Merry Christmas

We had Christmas at home this year, with Kevin and Molly. Molly is not very well so she was sleeping most of the day, but Kevin Hannah and I had a great time. There were humans there too, which meant that we could scrounge treats everywhere. When it got warm some of the humans got in the pool and we did too. It was great fun, Nate the young human played with us all day. I towed him around on a noodle, we splashed and I jumped into the pool to splash him. After a while, Hannah and I had to go and have a rest and then, later on, we went back in the pool. At the end of the day, we were exhausted. We had our dinner and then just flaked out and slept while KnK cleaned up the mess.

The Pool

We have our own Pool! We went in it today for the first time, and it was great. I got in first while Hannah ran around the outside barking and then she got in too. We swam and swam until we were exhausted, We quickly found the steps at each end so we could get in and out easily, and I can sit on the top step and still be in the water! After a while, we were kicked out so that Kathy could dry us off and Keith could clean the dog hair and dirt out of the pool
There is still work to do, Keith has only just finished building and painting the back fence and we have a temporary front fence. There is a lot of paving to be put down too, which means the pool is surrounded by paving sand and that makes for lots of dust in the pool so we may be limited in how much time we can spend in the pool.

Back Home

We got home a couple of days ago, welcomed by cold wet days but warm nights in front of the wood fire.
The picture shows us at the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine Queensland. It was the centre of the Shearers Strike in 1891 and then in 1892 where the Labour Party (when they could spell labour) manifesto was read and which later became the Australian Labor Party (when they couldn't spell labour).
It was a quick trip home. We got in the car in the morning, went to sleep, woke up for lunch, went back to sleep, woke up to set up camp at night and have dinner then slept for the night. Next day was the same, so we were home in two shakes of a dog's tail.

Townsville Tourists

Here we are on top of the Castle Hill in Townsville. It is nearly 300 metres high and we started at sea level. It was a long slow climb up to the top. We passed a group of school children on a school outing but we did not have time to stop for a pat, we just kept plodding on up the hill. It seemed like ages until we got to the top and then we had a drink of water and got out of the Landcruiser for a walk around the top. (Surely you did not think we would walk up the hill?) The pic shows us at the lookout taking in the views. We will be here until the weekend and then we will start the long drive home.

The Chimneys

We were out for a drive when we came across these old chimneys out in the bush. They are all that is left of a homestead built in the 1920s when soldier-settlers built a sawmill and their home here. Not very interesting for us, so we went for a mooch around and found an interesting plant that had a funny way of spreading its seeds. The seeds have a sticky coating on them so that when an animal walks past they stick to its fur. It Worked. We were covered in green sticky things that took KnK ages to get off us. Ah well, it was a nice day out.

Cairns Success

We finally got to compete in a trial. KnK were judging Rally and Obedience so we could not do anything, but on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning it was our turn to play. We had not had much training apart from a practice on Thursday so we did not expect much but we did have some good runs with no passes on Saturday. Sunday was our day. Hannah started the ball rolling by winning and qualifying Masters Snooker at 7:00 am, then I came in 2nd and qualified in Excellent Snooker. The agility classes were not good as we both messed up the weaving poles (I said we had not had any practice). Masters Jumping was ours, we both qualified and I won 1st place and Hannah won 2nd place in our 400mm height category.  In JDO I got another qualification and 2nd place.
The pic shows us with our haul of prizes for the weekend.
We will be tourists again for the rest of the holiday as KnK are judging at all the other trials so we can not compete.

Queensland

We are on holidays again -at last. The pic shows us at Nanango in Queensland where we stopped for lunch today.
It has been a good trip so far, the first few days were wet, windy and woeful but when we reached Goondiwindi the weather turned beautiful.
We went to Susan's place on Sunday and had a great time running up and down her stairs, Tiffany found a box of soft toys but we were not allowed to play with them. We went for a walk then had to turn back because a snake was sunning its self on the path.
Tonight we are in Monto, where we went for walks around the town and along the old railway lines.
KnK plan to be in Cairns by Thursday night so we have about 1400 km to go in 3 days, not too big an ask for the Travelling Tollers.

Hannah's Birthday

Hannah was 7 years old on Sunday. We were at the Riverland Trial, KnK were judging so we were just looking pretty, having long walks around the grounds and saying "Hello" to all our canine friends.
Sue took the picture of Hannah posing by the blackboard used for trial winners to take snaps.
We have had a quiet year since Hannah's last birthday, the house we were in got knocked down and a new one was built so we could not do much travelling apart from a weekend away now and again.
All that will change as we are off on a big trip soon.

We are NOT dead.

The InTOLLERables are still active, just not had time to write on the blog.
We are having a new kennel built which has room for live-in humans. If you look carefully, you can just see us sitting on the front verandah. Hopefully, we will move in by the end of May, or June.....or July.
We have had a few travels since we got back from Queensland in August last year, just weekends away, with our next big trip due in July.
Tiffany had her 8th Birthday in March. Recently she passed a Novice RATG trial (Retrieving Ability Test for Gundogs) This means that she has Qualifications under 7 different rule books, she is a Champion in two disciplines ( Shows and Tracking) competes at Masters level in three (Agility/Jumping, Agility Games and Rally), Competes in Open Obedience and now has a Qualification in Retrieving.
Hannah is not far behind, with qualifications in six disciplines. She also competes at the same levels as Tiffany but has not done the Retrieving.