It's flatish. There's radish? Who's Gladis?

After Noosa I headed for a tiny town a few hours inland called Biggenden. A few months ago my Aunt Loretta emailed and said she had a friend who was coming to Australia to spend 9 months on a dairy farm and she got me in touch with her and we started chatting over email and facebook. She invited me to come and stay for a few days with the family who own the dairy farm and I couldn't resist since it's so opposite of anything I have ever done growing up in Toronto. I had never actually met Allison before coming to stay with her but we got along great and her host family made me feel right at home!

Here's Allison and I for a big night out at the Biggenden pub. Did I mention that Biggenden has a population of a little over 1000?

Here's their dog Tobey!

One of the many things I got to do on my 2 day stay at the farm was ride a horse...

Checkout the backdrop. So beautiful.

Then it was time to go and do some farm work so I had to put on some of Allison's grubby clothes. Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

I also got to ride their pony Jenny. I was dieing of laughter the whole time. I was riding her bareback and could not get her to steer no matter how hard I tried. She just kept going back to the gate to try and get out or bending down to eat grass. Can't blame her really.

There are a lot of cows that they have to milk every day on the farm. A lot...

Here are some of the baby cows. It made me kind of sad because they get taken away from their Mother right after they are born. On the other hand since it doesn't get too cold here the cows get to roam free on a very large area of land rather then being kept in a barn like they often are in Canada.

Here I am looking tough on a 4 wheel bike...

Then it was time to milk the cows. The cows get milked twice a day. Once at 5am and once at 5pm. They first get rounded up and are herded into these milking bays 28 at a time (there are about 200 cows) and then the milking machines are hooked up to them. While they are being milked they are fed grain to give them vitamins and nutrients. It's not an easy job. Allison certainly works hard for her wages. Not only that but the cows shit and piss all over the place while you're milking and as you can see where they stand to milk is right under the cows behind making you the bullseye each time. When it happens it splatters everywhere so you better run! Here's Allison with the Iodine spray that they put on the Utters after milking to try and prevent diseases.

Here's me touching a cow boob and not knowing quite how I feel about it...

After we finished milking, Robbie (Allison's boss) casually asked me if I wanted to see where he "keeps his semen". Ha! Like I haven't heard that one before. He showed me these 2 jugs where cow semen is kept in liquid nitrogen and he uses it to impregnate the cows.

Which is exactly what he showed me next. Yes, that's his arm in the cows bagingo right up to his shoulder. Yikes! I wasn't sure if a "congratulations" was in order or not...

Here's Hannah, Robbie and Rebecca's 5 year old daughter with their cat Millie. She did a great job of showing me around the farm and introducing me to all the animals...


Today we decided to climb Mount Walsh which was behind their house. We set off at about 9:30am to climb up to the farthest right peak which we reckoned would take about 3 hours round trip.

Here's a closer look at our destination...

Here we are before the climb looking pretty at ease and ready for a challenge.

I didn't know at the time what a challenge it would be.

They weren't exaggerating.

The first part was tiring but other than a steep walk that got my heart racing and a few loose rocks and dirt, totally do-able. Here's the view from about a quarter of the way up...

After that the climb got way more challenging and there were a few times when I wanted to give up. We had to scale very steep rocks with very little to grip and at one point I had a full on panic attack and needed much encouragement to continue. I think I realized my fear of heights to it's full potential on this climb. Thankfully Bec and Allison did not let me give up and after about 2 hours of climbing and using our leg muscles like never before, we made it to the top. The view was well worth the challenge. That dark spot is a cloud!

This pic might give you a better idea of the rocks we climbed to get to the top. That look of terror on my face is 100% genuine!

Allison at the top...

Bec at the top!

And me at the top! Hooray!Going down was much easier than up although none the less challenging on our leg muscles. At one point Allison (who was in front) said "It's getting flat-ish" to which Becs (who was behind her) said "there's radish?" followed by me who replied "Who's Gladis?" I think the altitude may have affected our brains a little bit!

Tomorrow Allison and I will get up at 5am (which should be fine considering I am completely exhausted and could fall asleep for the night now and it's only 6:15pm) and drive to Hervey Bay where we will get a day tour of Fraser Island and then tomorrow night I will take the Greyhound night bus from 8:20pm - 9am to Airlie Beach where I will hop on a Sail Boat for 2 days!

See you up the coast!