Tambellup!

We made it to Tambellup! (See last year’s attempt in comparison.)

Here’s M on the bus (with SW in the background). We set off at around 6:30am and arrived in Tambellup at around 10:15am, a lot earlier than expected.

There were ten of us altogether, including our intrepid driver.

It was a lovely fine day, perfect for a fair.

We were given a spot near the children’s tent, where we set up our balloon sculpting and face painting efforts .

What did I end up doing? Face painting – for the first time ever! (Look at the concentration on my face.) This is me painting West Coast Eagles colours on the face of a young fan. I’d done the faces of his two young cousins before working on his. I reckon I had as much fun doing the painting as the kids did parading around with multi-coloured faces…

My hands, afterwards.

Many orphaned joeys (baby kangaroos) were being cared for by some of the women of the town. The little creatures need as much care as an infant human! This one is about six months old and is fed five times a day.

After a barbecue dinner we went to the pub. Here the guys are holding up the pool table while SW breaks.

We enjoyed the hospitality of a Tambellup farmer who graciously gave us space in his shearers’ quarters to spread our sleeping bags. Nine of us shared the space. Apparently the snoring made sleep difficult for some. I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, although M walking into a cupboard on his way back from the loo in the middle of the night did wake me.

In the morning, M and I were the first up – we walked around the property for a bit, even though it was very cold.

What is this?

A couple of the farmer’s dogs, Jimmy (left) and Demi (right). They were penned for the night and were trying to implore us to let them out. Demi had come second in the dog jumping competition the day before. The winner managed a jump of 2.39 metres. Demi tried but finished at 2 metres, as far as I recall. (I was too busy watching to remember the camera.)

I love farm dogs. In my experience they are affectionate, friendly and extremely intelligent – the farmer took us all on a tour of the property, and it was amazing to watch Demi and Jimmy separate a sheep from the flock and bring in down for the farmer. While not working they couldn’t stop licking us and trying to sit in our laps – Jimmy in particular was a big sook.

The farmer’s cat, Comet.

Looking at the joey’s foot and pondering how large it will get in time…

As it’s almost time to go to work and this post is long enough already with all these pictures I won’t go on for now. More later.