximately 2 min shower) Its cold to take a shower, but at some point a great experience!! In general it is a great place and I love it. It is truly beautiful with huge horse paddocks on the grassy hills surrounded by small forestry mountains, and a creek so clean that they use to produce bottled water on the property. There is as well a waterfall where one can go for a swim, and Sean has promised to take me along one day with his little dog.

The weather at the moment is cloudy and a bit rainy sometimes, perfect for working, even though I would love to have a bit more sunshine (our lights go off pretty quickly in the evening if the sun hasn't been shining much in the day, the solar battery gets empty;), but generally I only work a couple of hours in the morning and then have to train a horse or two in the afternoon, so not when it is to hot during the day. And I have most Saturday and whole Sunday off, which is nice. There isn't really much to do out here in my free time, but I went yesterday with Sean into the city for some hours, checking out surfers, buying a coffee and getting new gas for the cooker.

Well, now I have been here a couple of days, and I still love it. My days are so nice, relaxing and fun:

I get up basically whenever, but pretty early, since after the light goes out in the evening there is not really much more to do but sleep, so I just wake up at 7 or so, take my clothes on and hike up the hills to fetch one of the young ponies I am training every morning. Then I ride her, and it actually has become really enjoyable after a while of several fights and small jumps. She was SO sweet today, and I got a very pleased comment from Bec afterwards!! Then usually Bec and the children will arrive and together we get the horses in the stable to feed them and I will start to exercise the two "carriage" horses in the lunge (where I stand in the middle and the horse is running around me in circle). Its not so exiting, but necessary;) After that I am actually finished, but usually we stay around the stables, brush some of the horses, put saddle and bridle on some of the completely "green" ones, or I lunge Bec's dressage horse as well to train the canter (gallop), or I sweep the floor. It's a lot fun with the 6-year-old Luke eager to help and the baby giggling along in the pushchair. Sean is the helpful handy man, always fixing something and yeah, it's a very good working environment. Midday break, where usually either Sean or me will cook us something to eat, then I have off time to take sun (when the sun is there), read a book or talk to Sean.

In the afternoon I will go and fetch the black horse, Casey, whom I also ride every day, and sometimes another one to ride as well. Usually Bec will come along and ride a horse as well, but usually somebody needs to look out for her baby, so I ride first, and then fetch her dressage horse and as she is riding, I will take care of her baby. It's a great deal, her baby is so cute. After end riding for the day, we get all the horses in again to feed them and then I am off again.

It is so peaceful and relaxing to be out here, can really feel that I needed it: to be on the same spot for some time, to have silence in the night when I sleep (again I tend to share my bed with mosquitoes, have already got a small amount of bites, despite my net around my bed in the night), and in general to get recharged my batteries. And I enjoy it lots!! This is exactly the "outback-remote-bush-style"-ranch experience I wanted, and the people here are so nice!

Well, to meet a spider the size of my hand (I have pretty big hands, so.) when I first time visited our toilet, was scary (and what do I do? Scream out loud "Sean, I need your help for a second", and after laughing his head off because of my "spider-problem", he of course removed the spider (see dad, I still didn't change). He on purpose only mentioned the various snakes out here pretty recently, but that's another topic)!

Now I've been here for pretty much over a week, and I still enjoy it. The weekend was quite nice, I had off most of the time together with Sean, and we went along the creek up to a waterhole to go for a swim, it was SO cold. I literally just ran in, threw myself under, gasped for air and ran straight out again! Well, it was fun though, we got back into the jeep and drove further up, to a beautiful little rocky waterfall, where another swimming-opportunity arouse; I passed. His dog was along and we spent quite some time there on the rocks with the clear water flowing slow and steady around us. On Sunday we went to a pub some kilometres up the road to listen to a local band playing, it was pretty good. On the way home we bought some wine and groceries and I cooked really nicely for us. In general I had a great weekend, and Monday was pretty good too: went in the evening to the cinema with Bec and a friend of hers. She had won some tickets to Burn Before Reading, for a pre-release show for "special guest". It was a strange movie, not really recommendable, but we enjoyed it. The work is still leisure more than work, and I started to try and train a young horse in canter with rider on, which has shown to be quite a job - its not really riding I am doing, its more rodeo at the moment. But fun!! She is a small horse and has absolutely no chance of throwing me off her back, so her attempts are kind of sweet;) The other horse, the big black Casey, I am riding, is doing great. He is really nice and a pleasure to work with in dressage, even though he is actually used most for driving. With the carriage driving I might get to do some work as well after the weekend, with Gary when he comes back again. Would be interesting enough;)

Well, other than that my life is pretty easy at the moment, my leg muscles are pretty sore but my mood is good, so I just get going;)