34/ AUGUST 2019 THE RIDER Australian Adventures 2019


By Solstice Pecile https://sp338.wordpress.co m/australian-adventures- 2019/


It was a 26-hour plane


ride… That’s how my ad- venture to Australia started. Toronto to LA, LA to Syd- ney and at last the final leg Sydney to Brisbane. I was very happy to get off that plane. I was very lucky none of my flights were delayed. Two of my soon to be Amer- ican friends’ flights were de- layed at least 3 hours and they were didn’t know if they were going to make the long flight… but after what felt like a million hours on the plane the four of us met in Brisbane. Four girls from all over North America, my- self from Canada, Ontario specifically, as well Shelby Moucha from Ohio, Kimmy Cates from Florida and Madi MacPhail from Cali- fornia.


Day 1 Into our rental RV and


we’re on our way to Hervey Bay in Southern Queens- land. For dinner, we got a kabob which in Australia is not quite the same as in North America. It’s a wrap with chicken, a bunch of different vegetables and a sauce, it was actually really


try kangaroo meat, it was good, it tasted like really tough beef. It was made up for us by the Queensland Endurance Team. They had a big covered area so even though it wasn’t


the


warmest of days it was dry. The rain started at


about 5 am and the ride started at 1 pm. By the way, it rarely rains in the sunny state of Queensland Aus- tralia, but, as the fates de- creed it, the only day we competed it rained. Oh well, it could have been far worse and we are after all en- durance riders. Also, it’s im- portant to remember that it is their winter in Australia


walked towards the creek it looked like there wasn’t any water in it at all because of how clean it was. The beach highway


was next. This highway is monitored just like our high- ways the only difference is you get a prettier view. The black rock on the beach is the compression of the min- eral layer and it’s called cof- fee rock, but it’s not really rock at all. We got to go to another


creek that was just as clear as the last! And we got to see a dingo there too. Inter- estingly, there are mixed feelings about dingoes in Aus t r a l i a , but I won’t talk about that. We also saw a very old ship. It was sold to Japan


wreck the ship,


to so


Japan did not have


any


more advan- tages in case war broke out between them.


Lastly,


good for not getting what I expected.


Day 2 First full day in Aus-


tralia. We went to the largest sand island in the world. This island has a beach that they use as their highway. We took a ferry for about 45 minutes and our tour began. The tour lasted all day


from 7am-6pm. Our first stop was to an old town stead where little remained but a clearing where the old town used to be. We walked through a forest and our guide explained how the is- land was continuously growing because of the building of sand from the South Pacific Ocean. The is- land fortunately located on top of a spring… MEAN- ING fresh water on the is- land, not salt! The water pulled and purified by the silica sand into the clearest water you could ever imag- ine. It was amazing, as we


we went to L a k e


McKenzie. It was AMAZ- ING! The temperature was about 17°c so the water was cold but warmer than the air. Even though it was chilly I didn’t travel 14 000 km to come to Australia so I could wimp out. So of course, I went in! It was so beautiful, and


I could have spent the whole day there and been happy. It was the most stunning blue colour and crystal clear! Then we headed back and rode our ferry into the sun- set.


Day 3 We drove to Rainbow


Beach. The beach is right on the coast but more to the north. We got to ride horses on the beach and into the ocean. The horse I was on was a little 10 years old QH mare that was about 14”2 and had a chip on her shoul- der, her name was Wombat. She was really good until we cantered and then she


tried to kick anyone who got near her. But I think we all have that mood every now and again. We walked to a sand


dune after we were done rid- ing. You could see forever, it looked like we were on top of the world. The rest of the day we


continued to drive closer to the ride site which was about eight hours from Bris- bane.


Day 4 We stopped at an or-


ange farm and picked or- anges. There were so delicious. The bag had prob- ably 20 oranges in it and on the way back from the ride we had to get more because we had run out.


