{"id":850,"date":"2010-06-24T12:17:02","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T12:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/?p=850"},"modified":"2010-06-24T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T12:21:04","slug":"23rd-june-%e2%80%93-ducks-rolly-pollies-and-emu-tracks%e2%80%a6-murrabit-to-dingwall-43km-ride-16kms-from-kerang-on-boort-road-24th-june-thursday-%e2%80%93-towards-boort-in-the-rain%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/?p=850","title":{"rendered":"23rd June \u2013 Ducks, Rolly Pollies and Emu Tracks\u2026.Murrabit to Dingwall-43km ride (16kms from Kerang on Boort Road) & 24th June Thursday \u2013 Towards BOORT in the rain\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A well rested crew rode out of Aunty Jean\u2019s place at Murrabit this morning at 8am. It was so good to spend some time with \u2018family\u2019. Aunty Jean is 96 and a half years old and a Legend of a person.\u00a0\"Aunty<\/a>\u00a0It was actually both a busy and restful time there. I visited three schools, did a couple of newspaper interviews, an ABC Radio interview, wrote dozens of emails, made a gazillion phone calls and planned, planned, planned. Planning is a constant with a project like this.<\/p>\n

Meg is as fresh as anything after a few days off. She was jumping out of her skin at stuff. What didn\u2019t help was the first channel crossing a flock of ducks flew up quacking, so each one thereafter she was waiting for the ducks. Also the horses were introduced to \u2018rolly polly\u2019s\u201d which for the uninitiated are large round, rolling, prickle bushes that in the wind roll in front of skitty horses! The first ten kilometers saw me \u2018dancing\u2019 all over the road with the horses and the rolly polly\u2019s and also of course there were about six channel crossings the horses jacked up with! I rode into Kerang (27kms from Murrabit) at 1.30pm and went to St Joseph\u2019s Primary School where all the kids were waiting patiently on the oval for me to arrive, and they\u2019d bought in a heap of apples and carrots to feed the horses which\u00a0 amazingly my horses ate all of the food!<\/p>\n

I went to the Kerang Recreation Reserve and unsaddled Meg and had my lunch and gave the horses a break for half an hour. Saddled up again and had another 16 kms to ride to get to the Fenton\u2019s where I\u2019m staying tonight. Have had a delicious dinner, hot shower, great conversations and am now tucked up in a comfy bed with the electric blanket on! Does it get better than that?\u00a0 Tomorrow I have about 30kms and at lunch time have three riders coming out from Boort to ride back in with me.<\/p>\n

24th<\/sup> June Thursday \u2013 Towards BOORT in the rain\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

I left Fentons (Mary and Colin) where I had a lovely night of conversation, good food, warm bed! Horses had a terrific paddock and were well rested and much more relaxed than yesterday. Had a late start this morning, didn\u2019t get away til 9.30ish am which was good to take some time. Also I woke up at 4am to listen to the Aussies play soccer! What a great game\u2026..well worth losing a few hours sleep for.<\/p>\n

Just as I was saddling up this morning it started to rain, enough to turn the topsoil into sticky mud for the horses! The soil around this Boort area is a mix for grey and red which are both sticky. When I cleaned the horses hooves out this morning yesterdays mud was set like cement full of road gravel. I needed muscles in my ear lobes to budge it out of their hooves!<\/p>\n

This afternoon for the last couple of hours of riding had some company! I had three riders join me mid afternoon and it was lovely.I have three riders with me in the morning to ride into town (am about an hours ride from the main street), am riding up the main street then up to the Boort secondary College to meet up with the Year 7 students and some of the other groups.\"Boort<\/a><\/p>\n

Only 9 more sleeps and this trek is complete. Still feels a little unreal for me that I have been on the road for 72 days now and ridden so far\u2026..a lot can happen in 9 days though and I will as always stay focused on the job at hand and simply do what needs to be done each day to ensure I get to where I need to get to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A well rested crew rode out of Aunty Jean\u2019s place at Murrabit this morning at 8am. It was so good to spend some time with \u2018family\u2019. Aunty Jean is 96 and a half years old and a Legend of a person.\u00a0\u00a0It was actually both a busy and restful time there. I visited three schools, did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ride4acure.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}