2025 Christmas Ride Weekend

And with one amazing weekend, our 2025 riding season is done and dusted.  But where do I start – so so many things to share I don’t know where to start!  So maybe start at the first arrivals of the weekend and the joy of a NEW PONY for our wonderful Lou. 

A few members headed up early for our Christmas weekend, arriving on the Wednesday and attending a clinic along the way.  Julie, Clare and Lou all enjoyed a few days of lessons prior to the ride – but the highlight was a new arrival – “Sally” being delivered to TRV after a trip down from New South.  Apparently the tears flowed when the introduction of new horse and her person met in the paddock at TRV and miss Sally rested her head on Lou in greeting.  The beginning of a wonderful life together started right in Strath Creek, and such a ripper pony will have many years of fun trails ahead – Congratulations Lou on your purchase; she’s an absolute cracker.

I didn’t get to arrive until the Friday – after the girls had already tired themselves out with a long lesson, so while they headed to the Flowerdale Estate for lunch, I took a short “rest” to prepare for a ride when Brian arrived.  The day heated up and by the time Kaye was rushed out the door to attend the weekend, the temperature was getting up there (for this cold weather lover, at least!).  Brian and I chose to check out the works done in the 60 acre paddock over the working bee weekend and then head on over to Dave’s.  The new track in the 60 acres will make access along the northern end easier and a nice loop can be made around the paddock – a good option as part of the Welcome to Trail rides in future!  The blackberries Murray sprayed over the working bee are all turning (ok, he’s a killer!) and the slashing worked a treat with the skid steer.  There’s still some big batches of blackberries in the gully, and a fence to be removed, but the place is looking schmick!

We headed over to Daves, up a section I’ve never been in and of course, the views were amazing!  The horses did work up a sweat as the climb was reasonably steep, but they are fit boys and girls and handled it well.  The suggestion to continue on and right around Daves place was vetoed by me – I’d not packed water and was basically a hot mess (did my beetroot face give me away?).  Back to the clubhouse to catch up with all those that made it for Friday for a few drinks – Julie, Paul, Clare, Murray, Kaye, Brian, Lou, Steve and I enjoyed a shared dinner and some laughs.

Saturday morning and it was (after a close call to postpone)  ALL SYSTEMS GO for our Navigation/Scavenger Ride.  Now, this is where I must congratulate our Amazing Secretary, Jo for an enormous effort and what was obviously weeks of work to bring together a FANTASTIC day.  Jo sailed in early Saturday morning with boxes of goodies to position along the course, booklets of clues on how to navigate our ride, snacks and drinks (oh, the cutest little Mimosa sachets!!), Team Names, and strict instructions on how the day would run and promises of death if found cheating!! (actually, she’s not that nasty, we were just too scared to not follow instructions!)

We packed our lunches and labelled them so they could be taken to our “lunch destination”, found our teams – Brian & Murray, Clare & Nicole, Sandy, Lou and Julie.  Everything was planned to perfection – other than the weather.  The clouds were low, there was rain about… until at least 2 pm!  I can’t say I’ve ridden in a thunderstorm before… but there’s always a new feather to add to our bows!

Brian and Murray were first to depart, with the girls heading off about 20 minutes later.  Julie had left her saddle in the car, so our team was waiting for the boys to return… but Julie ended up a late scratching with Memphis’ fitness under a cloud (and not the rain cloud the rest of us were under)  I think we ended up leaving about an hour after the boys.  I can’t speak for the other teams, but our ride went along like this!

