#112: Horseriding!
Dogs worship humans. Cats despise us. Horses will meet your eye as you approach, and make up their minds what they think of you (the results of which will be clear as you ride them).
This was my birthday present from CJ, and it was exactly as excellent as I remembered from distant childhood memories (I had friends with horses for a while). Also, it definitely counts as research for my steampunk book.
This was my horse – Max.
As you can see, we hit upon a simply stunning location – and the staff instantly became some of my favourite people. The main lady, Janice, is smart and sarcastic and I can’t imagine her anyplace not surrounded by ducks, cats, dogs and horses (it would be too much of a shame for the animals). Our riding companion was a real country boy (which to me is fantastically exotic). Both CJ and I know we are city folk through and through, and it was great to talk to someone who would be as sickened and uncomfortable in our lives as we would be in his. It was absolutely clear that the quality of our experience was a direct result of the competence and horse knowledge of the staff. These people are passionate about what they do (and so laid back we spent about three times as much time there as we expected – loving every minute).
This is not something I’ve been paid to endorse – it’s something too brilliant to keep to myself. (These guys are emphatically a different company to the Pender Lea operating at Thredbo.) It was about a half hour drive from Merimbula. Here are all their details:
Pender Lea Trail Rides
Kia-Ora Mia
Tantawanglo Lane, Candelo NSW 2550 (6km north of Candelo)
Phone: 02 6493 2862
Mobile: 0427 048 636
Web: www.penderleahorserides.com.au [which is having issues at the moment]
[Editorial note made in 2013: There is significant controversy about this company, including dozens of allegations of animal abuse as well as assaults on people – see comments for details.
Editorial note 2014: The owner has now been convicted of a long list of crimes against animals – see comments for details.]
Horses to suit all standards of riders. Some of the rides available:
- Twilight ride between 5:00pm to 7:00pm.
- Day rides available by booking only.
- Pony Rides for the little people in the family.
- Catering for families, small exclusive groups or large corporate groups.
Horses are visually stunning; a mix of calm and powerful, with daunting size (and bearing; cows are a similar size but no-one describes cows as “noble”) and very visible muscles beneath short fur. They tend to shuffle or stamp a foot periodically and/or swish their tail or shake their head. They snuffle, snort (especially in frustration), whinny (especially in greeting), and neigh. They are hotter than humans to touch, and soft like velvet.
The sensation of having them eat from one’s hand is quite dry and breathy. Their lips are giant and firm (unlike human lips, which are soft and mould to other objects). And they look mighty fine in water.
Walking on a horse is quite leisurely and comfortable, although the four-legged gait is just a little odd. If you fall asleep, you will fall off. Otherwise (unless your saddle is too loose) it is quite difficult to fall off. The reins are no good for balance – just steering. You grip with your knees – using unfamiliar muscles that made us both sore.
Riding a trotting horse is more difficult than any other step – it’s extremely bumpy. You need to get into the syncopated rhythm, and use the stirrups to go up and down with the horse.
A canter (or slow gallop) is exhilarating as well as being quite smooth. If you start to slide off (most likely due to attempting to turn the horse, or if the horse turns itself or leaps an obstacle), you probably won’t be able to correct yourself unless you’re moderately competent (my foot fell out of one stirrup, and that was fine). It feels wonderfully smooth (if you sit back in the saddle and flow with the steps) and fast – like flying, but with the exciting immediacy of being close to the ground.
Getting on a horse is a little like climbing into a tall vehicle while knowing it may or may not move, but a confident (and reasonably tall) person can get on first go using a stirrup. Falling off a horse generally involves a slide to one side or another, a brief trip downwards as the horse exits stage left – then a bruising hit on the shoulder, hip, or side (unless there are complications). Neither of us fell off (CJ had never ridden a horse before).
The strong smell of horse is about 10% Human Male Who Needs A Shower; 50% Leather; and 40% wet dog. It sticks to everything – clothing, humans, saddles, blankets – for days or years afterwards (depending how well they can be washed). So long as you’re outdoors, it smells wonderful (in much the way that freshly-cut grass smells good).
If you haven’t ridden a horse, you REALLY should. We rode for an hour and a half, and it cost $45 each.
Here’s a video that makes our canter look a lot slower than it really is:
Some awesomenesses that are fast approaching:
Karaoke (oh f–foccacia)
Hot air balloon
Meander at a beach
Yeah, yeah. I know. I should have called this one “Beach” and this one “Take heroic coastal pictures”. Whatever.
