Well that was fun!!!!!!

[Artemis]

Not!

One of the strings to our bow is a horse rehoming program. We take OTT (off the track) or unwanted (for whatever reason ) horses and retrain them. This involves a fair bit of travel, but where I have been for the last day and a half takes the cake. I went so far into the bush that there was no power and no cellular reception. The houses are spaced many k's apart up large hills. After driving over 45k's up into the hills on a single lane gravel road, I drove up the access road to the block run into an area of winter runoff that had washed away part of the road and in 4wheel drive low slid slowly backwards into a bank, in the dark, in the bush, with no cellphone reception, with a pissy little hand torch and it was raining lightly. Oh what fun!
After climbing up through the bush for 3k I got reception on top of a hill ridge rang my wife who was able to ring some people who have bought horses off us over the years. They live about half an hour away from where I was and came and got me in the middle of the night and took me back to stay with them.(I have to say at this point, fantastic people) and in the morning we put a little massey fergusson tractor on the back of their truck and took it up to the block (had a huge amount of fun unloading the tractor) and then went up the access road to where the 4x4 & horsefloat were and pulled them out backwards using the tractor.
Then I was finally able to get going, in the light of morning seeing where I had come to grief, only a tractor or a quad bike could have made it up the incline (sigh).

If god ever gives the world an enema, I know exactly where he can put the hose !!!!!!

[Quarterquack]

Satellite phone, in the future. I never go outback trekking without my satellite phone and solar charger. There's every chance that a bear could run into my car (the safe haven on the trip, for most people) and do enough damage for me to be unable to help myself.

[Artemis]

Well at the time, standing in a light rain in the middle of a hill range with no visible lights, it did occur that a satellite phone would be handy, but then I wasn't actually planning on blasting myself back into the 19th century. The people with the horse neglected to mention that they lived so far in the boondocks that a horse or a quadbike are the only means of transportation( it takes them an hour on a bike to get out to where I was from the valley they live in).
It was interesting though to discover how much we rely on technology these days personally ( I know you can intellectualise it, but having it happen is a different proposition) and how easily that net of technology can be stripped away.

[kallieb]

The place you describe sounds eerily familiar. Did you hear any banjo music playing by chance? Lucky you survived ;)

[IdolEyes787]

Satellite phone, in the future. I never go outback trekking without my satellite phone and solar charger. There's every chance that a bear could run into my car (the safe haven on the trip, for most people) and do enough damage for me to be unable to help myself.

Adventure they name is Darth Rings.
A good story is worth a little grief. Pain fades memories are forever. Every scar tells a story. We are clay and adversity is what shapes and hardens us .

You are not scaling The Eiger .Take your fucking satellite phone and shove it directly up your pansy ass.
"There is every chance that a bear could run into your car" .More like there is every chance you will be mistaken for a woman and asked out to a nice outdoor cafe for a latte.

[Artemis]

The place you describe sounds eerily familiar. Did you hear any banjo music playing by chance? Lucky you survived ;)

Funny you should mention that.... the next morning there I am standing in the middle of dense bush, and there was a real pig squealing, the dogs were out hunting in the valley below. At that point I expected somebody to come out of the bush and say 'You've got a real pretty mouth boy'.

[Quarterquack]

Adventure they name is Darth Rings.
A good story is worth a little grief. Pain fades memories are forever. Every scar tells a story. We are clay and adversity is what shapes and hardens us .

You are not scaling The Eiger .Take your fucking satellite phone and shove it directly up your pansy ass.
"There is every chance that a bear could run into your car" .

Some of us weird people prefer to keep both arms when and if we get stuck under a rock.
I do trips regularly to the AGP, hike up its off-trail mountains and bushes for 2-3 weeks on end sometimes and while nothing has gone wrong yet, there's nothing bloody wrong with being on the ready for when something does. I'm sorry you're accustomed to walks around the neighborhood park for your voyage into nature, but when your life is on the line, I doubt your thoughts will edge towards "story telling for when I live through this", rather than "I hope I live through this."

As for the bear thing a couple died here in Ottawa last month on one of our less shielded highways because a bear decided to walk on the asphalt.
And if we're going to count scars, you're going to need a calculator, some measuring tape that can stretch to an excess of 2 feet, and a few reams of paper to write the stories bout them.


More like there is every chance you will be mistaken for a woman and asked out to a nice outdoor cafe for a latte.

If that's an offer, I'll need a better application. More numbers, hopefully higher than average (in all but age and abdominal girth); more reasons why you've held out this long to pursue love with me; and maybe a reason or two I could trust you (money works).

[NotLettingItGo]

... and maybe a reason or two I could trust you (money works).

Nnnnoooo!!!! Don't do it... don't ever trust a woman... you'll end up as fucked up as me. Caring about someone who never gave any kind of fuck about you... it's like losing your kid to drugs... honestly.

[mjmacky]

it's like losing your kid to drugs... honestly.

Which, steroids or Ritalin?

[IdolEyes787]

Some of us weird people prefer to keep both arms when and if we get stuck under a rock.
I do trips regularly to the AGP, hike up its off-trail mountains and bushes for 2-3 weeks on end sometimes and while nothing has gone wrong yet, there's nothing bloody wrong with being on the ready for when something does. I'm sorry you're accustomed to walks around the neighborhood park for your voyage into nature, but when your life is on the line, I doubt your thoughts will edge towards "story telling for when I live through this", rather than "I hope I live through this."

As for the bear thing a couple died here in Ottawa last month on one of our less shielded highways because a bear decided to walk on the asphalt.
And if we're going to count scars, you're going to need a calculator, some measuring tape that can stretch to an excess of 2 feet, and a few reams of paper to write the stories bout them.


I laughed ........but not in a good way.

[kallieb]

OMG! There's bears in Ottawa.They're probably on their annual migration which funny enough goes right past Canada's National Igloo.

[IdolEyes787]

OMG! There's bears in Ottawa.They're probably on their annual migration which funny enough goes right past Canada's National Igloo.

No Indiana Rings was deep in the jungles of the Laurentians or something.

[kallieb]

Indiana Rings!! Classic. Love it..

Yup, gotta watch those Laurentians. Big Foot, Yeti, and a few wooly mammoths were spotted. A few tourists and some drunks who took a wrong turn out of Montreal mysteriously disappeared in those spirit-ridden hills of old not that long ago. I suggest travel to that area only if armed with a really sharp spear, wearing only a loin cloth and thoroughly lathered in in bear grease (from the bear road kill presumably), and a flaming torch fired with more bear grease (handy creatures those bears). It's all quite true. I read it in the Enquirer.

[Mr. Mulder]

Can you not pack the horses some sandwiches and then draw them a map of where to go? Give them top hats to wear too, obviousment :eyebrows:

your job sounds mental but also awesome as you get to take animals on massive road trips.