Camping at Leslie Dam

We left Hampton and we are making our way slowly to Stanthorpe. On our way we stopped in at Warwick, which is a really large town, for lunch. It was surprising! We had a look at all the shops and then drove out to Leslie Dam to camp overnight. It was so pretty and there was lots of wildlife to check out. Chris and I went for a walk in the cool of the night and took the spotlight to look for animals. It was so beautiful at night and the stars were amazing :)

But the funniest thing was, Chris went out to put the aerial up so we could watch some TV and he was confronted with a bull! The bull was just as surprised as Chris was and lurched forward at him! We had to coax him away from the van so we could put the aerial up. But it was the funniest thing ever! There was a heard of cattle just roaming around all of the caravans and tents.

There is field and fields of this stuff called sorgom? It makes the paddocks look red.

There were also fields and fields of sunflowers

This guy was riding on the side of the road. It looked like he wanted to race :)

Our first time having to use a dump point for our waste. Eeeewwww!

I wanted to be friends with the cow...Fail

The friendly bull :)

Chris tried his luck at fishing but was unsuccessful. He caught more weeds than anything.

Leslie Dam turned out to be a really nice place to stay!

Horseriding at Emu Creek

Today Chris and I left Meringadan and backtracked to Crows Nest and then to Emu Creek to go horseriding!!! Yay!!! It was such a lovely property with really well trained horses. We rode western style which was a little different for me but really comfortable! The guy had 500 acres of land with a river running through it. It was beautiful. We didn't take the camera with us though, so you will just have to believe me :)

We then stayed at Hampton at a free camping spot where we slept so well and woke up with aches and pains in places I hadn't felt them in a long time!!!

The last Shananigans

Saying goodbye to Brodie and Abbie

Saying goodbye to Marina and Ella

Dakota my steed for the day :)

After school shananigans

Today Chris was on duty for after school play time! Chris and the kids played on the swings, in the sandpit, on the trampoline (that Chris made a spring fling off) and on the street riding bikes!

Blog writing while watching all the action

Brodie

Abbey

Today I helped with Ella duties during the day with Marina while she did some food shopping. She made me realise I had muscles I never thought I had! Then after dinner I helped with story time. It was such a lovely relaxing day!!!

Toowoomba with family!

Today we left Yarraman and drove to Toowoomba to see Trevor, Marina, Taya, Cooper and little 8 week Ella. We were staying for lunch and ended up staying the night! We had such a great time catching up that we went to bed at 1:30am! Luckily Ella slept through, so Marina didn't suffer too bad :)

Our gorgeous little cousins! Ella, Taya, Me and Cooper.

A very nice lunch at the Chocolate Cottage and yes it lived up to it's name! Yummy Chocolate!!!

Taya and Cooper saving us from the magpies. We hoped that the magpies wouldn't turn around and retaliate!

No more magpies

We had such a lovely lunch that we couldn't eat dinner. We just talked all night after the kids bedtime stories :)

Cooyar Show and Rodeo

Today Chris and I went to Cooyar and I experienced my first Rodeo. The morning was a bit slow because of the rainy weather, so we decided to go out and explore a bit before the Rodeo at night.

A great big bull!

This horse looked so perfect that it looked plastic! I was intrigued. And it looked like it was smiling.

We went to Mt Binga in the hope of scones with Jam and Cream. But Mt Binga is nothing at the end of a dirt road!

So we drove to Maidenwell to try our luck there and yay scones!!!

After Lunch, we drove 2kms to Coomba Falls, which we would have missed if we didn't go to Maidenwell and it was so worth the drive! The scenery changed dramatically again.

Granite Cliffs

Oil painting setting on camera. Something Fancy :)

Lovers xxxx

There are so many Cactai in the area and on the side of the roads!

When Chris and I drove back to Cooyar, we stopped off at the suspension bridge. It was a little rickety and really moved around when we walked across it.

After the suspension bridge, we went back to the Cooyar show to get ready for the Rodeo.

The first event was the unbroken horses, which was pretty cool. The guys were pretty good with the horses. I was a bit concerned that it wasn't good for the horses, but they weren't too heavy handed.

These boys were so adorable!!!

Then we moved over to the post ripping event. The guys worked in teams of two. One to chainsaw the marking out and the other to split the posts out. There were some guys who were quick and some that were soooo slow!

After the post ripping we saw a few horsemanship shows. We didn't get photos of these but I will try to upload a few video clips that were pretty unreal!

Then as night fell we watched the Rodeo. Those guys were very tough. The bulls were so spiteful, they would pick someone out and just keep going at them. Some of the bulls even moved the crush thing as they bucked and carried on before the came out. It was unbelieveable! Only a couple of men hurt themselves badly but the rest did ok. It must be so annoying for the guys who didn't score though. It is so unpredictable for them and a lot came a long way to not even score.

Trying to keep dry :)

Going...

Going...

Gone...

The night went off with bang...ha ha ha