Look! I’m walking on water!
#277: Go for a walk
It says plenty about me that the year of Daily Awesomeness is in its final stretch, and yet this is the first time walking anywhere has featured.
Flushed with holiday spirit, I followed CJ from the Main Street of Merimbula up the Northern Headland on spider-festooned trails to Bar Beach and back again.
I like pretty things, and thus it was worth it*.
*Whether for CJ’s prettiness or the scenery is anyone’s guess.
#110: Ride a wave
The South coast of New South Wales is much, much cheaper than the rest of the coast – mostly, I think, because the water is always cold (due to being, ya know, South-ish).
I rather hesitantly donned my antiquated swimming trunks and went to the beach with CJ. CJ happily plunged into the water at once. I walked in very cautiously, gasping at the chilly water every time it invaded another square centimetre of skin.
Over the course of about half an hour, I ventured forward until the water was somewhere between my waist and chest. At about that point, two things happened:
I started getting bored.
The wind picked up.
It all seemed like a very bad idea.
But then I spotted one of the rare waves had the even rarer quality of being in just the right spot. I jumped, paddled frantically, and it caught me.
Catching a wave is like being a very small child spun around by a very big adult. When you ARE an adult, and the one pushing you around is the ocean, it’s a wonderful, fast, weightless experience.
More plz 🙂
In real-time news, I have just learned the magical skill of links. Lots and lots of links! You can expect plenty more, my peeps!
A dignified nod of the head to Sommer, who gave me the shortest, most specific, easiest-to-follow instructions at Nathan‘s writing forums.
#276: Magic Mountain
Two years ago, CJ and I visited a place he remembered from his childhood as being fantastic. I later discovered this beautiful childhood moment from his primary school books:
Awww!
We really weren’t sure if the Magic Mountain adventure playground was going to be good or terrible – and it was great. CJ even injured himself by falling off the toboggan at high speeds.
THIS time, we knew exactly what we were in for, and we moved with purposeful strides between the three greatest exhibits.
Magic Mountain costs about $35 per adult for as many rides on everything as you’d like. You will want to go more than once, so don’t buy individual tickets.
We went to the rollercoaster first.
That little green car is at just the position that I think, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.” From there you can either look out across the trees (very pretty, but not reassuring) or straight down through absolutely nothing – no struts or supports or bits of track – to the ground (even less reassuring).
Immediately after that there’s a long drop all the way back to ground level. I scream easily it’s true – but I never heard anyone NOT scream at that point. Also, you get great air (so much so that smaller children need to be physically held in by their parents).
All of it is driven by a few rickety little engines like this one:
Here you can see the carefree joy on our faces:
After we were thoroughly woken up (several times), we moved on to our next port of call: the toboggan (aka “CJ’s Doom”).
The roller coaster is frightening, but the toboggan has something it lacks: personal choice. You hold the brake as you go down, and the faster you go the more you need to use your body to keep the sled from flipping right over.
As a result, the chance of actual injury is very high. The attendant noticed CJ and I getting faster and faster on each run down the mountain (sidebar: there are lovely views of Merimbula hills and the sea for anyone who actually looks up), and decided it was the right time to tell a story.
A couple brought their four-year old along. He was too young to ride by himself, so he rode with his Dad.
Big mistake.
The mum went first, and she went at a sane speed.
Then came the second, heavier toboggan. . . which was controlled, not by Dad, but by a four-year old child.
The four-year old, lacking both self-preservation instincts and fast reflexes, crashed into his mother’s sled at extreme speed. Blood gushed onto the track, and the mother (and her head injury) was taken away by ambulance.
Thus endeth the tale.
The same attendant also showed us a thick line of burn scar on his arm, which he’d given himself by falling off on a Summer day, when the track rippled the air with heat.
For those living in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s Summer right now.
One of the bonuses of the toboggan is that it hauls you back up to the beginning of the track again (rather than letting you walk up the hill, like on the water slide).
The ride back up is very serene (so much so that there’s a quasi-educational diorama towards the end) so after twenty or so goes I indulged in some light weeding on my way along.
The attendant at the bottom commented on my increasing speed, and I said, “Yep – you just get faster and faster until you injure yourself.”
He looked a little perturbed. (I was JOKING, darn it.)
I went down one more time and said goodbye to him, with a strong implication of “See? I’m stopping before I get hurt.”