Armed with our book of directions in a small zip lock bag for rain protection, and suited up in appropriate rain gear, Lou and I departed as per instructions to the left.  Now I’m not the most intelligent critter, but the clues were cryptic and well… thank goodness for Lou!  We found our first clue and were feeling pretty impressed.  We saw the boys at The General, but not the girls, so figured they’d somehow managed to pass the boys (and got the heads up that we were heading out one way and needed to double back).  By the time we followed our instructions and also made it back to the General, the zip lock bag had been ditched.  It’s not so easy getting the pages turned when you’re book’s in a bag, so wet won.  Some clues we guessed (badly) and our random pics weren’t the answers required.  We did find the carrots and saved them for our clue bag before the horses ate them and a few more clues along the way.  The boys also saw the carrots but missed that page of clues (yep, the wet pages do stick together!).  The girls were looking pretty chuffed with themselves and the rivalry was strong.  Kaye saved our butts for what was looking like our biggest disadvantage – we were required to get a pic taken by a customer at the General, with more points if they actually included themselves in the selfie… but we hit this point in the trail as it was raining heavily and thundering – like ANYONE with a brain would be out taking photos in this weather.  Luckily us riders are tough (brainless, but tough) and Kaye has a heart of gold and took a pic in the rain for us.  We headed up towards the Village Green, grabbing clues along the way.  The girls were on their way back from their lunch stop (just how well WERE they doing??) and we caught up to the boys at the turn-off at the bridge.  We four lunched together at the Village Green, whilst trying to sneak pics of clues without them noticing.  We headed back first and although not feeling extremely confident (we’d missed a few on the way in along Falls Road) we figured we’d have the chance to maybe catch them on the way back. Jo had ended up sending the clues to the phone as our little booklet had all but disintegrated.  We were feeling quietly confident, and actually arrived back at the clubhouse mere minutes after the girls.  Jo realized we hadn’t been sent the last clue via phone, so we had to scramble at the end for the last clue.  Phew.  Scavenger Nav ride, DONE.  The boys rode in 15 minutes or so after us.  All back safe, sound and happy.

The weather was shocking.  The clues were hard.  But FUN!  We were all a little bedraggled.  Our horses were only dry Under the saddle pad, where they’re usually the wettest.  The obstacle course section of the competition was scrapped due to safety reasons – and the hobby horse option was well… boys are sticks in the mud.  What an amazing day.  Jo tallied our collection of clues and pics and what do you know, Lou and I were the winners!  That was a shock.  Winner are grinners though.  Could the weekend get any better?

Dinner, yes it could.  Presentation of Annual Ride trophies, yes it did.  Pick the horse competition.  Bad Santa.  It all just became a blur (although that probably relates to the consumption of alcohol).  Yep AMAZING DAY – and the weekend wasn’t over! 

Sunday’s ride was to Mount Disppointment.  Julie chose not to ride, Nicole and Adam had to shoot off along with Clare and Murray, so that left Brian, Michelle, Lou and I.  Lou had ridden Billy for the Nav ride (sensible, this was a new relationship!), but today was the perfect day to have a maiden trail ride with Sally.  The better weather was back and we were all set.  In the nicest possible way, today was all about ensuring Lou and Sally had a wonderful first trail experience and what a pleasure it was to see the progression during a great ride.  The nerves were obvious as we set out as the two learnt each other.  Billy is a completely different “kettle of fish” as they say, so such a change for Lou to navigate.  Sally is just four, but such a calm and sensible pony, that crossed ditches, rode through water, over logs, through trees, walk, trot, canter…. And at the end of our approximate 13 k ride, a much more relaxed Lou smiled all the way back to the float. Of course, our ponies were also great – Michelle’s Vegas is much more relaxed with the water, and she managed to keep all four boots.  Brian rarely falters, so of course Sunday enjoyed HER day (Sunday, get it??)  and I am blonde, and didn’t even realise we’d lost a shoe in one of those water crossings until days later.  But we had a ball.  Again, a huge thanks to Jo for a supreme effort co-ordinating a very clever ride.  A ride to the Village Green has never taken so long, or surely been such a hoot.

The December meeting is done and dusted, but 2026 is not far away and we’ll be hitting the trails again in January.  Thanks to all that have attended rides over the last 12 months – please enjoy your Christmas, be Safe and Merry and I can’t wait to catch you all up again in the new year.