With the jumpingaround.com's crew arrival on Australian soil, we landed running! Flying into Melbourne, we took one evening to reacquaint ourselves with our own horses and dogs and then straight in the car for a 6 hour drive to South Australia's, Mount Gambier - it was great to see the Australian countryside after a 12month absence and the sun was shining for most of the trip to the 'Mount" as it is affectionately known by Aussie's!

Mount Gambier have a very strong showjumping base and they put on some of the premier shows in the country but to many of the riders from New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania this venue has been a well kept secret as few from those mentioned states have made the journey - I suspect that after this weeks National Championships all that may well change!

The main arena is in the centre of the velodrome and the surface is as close to perfect as a grass arena can get - and riders around the world agree, that even with the advent of all the perfect synthetic surfaces, there is nothing quite as great as jumping on a perfectly maintained grass arena and that is exactly what the Velodrome at Mount Gambier is. The Velodrome makes the perfect viewing arena as spectators have a perfect view from a raised perspective and have a full and uninterrupted view of the whole arena and we will be bringing you plenty of photos over the following days.

The "second" ring puts many main arenas to shame - again a near perfect jumping surface with jumping equipment which is better than much seen in main arenas - and everything is on site - the local Football Club provide great value meals which are tasty as well - the toilet and shower facilities are fabulous and there is no shortage of parking for the lorries and building of yards for the horses. Some, but very few opt to stay 5 minutes away at the Mount Gambier Showgrounds to take advantage of the stabling.

This is the first time the National Titles have been contested in Mount Gambier and there were those amongst the showjumping fraternity who wondered whether those at the Mount could run such an important and major show - as the last horse jumped through the finish flags on Sunday nobody had nay doubts - these South Australian's from Mount Gambier can run the biggest show in the country and do it proud - they had excellent prize money and an excellent program which provided for everyone.

We had the Australian Titles contested for in Junior, Young Rider and Senior classes and there were also the Junior, Young Rider and Senior Australian Speed titles and with big entries in all classes these are titles which mean something on your CV.

With the great amount of space available at the Velodrome nobody had to park on top of anyone and so me chose to park alongside Ring 2 and as you can see in the photo left, ring two was looking super and those with ringside parking were very happy with the accomodation.

For our northern hemisphere readers, horses simply cannot be left on board the lorry as it is too hot and they are in "temporary yards" alongside the lorry at shows as most shows do not have stabling available - no doubt the horses

enjoy it as they get to graze and relax throughout the show.

The weather was superb but I I do confess that one of the jumpingaround.com crew did have to search out some burn cream after being stubborn and refusing to accept offers of sunblock - and with temperatures high and the sun hot it was perfect jumping and burning weather!

The horses enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and happily graze between classes - they are mostly in cotton sheets to stop burning of the coats but as the sun goes down on Australian summer days it is usually around 8.30pm so it is a relief to all when the sun does start to drop and the evening shadows come in , cooling things down.

The Mount Gambier Showjumping Club made sure there were penty of bins around the place and it seemed that "most" people used them and then there are those amongst the

To run a show as big as the Australian National Titles takes a lot of work and no doubt Ricki Bruhn and his committee are sitting back on Monday night after the event wondering whether their hard work was appreciated - it was and the show was fabulous - any glitches that we noticed were more to do with riders taking issue with the program itself and as this was dictated by the National office it was certainly not a criticism of Mount Gambier and their committee.