But then stuff happened and CJ and I came back (the correct sequence of rides is roller coaster, toboggan, water slide, toboggan/lunch, roller coaster, water slide – because you can’t go on the roller coaster wet, but you can dry off on the toboggan).
It was less crowded, which meant we rode a new toboggan each time.
Sometimes they were smooth. Sometimes they were not. I used the first three corners to judge how much I needed to brake for the rest.
I was rattling down at enormous speed, hurling my body back and forth with painful jerks (lifting sideways for corners and lurching back to the centre of the track as the corners end), when I came off the third corner and as the sled jerked back down to the lowest point of the track I didn’t stay with it. The sled ran off ahead, jackknifing and slurring to a halt. I slid after it on my knee and elbow, and bashed my cheekbone against the metal rim.
I scrambled back on board within a second, knowing CJ was hurtling down the track after me.
From that point on, I used the brakes.
Thus ended the tale.
Once we were thoroughly bent and bruised from the toboggan, we moved on to arguably the best ride of all: the water slides.
One of them is good.
The other is brilliant.
It’s called the Black Hole. Here’s a view of it from a little way down the hillside:
The thing about the Black Hole is that it IS a black hole. You get on the slide and immediately plunge sharply beneath the earth. In total darkness and silence (except for your own screaming) you perform a full circle. Just when you’re utterly disoriented and think the darkness will last forever, the tube around you turns light blue, and then – zoom! – you come out into sunshine.
In the photo above, you can see the opening where you fly out into the light. You can also see colourful plastic tubes sticking out of the earth. They’re air holes.
Eeeexceellleeeennnt.
CJ and I ate icecreams and fairy floss, because it would be simply wrong not to. We know how these things work.
Also, I was gored by a triceratops.
Think they’re vegetarians? Think you’re safe?
Think again.
Coming soon: Ride a wave, Go walkies, and HORSERIDING (on Sunday, with video).
#275: Fancy-Pants Restaurant
It’s not a holiday if you don’t spend way too much on sweeeeettt delicious fooooooodd. During our second honeymoon, CJ and I ate at the Merimbula RSL club, the Seabreeze Cafe (really nice battered fish), the Wharf Restaurant and Aquarium (I had the duck, and it was insanely delicious), and Wheelers Oyster Farm and Restaurant. This is Wheelers. 
It’s a beautiful building with lots of wood, glass, and stone. 
CJ drank a strongbow cider, and I had a raspberry lemonade. Can you guess what I ordered from my cutlery? 
And here it is. . . our appetiser. 
That’s what a mixed half dozen of cooked oysters looks like. Now here’s the thing: My Mum LOVES oysters, but she always eats them uncooked. It had never occurred to me to eat cooked oysters until I looked at the menu at Wheelers.
Those three oysters were the greatest oysters – the greatest three mouthfuls – of my life. If ever there was a time for florid prose, it was here. I carefully didn’t drink anything between the two courses – I just sat, quietly feeling the three flavours mingle like old friends. Then it was time to move on. But where to go from there? CJ had fish and chips. I had. . . 
Mmm. . . eyeballs. Inside the mound of food and sauce were three crabs that I slowly but surely broke open and ate. It was epic. The aftermath: 
We considered eating dessert – which of course would have been excellent – but I’m a purist when it comes to junk food (I look at the average chocolate cake and say, “Not enough lard!”) Thus, we bought candy for dessert on our way home. But I still remember my old friends Singapore, Rocky, and Plumrick. Don’t worry boys – we’ll meet again.
S#95: Paddle
“I’ve thought of something,” CJ said, “and now I’ve thought of it I can’t stop thinking of it.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The wide sand bars here – they make the water warm up. Sharks like warm water.”
And so it was that CJ and I dressed in our fragile swimmers and walked hand in hand down the dark street to the black sea. It was a Wednesday night – a school night, here in Merimbula – and it was perfectly quiet. Hushed, you might say. Ominous.
We reached the sea and walked carefully across the springy grass – barefoot. This was the same night we drank a bottle of Moscato (mostly me, to be honest) and my imagination was on high alert. Also, since it was 11pm at night, my contact lenses were starting to pack it in and my vision was blurry.
Out of the quiet, we heard the lap, lap, lapping of tiny waves. The tide was high, almost hitting the base of the concrete steps. To the right was a long pier, deserted except for a single rescue boat (empty). A single light pole stood beside it, surrounded by a glittering halo of bugs endlessly circling.
