Entries about ranch sorting

Just along from Diamond Beach is Redhead Beach, a great place for shell hunting

and then there's Nine Mile Beach

which goes all the way to the nearest town of Tuncurry. One afternoon I set off walking along the beach, but got distracted by the temptation of the sea...

As I walked back the sun was setting

and the fishermen were making the last catch of the day

One of Chris's secret spot was the 'Australia Cave',

where if you look from the inside out, the view is framed by the shape of Australia!

as Chris demonstrated

Surfing
Like most Aussie's that live by the sea, Chris' passion was surfing.

It was such a pleasure to be taken out for my first surf lesson! and with an excellent teacher - I was standing up by the third wave!

However, it's not always perfectly sunny in Australia, but it was a great opportunity to get some unusual shots of the rain on the water.

Ranch Sorting

One of the local events Dianne took me to was Ranch Sorting. It's similar to Camp Draft, if you've read my blog from Victoria. It's an equestrian sport that evolved from the coomon ranch work of separating cattle into pens for branding, doctoring or transport.

Teamwork is the key during the time limit to cut out the correct cattle one at a time and drive them into an open pen while keeping the other cattle back. Each team had 2 minutes to get as many cattle in the pen as possible, starting with a designated number, and working up sequentially.

On the day we went, they were raising money for Breast Cancer. ... I've never seen so many pink cowboys and girls! ...and horses...