Whoa Boy (10/4/14)

At 9am this morning I had my horse ride from the ranch so was up early to get breakfast before I left. There were 3 of us in the group and I was the only one staying at the ranch so we had to wait for the other two to arrive which didn't take long. I found out after they arrived that it was two women originally from Scotland. The mum was visiting her daughter who had moved to Perth a few years ago with her Australian husband. They were on a short break in Kalbarri for a few days. We got sized for helmets and matched to a horse and were soon sitting astride our trusty steeds. We were given basic instructions on how to steer the horse and how to get them to walk quicker and started our 90 minute ride. We headed out towards the river away from the road and it was incredibly peaceful but it was already starting to get warm from the morning sun. I've been pony trekking before in the UK and you can pretty much let the pony do it's own thing because they've done the route so many times before. The horses here sort of did the same but you had to make sure they stayed one behind the other just so they didn't kick out at each other when trying to overtake. This at least required a little attention. Mine was a bit slower than the others and didn't really move much quicker when I gave it the signal so one of the instructors had to give it some encouragement at times. We got out into the bush and the instructor asked if everyone was happy to have a go at cantering for a bit. This I hadn't done before but after some instruction felt a bit more confident. The instructor went first then the other two women then me then the second instructor followed. As soon as the horse in front of me took off mine knew what to do so required no signal from me and was soon sprinting after the others who kept disappearing round corners in the bush every now and then so I was never sure how far behind I was. We soon came to a halt further up for a breather and to make sure everyone was doing OK. I have never been that fast on a horse and to be honest it was truly fun but at the same time I didn't feel like I had a great amount of control which was a bit nerve racking. I didn't fall off though which is a bonus. We gave the horses a chance to cool down by riding them into the river next which was a new experience. The water came up to my knees which was nice and refreshing in the heat but my trainers got drenched. It wouldn't take them long to dry out in this weather though. After the river ride we started our journey back towards the ranch and gave cantering another go. My horse was feeling lazy and definitely needed some persuasion because it kept dropping back to a trot which was much less comfortable and it wouldn't respond to my rib kicks but after a couple of goes I worked out how much to do it and soon caught up with the others. During one of the canters one of the women dropped her camera so we stopped for one of the instructors to go back to get it. As he raced off my horse took this as the signal to run again and bolted after him. This caught me rather by surprise (I crapped myself) and so had to pull on the reigns quickly and shouted "Whoa boy", more out of panic than choice, to get him to stop. I managed it but the instructor told me to control the horse which I thought was a bit unfair as I hadn't expected that to happen. After his return we had another go at cantering and then slowed to a steady walk for the rest of the journey back to the ranch. It had been a lot of fun and definitely something I hadn't done before and the perfect setting in which to try it. Once back at the ranch we dismounted in turn and gave our helmets back. We thanked the instructors and I said goodbye to the women before heading back to my room. I got a few more bits together and went out on the bike to go to the visitor centre in town for information on getting to one of the natural features in the national park called 'Natures window'. This was a natural formation of rocks that had formed a hole in the middle of them that you could look through and see the surrounding landscape. It was down by one of the gorges that had formed over thousands of years and I'd heard the scenery was amazing. The staff in the visitors centre told me that the window was 25km off the road and only half of it was sealed. The rest was corrugated mud, sand and stones. After my incident at The Pinnacles I didn't fancy doing much more off-roading and after getting a few more opinions of the route decided it wasn't worth trying on the bike. I then enquired about tours that were being run and also about hiring a car for the purpose but neither were available. Maybe I could do it on the way back to Perth so I gave up on the idea and looked to doing something else. On the way into town yesterday I'd noticed loads of tourist signs pointing to different view points along the coast so I decided to ride the bike back to these and take a short walk to each one to see what they were like. The rock formations along this coast were incredible. I'm not exactly a fanatic of geology but I couldn't not appreciate the rocks here. The way they've been eroded over the years and the colours of the layers that are clearly visible is quite something. You'll see from the photo's but one of the areas is called rainbow valley and it's obvious how it got it's name. Getting to all the view points took some time so by the time I'd visited all of them I didn't have much time left for snorkelling. I rode back to the Kalbarri bay and parked up. The sun had now disappeared behind the clouds and the sea had become a little rough but I decided to have a go at snorkelling anyway. Once in the water I realised the visibility was crap and so gave up on the idea but the sea was warm enough to swim in and spent the time doing that instead. The swell was pretty strong and so I spent a bit of time laying in the shallows being thrown around by the waves laughing. It's a good job I was the only one there as I may have been carted off to a padded cell had anyone been watching. I didn't care though, I was having a great time, the down side being that sand does in fact get everywhere! After the sun set I got back on the bike and rode back to the ranch for a shower. I went to get some dinner afterwards and was surprised to find quite a few more people had turned up and the kitchen was now a hum of activity. There was plenty of room for everyone though and I soon had my student dinner of pasta and sauce prepared. I'd picked up some beers at the supermarket on the way back to the ranch and sat down with the others to enjoy them. I got chatting to a French lad who has a bike at home and spends a lot of time travelling around Europe on it so we had a fair bit to talk about. I also got chatting to another group of French people (there's a lot of them here for some reason) who had arrived late last night and who I'd seen during breakfast this morning. There were 5 blokes and one girl and they were looking for work somewhere along the coast. I practiced my exceptionally limited French on them and they were at least impressed with my accent. After dinner I phoned a hostel in Denham, which was my next stop tomorrow, to book a room but found out they were fully booked and so decided to ride there anyway to see what else was available. Just as a back up plan I spoke to the Italian couple, who I'd got pretty chatty with by now, who were also heading there tomorrow and got their details so I could meet them at a rough campsite outside town if I needed to. We all sat down to watch a bit of TV in the kitchen and after a couple more beers I called it a night, said goodnight/ bonne nuit to everyone, and went to my room. Being careful not to disturb the bed too much I got in and was soon asleep.