Well, first, before I begin telling you about my grand adventure in the Blue Mountains – so many of you were asking what the song was in my movie: it’s ‘When we stand together‘ by Nickleback, who is one of the few modern bands that my human, Hsin-Yi really likes (the other one is Maroon 5) – otherwise, Hsin-Yi usually only likes slow, cheesy love songs and 80s/90′s singers like Wham! and Gloria Estefan or really old, old stuff like Andy Williams & Louis Armstrong…(Paul says Hsin-Yi has awful taste in music…! )

Oh, and if you missed the exciting movie of my holiday, you can catch it here: http://bighoneydog.com/bluemountains-movie/

OK! So now to tell you about my awesome holiday back in August! Well, you know my humans do a lot of travelling – especially because their families all live in faraway places overseas, like Dubai and England and France and Taiwan…but they always try to take me on a “doggie holiday” every year as well. They started this tradition back in NZ and continued it here. The year we lived in Brisbane, my humans took me to Byron Bay for a weekend; when we lived in Newcastle last year, my humans took me to Port Stephens (where I met that crazy Staffie pup, Kaos! ) – and this year, my humans decided to take me to the Blue Mountains!

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The Blue Mountains are about 2 ~ 3hrs drive from Sydney (depending on which part you visit) and they are one of the famous sights for all Tourist Humans to visit if they’re coming to Sydney. There are some really cool things to see there – such as the Jenloan Caves and the amazing rock formation known as The Three Sisters, plus the Katoomba Scenic Railway which is the steepest railway in the world – Paul & Hsin-Yi went on that when they visited Australia the first time, over 10yrs ago, and they said it was scary sitting on a train that went practically straight down the side of the mountain!

The Blue Mountains got their name because when you look at them from a distance, they really do look “blue”!

Of course, the most important thing about going on holiday with me is finding a dogfriendly place to stay. My humans like to find somewhere that’s on its own big piece of private land, where we’re free to roam and hike around – especially ‘coz in Australia, so much of the countryside is “National Parks” where doggies aren’t allowed (Grrrr!) so it would be awful to take me on holiday and then have nowhere I can walk and explore! My humans don’t want to drive 3hrs just to take me to some little local town dog park!!

Well, this time they found a FANTASTIC place!

It’s called Wattle Cottage, near the little town of Lithgow, and it’s just perfect for doggies! It is on a 200 acre property (although it has its own fully-fenced, huge garden with amazing views across the valley) – and you can roam anywhere you like off-leash!

It is so petfriendly as well – the cottage comes with several dog beds of different sizes (although none of them were big enough for me – hee! hee! I brought my own. Some of you were asking about that bed after watching the movie – it’s my doughnut-bed, which is still huge & heavy but a bit easier than my beanbag to move around, so we usually take it with us on holiday – you can find out more about it here.) The cottage also provides bowls and towels for doggie guests!

And inside the cottage, it is so quaint and pretty – and decorated with so many “antiques” from Australia’s time gone past.  Hsin-Yi kept going around oohing & aahing over every small thing…

 

 

 

 

There was one “quaint” thing that Hsin-Yi wasn’t so sure about, though…the Eco-Loo Composting Toilet! Yup, this was a special kind of environmentally-friendly toilet which doesn’t have a flush – it just drops down into a deep hole in the ground! Hsin-Yi really cares about being “green” but she felt a bit scared to sit on the toilet with a big, gaping black hole beneath her and she felt really weird not flushing it.

I don’t know what the fuss was about – I do my toilet into the ground all the time – it’s no big deal!

We arrived at Wattle Cottage very late on the Friday night so it was pitch black everywhere and we couldn’t see a thing – but we were up early the next morning ‘coz we were all so excited! Well, OK, me and Paul were up early – you know what Hsin-Yi is like in the mornings – she is such a grump and acts like something dug up from underground…Anyway, so Paul took me out for my morning wee and a little walk – I had to put my coat on, coz it’s really chilly up in the mountains…the temperature dropped down to 1 ~ 2º C (33 ~ 35º F) at night and there was sometimes frost in the early mornings. I had a great time exploring all the new smells in the cottage garden and checking out the amazing view!

Then it was back to the cottage for breakfast! Hsin-Yi had finally managed to drag herself out of bed, for the sake of food and she was busy making herself a fried-egg sandwich with the fresh bread and eggs that’s provided in the kitchen…

Ooh, it smelled so good and Hsin-Yi said fresh, free-range eggs taste so much better than the eggs you buy from supermarkets (although my humans ALWAYS buy free-range, of course!!) – but can you believe it – she wouldn’t let me have a taste!!

