Tag Archives: road trip

Road Trips and Lameness Exams on my Racetrack Veterinary Placement

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My second week of my Easter break was another clinical placement. This week I worked with a racetrack vet.  Horse racing is something I have never been involved with so a lot of the cases we saw this week were new for me. Almost every horse we saw was to investigate a gait issue, do a lameness exam, inject joints with medications, change a bandage, etc. These are a few of the calls that stood out to me…

Each day started with trot up exams at the Flemington Racecourse (the same place they hold the Melbourne Cup!) We also did trot ups at other stables around the area. A trot up exam is where someone ‘trots’ with the horse up and back a path while the vet examines the horse’s gait and how they are moving. They are looking for abnormalities, swelling, pain– anything indicating lameness.

The first farm call we drove to was a horse who had chronic swelling over his fetlock. We had to do an x-ray to try and figure out what was causing the swelling. This was one of the first times I had assisted with a portable x-ray machine (as opposed to large ones that are permanent installments in hospitals).

We investigated another horse with an interesting skin issue and discussed different possibilities–infection, allergy, multiple conditions, atypical presentation of a sarcoid tumor.

During the week we also did a few nasal scope exams. Scoping is where a special camera is inserted into the nose of the horse to check for any abnormalities of the respiratory tract if trainers or owners or potential buyers would like to investigate the larynx and pharynx. Some of the horses we scoped were done before they were sent to the yearling sale and a few we scoped because there was some concern for disease.

Each evening I was reviewing lectures for an upcoming midterm. A lot of the lectures were on eye conditions. So it was particularly interesting for me when we drove out to see a horse that had a healing corneal ulcer. The horse had a lavage system sutured into its eye—to make it easy for his owner to give him his eye drugs

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This tube sits just inside the eyelid of this horse so that the owner can stand back and  put medications into the other end of the tube. The meds will then drain onto the eyeball.  

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My favorite call during the week was to a lovely farm with a colt who was suspected of being a cryptorchid. The vet I was working with was unable to palpate both testicles while the horse was standing. Apparently it is sometimes easier to find the other testicle (that has not descended) when the horse is sedated and rolled onto his back. After sedating horses in class a few weeks ago I was excited to see this in practice again. We  safely ‘dropped the horse’ and rolled him over. The vet immediately found the missing testicle so then we quickly gathered his instruments and he performed the castration surgery. This was also great because it allowed a discussion of open vs closed castration (different surgical methods that we have been learning about in class lately).

On Friday I had planned to wake up early and go observe a dynamic scope. Unfortunately it was cancelled and instead I spent a day at the Oaklands Junction Sale Yards with an internal medicine specialist. We were at the sales in case any of the clients wanted pre-sale scopes, microchipping, or any other assistance.

I appreciated listening in on a lot of the client interactions and observing how to generate important relationships with clients. The vet would call and talk to another vet or a specialist if there was something he was unsure about. I enjoyed my week learning about racehorse medicine and driving around the Yarra Valley, Cranbourne, Pakenham, Mornington Peninsula and other places. I’m already thinking about future equine placements I could organize.

20170421_103847 Special thank you to Flemington Equine Clinic who had me tag along for the week!

Road Trip: Melbourne to Brissy to Melb

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After my parents spent a week with me in Melbourne we left on a road trip up the coast. We drove in my roommate and I’s car. Since we bought the car a few months ago, it has changed our lives in Australia—made everything so much easier and nicer! I love it.

If I tried to write about all the places we went on our trip this blog post would turn into a 3-part novel series. So, I’ll summarize:

Places we stopped:

Wilsons Promontory, VIC

We did a hike and explored Squeaky Beach—its called Squeaky Beach because the sand squeaks when you step on it. Also, its absolutely beautiful and I love it there.

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The parents taking pictures of the waves going in and out

Seaspray/Ninety Mile Beach, VIC

Perfect unspoiled brilliant white beach for as far as your eyes can possibly see in both directions. We were so disappointed when we were here because it was too cold and raining to swim and we so badly wanted to spend a lot of time enjoying the area.

Lakes Entrance, VIC

Gorgeous location, full of boats and great sunsets! We went fishing one day and pulled in a few puffer fish. Also, ate a lot of great seafood.

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There is something incredibly interesting going on here

Raymond Island, VIC

Drove here and took a 5 minute ferry ride to the small island known for koala sightings. And we saw koalas, tons of them (and kangaroos)! No matter how many times I see these guys curled up in trees—they will always be adorable.

Buchan Caves, VIC

Took a guided tour through one of the caves and saw very sparkly rocks and amazing stalactites and stalagmites. Different than other caving experiences I’ve had.

Eden, NSW

This is where my family spent new years eve. Its a small town with a huge whaling history. One day we did the ‘Killer Whale Trail’ and drove around to different locations to learn about the colorful whaling history in the area. I was way more into it than I expected and really enjoyed this stop!