All around, the hills of Merimbula rose up, sprinkled with lights.
In front, there was nothing but darkness. We clutched hands and ventured out onto a thin stretch of wet and compacted sand. Farther away from the rescue boat, we saw men shining torches into the shallow water, thrusting nets out ahead of them.
Something was alive in the water.
We half-stumbled forward, not sure where to find the water – feeling our way with our feet. I hit the water first, and a sudden slope underfoot where the shore was rapidly eroding. We walked out, moving smoothly – silent ourselves in the quiet scuffle of the waves. Standing still, I felt the sand trickling away under my bare feet.
The water was a pool of darkness, and cold. We didn’t drop hands. The sky was shrouded in clouds, cutting off the light of the stars.
“What was that?” said CJ. He wasn’t joking.
I screamed hysterically and ran for the shore.
We walked home in a reflective silence. But the important thing was that we lived.
PS I just found out that Rowena Cory Daniells plans to write another “King Rolen’s Kin” book after she finished the Outcast Chronicles. Yay!!!
Vested Interests
I’m still madly reading history books. If you’re a writer researching a period of Australian history (including the little that’s known about Aboriginal lives before 1788), you need to read Geoffrey Blainey’s “Black Kettle and Full Moon” (I’m also trying to find “Triumph of the Nomads”, which is just about Aborigines) and “Australian Lives” by Michael Bosworth. Both of these books focus on all the small, daily details that writers need most.
So here’s a wonderful section from “Australian Lives” (as World War 2 caused rationing of clothes):
The ‘Victory’ suit was cut to reduce the amount of fabric used – lapels were smaller, cuffs were discarded, buttons were reduced to a minimum, but worst of all, the government decreed that men could live and work without a waistcoat. This caused a tremendous outcry, which was so loud and so persistent, that eventully the government gave in and allowed the wearing of waistcoats to continue.
This random photo brought to you by the holiday CJ and I have just returned from. All the details and many pretty photos (including horseriding!) are happening for the next week or so at http://twittertales.wordpress.com.
S#73: Get away from it all
We’re here!
CJ and I are on our second honeymoon* at The Palms Apartments, Merimbula. This is precisely where we came on our original honeymoon, except this time we’re on the first floor – which means THIS time we have water views and a proper balcony.
The proper balcony (also, a portrait of the author in her night attire):
It also has a good-sized spa bath in the spare bathroom (having two bathrooms on our honeymoon was a very nice way to ease into sharing a room and house). And complimentary bubble bath, naturally. (Side note: I brought a little plastic duck I was given eons ago, thinking it was full of bubble bath. It wasn’t: it was bubble mix and a blower stick. Every so often, when I least expect it, bubbles float down into my vision. CJ’s guerilla instincts have been drawn out by a duck. Who knew?)
Other than various awesomenesses and beachin’ it, we will spend a lot of time mooching about. This is a Brown Brothers Moscato that I particurly like (and thus “tidied up” from the leftovers at the birthday part last week).
Yeah, this is the life.
Our apartment also has a feature I look for in companions and houses alike: eccentricity. All the Palms apartments (other than the giant Penthouse) are built very, very long so that everyone gets water views. Which is why visitors end up with hallways like this:
The far end is the front door and the main bedroom is right next to it. I’m taking the photo beside the kitchen/living area, which is also (rationally enough) where the AC is located. CJ and I spent the whole week saying things like:
“Hey look! The hallway has a vanishing point.”
“I’m going to fetch my phone from the bedroom. If I’m not back in half an hour it means I got lost.”
“Do we have any snacks for me to eat on the way?”
“I’d fetch the camera from our room, but it’s only three hours until dinner time.”
and so on.
CJ also pointed out it was an ideal location for Australian Rules Indoor Quidditch**. All you need to play is a long (and indestructable) hall and one of those bouncy balls that lights up when you hit them against something. You also require complete darkness.
One person throws the ball hard against a wall. It bounces several times as it goes toward the other person, who attempts to catch it based on the sudden flashes of light.
*repeat*
We considered playing it, but the light fitting is glass and the walls are plaster (which could break or get stained). Oh well.
Let me know if any of you manage to play Australian Rules Indoor Quidditch. . . it would make me so happy.
*not actually true. I don’t mention trips away online until we’re safely back home. So nyah.
**for which we tip our mutual hat to Nick, who has played it many a time.
