Festive_Felicitations
Well-Known Member
Sorry major fail on the photo front as I forgot my camera
In short - I had a wonderful time. Beau was very well behaved and seemed to enjoy himself, though probably needs to be a bit fitter. Hounds (4 1/2 couple) worked farily well and set up a 3(?) foxes but they managed to get away/ go to earth before we could catch them. The field equalled a grand total of 4, with a staff of 4... Days cap/membership was only $20AUD
Hunt staff and everyone there was very friendly, stirrup cup was mulled port - yum! No exciting hip flasks. No falls though one of the whippers in went for an unsheduled swim.
In long - get comfy, if you want a warts and all story of a days fox hunting in NSW, if not stop reading now
I'm not very good at writing coherent reports so I'll do a technical report on the hunt, then my day.
The meet was in the Southern Highlands (2.5 hrs from home - no such thing as a 'local' pack here as I think there are only 2 hunts in NSW. Vic has a lot more). The countryside is rolling hills of quite poor farming country, shallow soils on granite which sticks out a lot. Similar (going by photos in H&H) to the moors (Yorkshire maybe) in the UK but not as cold! Also no stone walls just a lot of plain wire fences, so you either need a horse that will jump a coat on a fence, or be good at opening gates.
We were hunting on Arthursleigh a 20,000ha sheep and cattle farm owned by the Uni of Sydney, we didn't leave the property, even though 1/2 of it was out of bounds due to lambing ewes. The meet was at the Shearing shed 'out the back' with no host as such.
We moved off at 9:30am to the first 'covert'. Coverts today = gullies of scrubby bush and brambles. The foxes tend to either run up the gully or bolt across country to the next gully.
Found about 1/2 way up the first covert (i.e. river bed) and hounds hunted for about 4km till they lost the scent. I'm not quite sure how this run went as we were stuck the wrong side of a fence on the top on the river bank.
Re-united with the huntsman we moved onto the next gully were hounds set up a big old dog fox who gave a great run across open country before going to earth in a wombat hole. We started to circle back to the lorries when they set off on a third trail and the huntsman abandoned his horse to follow on foot (too many wire fences in the way). I'm not sure if it was a false scent, wallaby or they lost it quickly but they soon came puffing back. By this time it was getting hot and everyone was puffed so we headed home. Saying 'Goodnight' at 2:30pm in the afternoon is weird!
They only had a few hounds out as its the end of the season and they have lost a few to injury and had two of their older ones die (suspect that they found some old fox bait). Also the ones they had out today were either slightly green or had been blacklisted earlier in the season so today was a bit of a testing/training day to see how they worked re- who to keep for next season. I'm no expert but I thought they could have worked a bit better as pack at times, however the huntsman was very very pleased with how they worked today.
'Ware hole' doesn't mean rabbit holes but wombats (badgers on steriods) and are a major hazad! The entrance to one easily accomodated 1.5 couple of hounds...
Courtesey of google, a wombat hole!
Ok my day. Moving off it was obvious Beau was the only one who didn't know what was going on as he was trotting on a loose rein while everyone else jogged excitedly. I have to admit that I was very glad it was such a small field. He got a bit wound up /worried by 2 others who were slightly out of control and I can easily imagine that in a field of 30 it would have quickly have just become to much to cope with.
Overall I'm very pleased with my utterly suburban horse who dodged wobat holes with nifty elegance, forded rivers with out blinking (only ever done civilised XC waters before), bush bashed like a tough old stock horse and happily went from an inhand gallop to sedate walk with out argument, and only ran away from 1 cow! (a grumpy hefier and I agreed with him that discretion was the better part of valour ). He also caught on very quickly that when the hounds speak life is about to get exciting!
I have also come to the conclusion that he is bloody fast for a 1/2 WB! At one point I was up wih the field master and her horse was legging it while we were still in 'cruise'! It was lovely being out with such a small field as at different points in the day I ended up tagging along with one of the whippers in and the huntsman and got to see how they worked the hounds.
I think the strangest part of the day was the fact that the huntsman was Irish!! I had mental image of Flurrie Knox in my head all day and kept expecting him to try and sell the grey he was sat on Also he managed to hunt all day (including a fair bit of foot work) in a very warm looking shirt, wasitcoat and wool jacket with out breaking out into a visible sweat! I was hot in my shirt and black DR jacket.
At the end of the day as there was no central pub to retire to everyone sat on a lorry ramp out of the wind and we had a picnic, talked about the day and the upcoming meets, and plans for next year.
Ok I'll stop waffling now. I hope you have found the above mildly interesting, and I can't wait to go again!
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