What a meanie!!

I tried my best Sad, Abused PuppyDog Eyes – but you know Hsin-Yi has a Heart-of-Stone – so then I went and did my best “lady-like doggie” impression on my bed, trying to look really polite. (Looking all alert and polite and cute works on Hsin-Yi a lot better than the abused, sad doggie look. If she thinks I’m being really “good”, she always feels like she has to “reward” me – hee! hee!)

Sigh. But it didn’t work this time. She didn’t give me anything – not even one crust! Humph! I was very grumpy!!

Anyway, after breakfast, we finally went out to do a proper walk and explore!

I was full of beans and bouncing & running everywhere – my humans were so surprised ‘coz they hadn’t seen me like that in ages. Well, I’ll tell you why – it was lovely and COOL up in the mountains! Even though it was very sunny, the air was still quite chilly – so really lovely to walk in. I hadn’t enjoyed weather like that since we left NZ! I’m like a new doggie when the temperature drops. Pah! Forget those stupid joint supplements and stuff – the real magic ingredient is COLD WEATHER!!

By the way, can you see my snazzy pink bandana? It’s from my Spring-Summer Collection

Well, see, I have this huge collection of bandanas from back when we were living in Auckland (we used to buy loads every year from CanTeen, to help teenage human pups with the cancer sickie) and I used to wear them a lot but since we moved to Australia, Hsin-Yi packed all my stuff up in a box – and because we keep moving every year, she can’t be bothered to unpack them. She only unpacks the “essential stuff” each time, like my pyjamans…so it’s her fault that I’m an unfashionable doggie now.

But this time, for my holiday, I insisted that Hsin-Yi dig out at least one bandana for me to wear…a girl’s got to have a holiday wardrobe, right? I think the hot pink goes really well with my grey hairs, don’t you?

We had heard that there were cows living on the property and we were really excited to meet them. They were supposed to be very friendly and love meeting guests…

…did somebody say cow? Where?

Actually, he was really lovely and friendly. His name was Boo (and yes, it WAS a bull! Stupid Hsin-Yi had been telling everyone who had watched the movie that it was a cow but she was totally wrong! Duh! She obviously knows nothing about cattle anatomy! )

 I was so jealous when I saw Paul say hello to Boo that I wanted to go say hello too!

Oh! But he didn’t like me!! He snorted and tossed his head at me and said some very rude things to me in cow language – and Hsin-Yi quickly called me to “Come!” in a sharp voice – which means I must leave everything & run back to her immediately.

And then we met the other cow, Bella! She actually was a cow – even though she was the one who had horns – hee! hee!

Well, I decided I wasn’t going to be snubbed again! I did not go over to say hello or try to be friendly – I just stood all snooty and ignored Bella…so there!

The property was HUGE so we decided to head back to the cottage – save some of the walk for later! When we got back, Hsin-Yi made me rinse off my muddy paws so that I wouldn’t mess up the cottage…oh, the water was FREEZING!!

But guess what? The lady who owned Wattle Cottage had popped over to bring me a special treat! A raw bone! Talk about petfriendly accommodation, huh?

Well, after all the excitement with the cows and new smells and the bone and stuff, I was knackered! Time for a long, long snoooooooooze….

So my humans left me at the cottage and went out by themselves to have a late lunch in Lithgow.

They had a lovely drive through the countryside to get there…

Hsin-Yi wouldn’t tell me what they had for lunch (and she didn’t bring me any leftovers back either – humph!) – but I know a lot of chips was involved ‘coz I found this picture which she was obviously trying to hide from me since it was on her mobile phone machine and not her proper camera machine…

She did show me, however, this picture of a shop that was named after me! Well, doggies like me…how cool is that?!

Back at the cottage, we all had a lazy afternoon – I continued my nap and my humans lounged around reading trashy magazines and making rude, sneery comments about celebrities…! (Hsin-Yi can’t understand what the fuss is about Robert Pattinson – she thinks he looks like an unwashed tramp…)

But just before the sun was going to set, my humans decided we’d go on another walk to explore the property! This time, we wrapped up warm ‘coz with the sun slipping down the horizon, it was starting to get really chilly!