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Quite the party animals these two are!

Tilba Tilba & Central Tilba, NSW

Tiny little towns in the middle of nowhere. Accidentally spent too much time here cause there is great cheese and tons of fun little shops to explore.

Huskisson/Jervis Bay, NSW

A bit of a party location. The beaches are unbelievable. Still a bit rainy for enjoyable swimming but we got some snorkeling in and explored Booderee National Park (Cape St George Lighthouse/Moe’s Rock/Stoney Creek/Murray Beach/Botanical Gardens). Hyams Beach is in the Guinness World Record book for being the beach with the whitest sand. It is brilliant and so soft! But looks just as white as a lot of the other beaches we’ve stopped at?

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I don’t know if you could ask for a picnic lunch with a better view

Sydney, NSW

I’ve been to Sydney a couple of times now, but I do like going with different people and showing them some of my favorite views or exploring new areas together. I actually traveled to Sydney with my family when I was still in elementary school so it was fun to be back in the same place with them again. This time we spent an entire day at Cockatoo Island in the sun learning about convicts and industrial ship building in Australia.

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In the middle of our audio tour on Cockatoo Island

Another one of my favorites in Sydney is the fish markets. I made sure my parents stopped here before we drove on to the next place. We obviously ordered up a seafood lunch and ate it outside under the watchful eye of the seagulls. Read about my last trip to Sydney here.

Port Macquarie, NSW

We went to the Roto  house, Tacking Lighthouse and Lighthouse beach, but my favorite stop was the Koala Hospital. It is free to tour around and look at the koalas. A few of the patients are now permanent residents because they have been too sick or injured either due to bush fires, cars, or chlamydia infections (yes, surprise! All the koalas have chlamydia in Aus; look it up!)

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Just before we headed down to look at all the blue bottle jellies on the beach

Coffs Harbor, NSW

I wanted to stop and take a picture of the giant banana statue. (ask my mom why I never got the picture 😛 )

Byron Bay, NSW

I love Byron Bay, this is the Australia that everyone imagines when they think of ‘down under’. Its hot, its right on the ocean, everyone is tanned and beautiful, people wear swimsuits everywhere, no one wears shoes. Surfer dudes galore! Party town. I wished I could spend a whole summer here. We visited Main Beach, the lighthouse at night time, and The Farm.

Brisbane, QLD

We didn’t nearly have enough time in Brissy to explore it properly. But we did go to the Australia Zoo (and Wildlife Hospital)—possibly the best zoo I’ve ever been to! I loved all the exhibits and the fact that Terri, Bindi, and Robert Irwin are still heavily involved in promotion of wildlife and carrying on Steve Irwin’s work.

We stopped at the Glasshouse Mountains during sunset to eat fresh pineapple and watch the sun go down—absolutely breathtaking.

Lastly, we did a ‘hop on hop off’ bus tour in the CBD. My fav stop was Streets Beach—a man made beach right in the middle of the city because Brisbane is located slightly inland from the ocean and doesn’t have their own beach.

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Brisbane skyline overlooking the river

My parents left from Brisbane to fly back to Canada. We had a great trip together that I will remember forever. It was nice to be able to spend a lot of family time in my new home. Looking forward to the next trip when my brother might join us!

Then the drive home….

Tommie flew up to Brisbane that same morning to meet me and drive home to Melbourne with me!

Places we stopped:

Byron Bay, NSW

Since I loved Byron so much we decided to stop here again; we may have also bought a surfboard and spent an afternoon playing around in the waves at Main beach. We went to visit Stone & Wood Brewery for a tasting of one of Tom’s favorite beers.

Ballina, NSW

Picture of giant prawn statue obtained!

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What a beautiful thing

Coffs Harbor, NSW

Picture of giant banana statue (finally) obtained!

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#touristgame strong

Port Macquarie/City Beach, NSW

Tom and I had fantastic weather for our entire trip back down the coast, this meant that we could stop and swim whenever we wanted. And we loved it!

Taree, NSW

Picture of giant oyster statue obtained!

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This oyster ‘statue’ was oddly very hard to find

 

Sydney, NSW

If you’ve never been to Sydney and you’re driving past Sydney—you really need to stop! The harbor and Circular Quay is exactly like the movies and its very impressive. We did the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk to see 2 of the most popular beaches (and all the ones in between) before going for a quick swim and then continuing on!

Canberra, ACT

I hadn’t been to Canberra yet so I really wanted to stop here. Most people say there is nothing to see in Canberra—but I think I would come back to the capital city. It is a lot smaller and not as visually impressive as Sydney or Melbourne but there is a ton of history and museums to explore. And the area around is beautiful as well. Since we didn’t have a ton of time here, we randomly picked the Australian War Memorial Museum to take a tour at—huge!! Then we drove up to Black Mountain and went onto the viewing deck of Telstra Tower. I think this was a great option for us as it allowed us to see a lot of the important buildings and locations all around Canberra even though we didn’t have time to visit them.

