Spat out by Sydney…. But you can’t beat a good ball!!

I suppose if what we were doing was easy then everybody would be doing it, and Sydney certainly proved that what we have undertaken is no small task. More about Sydney later.

February……was our charity auction at Paddy’s Irish bar in Albury. Not a bad turn up and for the night and we raised approximately $7,000 which was a great effort, and many thanks must go to Pat and Cathy from Paddy’s for all their hard work.

It is only about 2 months before we leave Albury and head for Darwin. It seems that not a second goes past these days that we are not flat out trying to prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. The trucks are getting all sponsored up and the horses are in work and we are all chewing at the bit to get started.

Though I have spoken to nearly all of the bodies in every town from Albury to Goondiwindi that we need to get permissions from such as the Police, Rural Lands Protection Boards etc. We had to go right to the top to the chief of police and RTA for special events in NSW. We thought seeing as though we had to go to Sydney anyway we would try and knock over a few birds with one stone, so while we were there we saw the Police, RTA, Stock & Station Agents head office and the head of the Cancer Council.

We didn’t get away for Sydney until about 6pm on the Tuesday, so we drove for about 5 hours until we got tired which was about an hour outside of the city.  At that stage we pulled off the highway down a side road and threw the swags out on the stock route for a beer and a good nights sleep. The next morning was a bit of an eye opener. Sydney has a new tunnel which goes from the freeway all the way into the city. Not a bad idea but you wouldn’t want to light a match! Sydney can learn a thing or two about tunnel ventilation from Melbourne – but there was no leaks in the Sydney tunnel…

In terms of obtaining all of the permissions from all of the appropriate bodies we couldn’t have asked for a better trip. On the other hand, trying to get some media exposure for our ‘highlight event under the Year Of The Outback’, well… - Sydney kicked us both in the back-sides really, and sent us home.

We were as right as rain when the media thought we had some horses in Sydney, but when they realised it was just Ian and myself, all of a sudden they were all too busy and no-one wanted to know about a couple of boys from the country – not without all the bells and whistles any way.  Never mind, if the longest charity horse ride the world has seen is not good enough to rate a mention then in the famous words of Churchill ‘We shall return!’, but this time we’ll throw a few horses in for good measure. About June the 4th to be exact.

Like with everyone and everything at the moment insurance is proving to be a headache. It’s frustrating but we’ll secure something by the time we leave.

We attended The Man From Snowy River Bush Festival on the weekend of the 5th-7th April and sold a mountain of merchandise. There will be a lot of water under the bridge before we arrive back in Corryong for the festival next year, but we are all very much looking forward to it.

The Festival, as usual, was a memorable event, and surely is one of the toughest tests of all round horsemanship going around at the moment.  It is a solid effort to make a fair fist of the preliminary tests, but to come out and do the final two events of the brumby catch and roughriding to win outright certainly sorts the great from the best…

The 27th of April saw the arrival of the Tintaldra Medieval Ball.  The efforts of the Tintaldra community, in particular [names here], were truly amazing.

Picture a typical small country town hall, completely converted to a medieval banquet hall, including handmade cellophane stained glass windows, suits of armour, handpainted glassware, candelabra, and trestle seating.  Entertainment was fantastic, featuring amazing acts of juggling, balancing, fire twirling and magic.

The most impressive thing was the participation of all those attending, by coming adorned in period dress… There were wizards and wenches, knaves and damsels, kings, queens, minstrels and monks.  A great night was had by all, feasting upon roasted rabbit and spit-roast pork, as well as hearty vegetable soup, all provided by local residents.

A couple of us managed to imbibe a tad too much Ye Olde Heavey beer and felt a little worse for wear first thing Sunday morning.  It suffices to say that there was more than one headache amongst the campfires team.

All this only one week before our last major fundraiser… the Albury Akta-Vite Campfires Against Cancer Charity Ball. Huge thanks must go to Sabrina Brown, Jenny Kelly and Sally Weatherlake for organising almost every detail of the ball.  The venue, food, entertainment and auction were all first-rate.  “Recover” kept the songs flowing for the dancers and the floor stayed packed until after 1.00am.  There are a few photos[insert link to pre-departure function page here] of the night showing the fun of the evening, and all up the event raised around $10,000.00.

Now for the fun of the ride…

Cheers for now
Dan and Ian