Bilgarra Springs by Louise Rotondo Read Free Book Online

up. She hoped that they weren’t waiting for her to have tea. After waiting for a couple of moments to fully wake up, she got up and went through to the kitchen. As she reached the kitchen she could hear Fiona and Trudy’s voices coming from somewhere outside. She went through the bathroom and laundry area, stopping in the doorway. Fiona and Trudy were sitting in the middle of a large, covered, paved courtyard area.
    The house wall met one side of the square. A long building with lots of doors sat to the left. Another building ran along the back of the area, with only one door at the far end. There was a gap probably around five foot wide between the edge of the paved area and the building at the rear filled with cactus plants and rocks. The fourth side wasn’t flanked by a building, but Aurora could see the gate that led to the large round yard, that she assumed that they used for horses. A tin roof covered the area and there was a long table with benches on either side of it down the middle. The area had a very relaxed feel to it.
    Fiona and Trudy were seated on either side of the table at one end. Trudy had her back to the doorway. They had been busily discussing one of the horses and hadn’t heard her approach. Fiona glanced up and spotted Aurora, shooting her a wide smile.
    ‘Come and sit down and join us.’
    Trudy turned as Fiona spoke, also wearing a smile. Aurora went and sat down beside her. It was so quiet out here that Aurora was a little unnerved. She was that used to sitting after dark on the patio outside her unit and having the noise from the road traffic as well as the harbour traffic that the silence was almost shouting at her. She guessed that she would get used to it. She figured that the irony of it would be that she would get used to the silence, only to return to the general hum of Sydney which would in turn unsettle her.
    After sitting down, Aurora noticed that it wasn’t as quiet as she had originally thought. Very faintly she could hear the girls giggling and fooling and it sounded as though it was coming from the side of the house near the round yard. There were even a couple of tiny yelps thrown in.
    ‘Trudy and I were just sitting here enjoying the peace and quiet. Usually at this time of night we’re all out here eating and with fifteen of us, you can imagine what that is like. Hopefully they’ve had a good day and will wrap it up tomorrow. They’re out in one of the really large paddocks that we have out the back of the property. Every few months they muster the cattle that are in there, tag any that missed out last time, cut any youngsters that need it, or if it’s a heifer they separate it out and bring those back here. Because the property is so large, there’s another set of yards out there. They will run them all through the crush, check them, spray them and do whatever else is necessary. Assuming that they got finished with that today, they will move them to the paddock next to it tomorrow to spell the one that they were in.’
    Trudy cocked her head to address Aurora.
    ‘We’re hoping that it all gets wrapped up in the back corner tomorrow. Cal, my brother-in-law, and obviously Fiona’s grandson, has a new mare arriving the day after tomorrow and we’re hoping that he will be here to receive her. On top of that, we have all been itching to check her out. He bought her two months ago and we have been really looking forward to her arrival. She has fantastic bloodlines and will hopefully produce something really special.’
    Fiona spoke next to fill in the gaps for Aurora.
    ‘Cal started breeding horses about five years ago. He started with Australian Stock Horses because they are useful out here. In the last couple of years he has introduced some Thoroughbred bloodlines to produce a really quick moving horse, but one that is still intelligent, able to be educated and a working horse. The foals that he has produced aren’t old enough yet to see any firm results, but we are