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Poppies on the wall at the Australian War Memorial Museum

Melbourne, VIC

I actually loved driving inland on the way back to Melbourne. Likely because I had seen coastline for the last few weeks (And the coast is brilliant, don’t get me wrong) but the rolling hills and fields reminded me home. I like seeing the sun shining on straight roads and the open sky.

While we didn’t have many days to drive all the way home, we managed to see a lot of spots and experience a lot of cool things! We saw dolphins swimming in the ocean, goannas in our campground, learned to surf, and had a ton of fun!!

Pending: one more travel blog post before I get back to what this website is really about—vet student adventures!

The Great Ocean Road Trip Weekend

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I almost don’t know what to write about I’ve had such a busy few weeks! My roommate’s boyfriend has been visiting for about a month now so between juggling exploring with him, studying, and doing other things it has been busy! My own friend came and stayed with us for about a week as well! I haven’t seen her in almost a year so that was really exciting! Our little apartment was quite the full house for a bit! But last weekend was one the the biggest highlights I’ve had in Australia to date.

After studying pretty hard for a couple of weeks and writing 2 exams on the Friday our brains were dead and in huge need of a mental break! Thus we kicked off our weekend by going out for supper and heading out to a footy game! Footy is a sport unique to Australia (I think… correct me if I’m wrong) and it seems to me to be a bit of a cross between football and rugby. I loved sitting in the huge MCG stadium and cheering for a team I just learned about and taking in all the sights and sounds. I was highly entertained by the fact that in Melbourne you can get meat pies at sports games (instead of hot dogs and hamburgers) and single glasses of wine and cider (So classy, Australia). I like to think I did a pretty good job of trying to memorize all the rules of footy. After that we went into the CBD (central business district aka downtown) for some late night snacks and exploring!

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Footy game at MCG stadium

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This is the part of the weekend I really loved: The 4 Canadians (Me, Jessica (the roommate), her boyfriend, and my friend) decided to road trip the Great Ocean Road. It is the world’s largest war memorial and FULL of amazing coastal sights! The Great Ocean Road is one of the main tourist attractions in Victoria and stretches for about 245km. It can also be backpacked or camped—plans for the future!

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We rented a car and left on Saturday morning! First stop was Bell’s Beach where the famous Rip curl surfing competitions are held. The waves were huge and despite the rain and the wind there was still a lot of surfers out in the water! I’ve actually never seen so many surfers before in my life so I found it really fun to stand there and watch them bobbing around in the water before popping up and riding the waves.

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Apparently it is a very Australian thing to eat fish n chips on the beach… so we had great intentions at lunch time. However, autumn in Melbourne had alternative ideas and we got rained out. We enjoyed our fish n chips in a nearby park in Anglesea whilst watching a kangaroo! There was also a quirky sulpher crested cockatoo that found and ate a whole donut as his lunch!

We made quite a few stops along the road to check out the changing coast line– full of blue water, crashing waves, tall
cliffs, rainforest, and wind. LOTS of wind.


One of the major site seeing stops is near Port Campbell at the 12 Apostles. They are these incredibly impressive rock formations standing tall out in the surf. The light colored sandstone rock looks amazing as the blue waves crash around them. We took our time meandering down the road so by the time we reached the 12 Apostles the sun was going down. Unfortunately the wind and the rain was pretty bad at this time of the day so our group selfie left some beauty to be desired…. but the 12 Apostles looked amazing:

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We warmed up from the rain in our hotel and at a local cafe bar… even trying some shucked oysters! #yum

The next day we set off the finish our drive to our last planned stop: Port Fairy. I had heard about a walk to a lighthouse where we might be able to see some rock wallabies! And we were in luck, not only did we see a walleby-we saw 3! As well as a seal! The lighthouse was beautiful as well 🙂

We stopped at a cool cafe for lunch and to warm up before making the long drive home! We still got out and looked at a lot of the sites we had missed, including a whale nursery (we were a bit early in the season… need to come back in a month or so to catch some Southern Right whale sightings) and Cheeseworld (where we obviously bought cheese and sampled their ‘world famous’ milkshakes!). One thing we all wanted to do was a quick rainforest hike, so we took advantage of a momentary break in the wind and the rain to go for a quick hike into the forest to check out Triplet Falls! Apparently there are supposed to be platypus in the creek at the bottom—but we didn’t see any!

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By the time we finally made it back into the city it was dark out, but since our weekend wasn’t full enough we decided to head down to Lygon Street. Lygon is in the suburb of Carlton which is a very Italian district. The street is always bustling and full of good food and amazing gelato. It was my friends last night in town so we wandered around Lygon before heading back to our apartment to crash!

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