Hsin-Yi was really excited ‘coz she got to wear the lovely hat & gloves that my friend, Lucille the Italian Dane and her human, Nicoletta, had sent us all the way from Italy. Sydney doesn’t ever get really cold so there isn’t much chance to wear them, unless we’re going out to walk late at night in winter…but now, they were perfect! The gloves are really clever coz they have holes for the fingers to pop out, so that it’s easier to hold the leash. Isn’t it a pretty blue colour?

Paul took this picture of me & Hsin-Yi when we weren’t looking and Hsin-Yi thinks it’s very funny because she says we look like we’re posing for the Winter Catalogue of some clothes brand or something! Ha! Ha!

On the way back to the cottage, we heard the lady owner rounding up the chickens to put them back in their pen for the night…She told us that they had just laid some fresh eggs and we could help ourselves! (Mm-mm…I had some for breakfast the next day!)

Well, time to get back to the cottage and start a fire!

I could barely wait to have my dinner…I just wanted to go to bed! Whew! What a big day!

Bu there was more excitement to come! The next day, after a lazy morning and a big lie-in, we set off to explore again. We’d heard that not only were there cows but also horses on the property and even kangaroos! Yes, kangaroos!!! So we were very excited and set off on a kangaroo hunt…

Finally, we walked almost to the edge of the property and we saw the horses, who are called Bobby & Sonnet…

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But never mind the stupid horses – I suddenly saw something MUCH more exciting: HORSE POO!!!!!!!!

 * WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE AND MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO THOSE SQUEAMISH ABOUT FAECAL MATTER, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS “POO“.

Oh my God! I suddenly realised that there was all sorts of wonderful poo around me! Stinky poo, squishy poo, dried fuzzy poo, little pebbly poo, huge splatty poo – and even a poo that was curled up in a perfect little twirl!

It was a SMORGASBOARD OF POO!!!!!!

I thought I had died and gone to doggie heaven. I started running around, trying to gobble up as much poo as I could, but then I heard Hsin-Yi’s voice screeching,

“No! No, Honey! Disgusting! Leave it! No! Leave it! You disgusting dog! Leave it! Drop it! DROP IT!”

Humph. Typical. Trust Hsin-Yi to spoil my fun. Just because she can’t eat the poo herself, she has to be all ‘human in the manger’ about it and not let me enjoy it either!! Anyway, I did manage to get a good few mouthfuls down before she stopped me. I liked the ones that had been left out drying in the sun for a while the best – they sort of had a smoky flavour, you know?

Anyway…as soon as Hsin-Yi turned her back, I found a big, stinky patch of poo and dived in! She might stop me eating it but she can’t stop me rolling in it – hah!

Whoa! This is strong stuff!

I was so happy and excited from my Poo High that I suddenly took off into Crazy Zoomies!!!!

When I finally calmed down enough to stop running, Hsin-Yi made me go into the nearby pond for a wash. So unfair! Do you know how difficult it is to get this kind of top quality Eau de Poo? I was smelling so wonderful – why were they complaining? Humans have no appreciation for the finer smells in life…

We still hadn’t seen any kangaroos and we thought maybe they were in the next field – but to get there, you had to go over a cattle grid…which looked kind of scary. But Paul had walked over it OK so I was game to try it too – except that Hsin-Yi grabbed me and wouldn’t let me try. She said one of my legs might slip through the gaps and break or something…

…so we started back for the cottage instead. On the way back, Hsin-Yi decided she was going to climb a tree. It was only a very low one – but my goodness, Hsin-Yi made such a big deal of climbing it! Oh dear, she was pathetic…I thought I would have to give her a boost with my head at one point!

…and just as we were arriving back at the cottage, we saw the chickens! They were out roaming around, scratching for insects and dust-bathing. Hsin-Yi goes a bit crazy when she sees chickens – she LOVES them and starts squealing and gasping and making stupid “bok-bok-bok” noises to them and going on about how she loves the way their heads bob backwards & forwards as they walk…

I was very good with the chickens – I listened to Hsin-Yi’s “Leave it!” and didn’t chase them, even though I wanted to!

Then, sadly, it was time to start packing up to go home – because it was a long drive back to Sydney. We were so sad to leave such a wonderful place – we wish we could have stayed for longer!

Oh – but there was one last excitement to come! Guess what we saw from our car machine, just as we were driving away from Wattle Cottage?

THE KANGAROOS!!!!!

This was one of my best holidays ever!

Thank you so much, Wattle Cottage, for a wonderful stay!

 

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