Day 5 After a couple of hours


at


a r o u n d WWII but Australia de- cided


more we were almost to our ride site! We stopped at the RM Williams museum. The museum had a lot of inter- esting things about his his- tory and all the different things he had done, like bringing the sport of en- durance to Australia and creating a championship ride called the Quilty in the land down under, as well as doing many other things that if you’re interested please look it up online. We arrived at the en-


trance of our ride site. Thirty km drive on red clay dirt roads, with crazy bumps. If you’ve ever driven in an RV you know how loud it is when it’s bumpy, so we took for what felt like forever, taking our time so that we wouldn’t break anything in the RV. On our way in we met


some Aussie Endurance Riders, a lot of these riders we’re juniors, some of them we were competing against the next day, friendly com- petition of course. We took pictures at the main gates of Rockybar, where there stands a huge rock with the ranches name painted onto the rock. All of the Aus- tralian’s were super nice and super helpful. We met the girl who


had organized the horses we were competing on in Aus- tralia. Her name was Kelsey. She was so incredibly nice and helpful! I cannot say ‘thank you’ enough to her. She made sure we all had


amazing horses in a country that was so far away from home. We also met the son of


RM Williams, Peter had taken over the ranch and was the one who was run- ning the event and hosting it on his property that he had taken over from his father. All of the Queensland


juniors were incredibly wel- coming and kind. We talked to the whole team for a cou- ple of hours about every- thing that one could think of. The way we/they talk, about our countries, our horses, endurance riding and competitions. I was sur- prised that so many people in Australia watch Heart- land, the Alberta TV show, which is kind of crazy since I don’t even think that many Canadians watch the show. Anyone I would talk to there would say they watched it, even though the episodes are filmed and aired halfway around the world.


Day 6


RIDE DAY! We were all so excited.


We went out for a test ride in the first part of the morn- ing. I was lucky enough to ride an amazing stallion. Tora Sardeeka. He was a 12- year-old bay Arabian stal- lion… A very well behaved strong tough horse that knew his job to perfection. We had lunch before


we went out and we got to


difference between Aus- tralia and North America Endurance Riding is that our time doesn’t stop until we meet our parameters. In Australia, horse and rider have 30 minutes to meet 56bpm, but trail time has al- ready stopped. The hour hold begins when you come in off trail. My horse, Tora Sardeeka, fortunately, was a superstar and came in with an incredible pulse of 35bpm after about 5 min- utes.


On our hold, I had to


change my clothing and I don’t think there was a sin- gle part of my clothing that was dry. Everything was wet, my shirt, pants, socks, even my underwear. It felt wonderful to be dry again! My out-time for my


second loop was at 5 pm. After about 30 minutes out on trail, it was dark, and I had to turn my headlight on. The stallion was an amazing horse he would ride beside mares, geldings or stallions without flicking an ear. He was also such a strong horse and so fit. I found out he was being trained for Aus- tralia’s National Champi- onship, called the Quilty which was 5 weeks from the weekend I was competing. From riding in the 80km I know he’s going to be more than ready for the 160km Quilty. He wanted to go, and he knew that was his job, him going forward down the trail was never an issue, slowing him down or letting another horse go in front of


him that was a different story.


On my loop in the dark,


I rode most of it by myself. What was I most scared of you may ask? No, not the fact I could hardly see any- thing, or the fact that I had absolutely no idea where I was going in this foreign far away country and not even the fact that any animal in the forest could probably kill me since I was in Aus- tralia after all. I was most scared of the stallion spook- ing at something and me having to walk home the whole way on foot. My legs were definitely on the whole last loop. Since the first loop in the daylight, he enjoyed swerving from one side to another to avoid the terrify- ing rock or the killer fern that looked a little suspi- cious on the side of the trail. Tora Sardeeka and I


finishing the ride at 7:53 pm. We vetted in without any issues and I found out that we had finished 4th in the lightweight division, meaning I could stand for best condition an hour after finishing. For all the energy he had for his whole ride, it did not fade for best condi- tion and he looked amazing afterward, just not a fast enough ride time to win it, but it didn’t bother me since I was having a fabulous time in Australia anyway. Moving


onto the


wildlife I saw out on trail. In the whole wide animal king-


Continued on Page 35


(southern hemisphere), right now so, unfortunately, it’s not 30+. So, with the rain and the 15°c temperatures we had to be bundled up. The ride was 80km, but


there were only two loops. 40km and 40km. Every 10 km there was a water trough and there were also dams (which is like a small man- made pond, where the cows would get there water) along the ride (I was a bit too much of a chicken to go into them with all the mud and slippery conditions). The trails were pretty rocky and mixed in with red clay that made it slippery with little for the horse to grip on to. Our first loop was 3


hours and we came in at around 4 pm. An important


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