Gold Coast Day 2

With time on my hands and no plans, I had searched the Australian Groupon to get ideas and this is what came up.

Gumnuts Half Day Farm Stay

http://www.gumnutsfarm.com.au/

Gumnuts Farm Resort
400 Biddaddaba Creek Road,
Canungra, Queensland
AUSTRALIA 4275
Tel: +61 7 5543 0191 Fax: +61 7 5543 0668

Staying at Surfers Paradise meant I had to make a 45min journey to reach the farm. It was a great drive and my trusty iPhone5 did a great job directing me to my destination. The route is pretty straightforward and there are great views too! The only drawback was the gravel dirt track for the last 15min of my journey. My 1.3L Mazda clearly wasn't cut out for the road and I was crawling at a snail-ish 15km/h.

Tip for drivers: Do get a car charger. The iMaps app sucks up quite a bit of battery. Sometimes, reception in these rural areas is 'iffy' so the 4G may let you down. Best to get some general directions before venturing off. 

Gumnuts is a huge place with a vast expanse of land. They have about 30 horses, several goats, some cows and a cute free-loading wild possum who stays in the roof of their shack. He comes out for food and eats from our hands. Apparently, he is partial to their Australian breads. After he has his fair share, he will retire to his corner on the beam of the roof and wait for dinner time.

When I reached, I was brought to visit the goats and cows first. Theses goats have a knack for escaping so they chain up some of them to prevent them sneaking through the holes in the fences. They were like dogs and looked rather happy.

Feeding time! When you step in with a bowl, suddenly you're one popular guy. The goats throng around you in anticipation of tasty morsels. That said, they are one choosy herd. They were picky about which part of the cabbage they got to eat and they specially liked fruits! 

I like the speckled one who behaves like a dog. Maybe being pregnant makes her a little twitchy. I found out from the farm hand that a goat can be bought for AUD40. 

This is Daisy the cow who has a head-butting habit. Her horns are shaved down because she doesn't like the workers on the farm and likes to rib them from behind. She has really pretty eyes and lives on the farm with her son. I tried to milk her with some success. So the technique is to really squeeze the teats from the top to the tip, applying moderate pressure starting with your index finger. I felt slightly weird having to handle her udders. It was warm and the teats were coarse and dark, but aha! some milk did come out after a few attempts.

This is her son who wasn't very friendly. He was in the enclosure with another two cows. One of them had a calf who died and since then, she hasn't been able to produce milk. Many people see cows as just meat; but when we hear stories like this, we see that they have personalities, thoughts and emotions too. And death and sadness affects them adversely just like humans. Maybe it's time to really cut out steak from my diet. It's really hard to eat that piece of meat and interact with them. Makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite. 

Part of the package includes traditional whip cracking and boomerang sessions. I definitely have little talent in these departments. Whip cracking involves quite a bit of triceps strength I discovered. Speed is needed to land the leather whip hard upon the grass before a satisfying crack can be heard.  When done properly, the crack resounds and echoes throughout the area. It is used to call the horses back to their stables in the evening. After having to dodge my own boomerang and whipping my own back and arms several times, I decided to call it a day.

Now we get to my favorite part - HORSE RIDING! 

As you can see, I have specially brought a light long-sleeved top for the ride. The sun was really a killer and even though I had almost doused myself in sunblock, I still got a tan. Do bring along protective gear against the Aussie sun! As we had Japanese tourists in the group, we were accompanied by former Japanese workers of the farm who would visit to ride the horses. 

Much of the boring reluctant ride was up the hills into a sparse forest. The horses didn't seem to enjoy it and mine kept stalling. Much nudging and kicking was needed to coerce him to move on. Only at the end of the ride were we brought into an open field to do a bit of trotting. In total it lasted about an hour, but for AUD39 for the whole day, it really is a steal! Thank you Groupon! heh heh!

Incidentally, my horse has a quaint habit of wearing shoes. We're talking about shoes that covers his hooves. I was told that without those, he refuses to move! 

The whole trip was really worth it. If you are like me and enjoy nature and animals, do take time out of your Gold Coast trip to visit a farm. I had such fun on this trip and am totally falling in love with Gold Coast. Where else do you get the sea, the sun, the mountains, the animals and yet retreat to the safety of a city at night?