One needs to traverse a 1.1 kilometre track through paddocks and bush to arrive at my grandparent’s farmhouse; a track I’ve travelled at both a crawl in cars driven uncertainly by those new to the place and desperate to preserve some semblance of vehicular cleanliness to thrilling speeds by the more experienced who know where all the bumps are and how to avoid them.
I’ve only walked the distance a handfull of times in my life, sad to say, and it was the combination of fine weather, a need to do some exercise, and a healthy dose of nostalgia that I found myself upon the track – solo – the other day. I took my fully charged iphone and took lots of photos of ant hills, lantana, the scrub, and other bush miscellany I will spare you from in this post.
(Though I can never resist a shadow Star Trek sign, dag that I am.)
Then barely two hundred metres into my journey I suspected it perhaps was going to turn out a little more eventful than anticipated.
It will be hard to see in this photo (available in the larger version over at Flickr) but in the distance, almost smack in the middle, in a clearing, is a white dot next to another dot. That white dot is an adorable white calf. The other is its mother – one nasty, nasty Brahman (though to be fair, she is just being protective of her baby).
I’ve grown up walking the paddocks with cows and believe them to be generally indifferent and docile, however I also believe that every so often you get a cow that is a mean SOB. My sister and cousins, for instance, will remember Vesta – another Brahman, a legendary menace that would come after you if she so much as smelled you in her vicinity. Ever since, I’ve given them a wide berth.
So there I was: no mobile reception to call and ask someone to come get me, my path to the house was under threat and the only options I had were to either take my chances and face-off with her or cut across a gully thick with rushes (SNAKE ALERT) that I’d never been near before (in my new sandals!)
I decided on the latter and started off when, lo, in the distance I saw Adam in my mother’s car coming back to get me.
“We saw them as we passed and thought we’d come save you… just in case. She’s… not nice.”
So more photos will have to wait, I’m afraid. Until they’ve been moved or I decide to be braver. I think I know which will come first 😉
