Back when the alpacas were little, and we didn’t have to drag babies/toddlers out walking with us, we used to make the alpacas go for long walks and often visited the trig point near our house.  These days our walks tend to be more sedate and involve more grass eating than walking.  We can’t entirely blame the small children though as the camelids decided to be lazy long before their human siblings arrived.  Back in the day we made them run up hills with us and go for long meanders.  These days it’s more of a saunter around the suburb getting pats.

Now that Astrid is no longer in the pram she doesn’t walk too far without whinging, but she had been asking to go up to the trig point on Narrabundah Hill, so last Saturday afternoon we thought we’d give it a go.  We used to often walk the alpacas up there but it had literally been several years since we last went.  It’s not that far from our house but Inti (and Astrid) are not fond of hills!

It was a lovely Winter afternoon, not cold or windy, so with Astrid running ahead and Soren tucked up in the ergo we headed out.  Inti soon caught onto our plan to make him walk up a hill and tried his best to resist by standing around eating grass. Chimu was happy to trot along, and follow the toddler up the hill…….. of course everyone’s 3 year old spend their Saturday afternoon leading alpacas up hills wearing leopard ears!

We eventually convinced Inti that the hill wasn’t too big and he really had walked up there before…..luckily all the gates were open and we didn’t have to lift the alpacas through (that isn’t fun). Just as Astrid thought we’d never make the top she spied the trig point.  It is a pretty big and long hill for little legs but she made it and we had to get the photos to prove it!

Once we were up there, the alpacas happily settled into eating all the grass and admiring the views across Canberra.  Of course, half the suburb were out walking dogs and exercising so they had plenty of pats and attention. The late afternoon sun was very pleasant and we all would have happily stayed longer, except the children wanted dinner (and grass wasn’t going to cut it).

Both alpacas tried their hardest to convince us to stay a little longer and despite it being an easy downhill walk home, they dug their hooves in and made it take as long as possible.  We did promise a return in the not too distant future. Soren had the easiest walk of anyone, he does love his ergo!  Extra exercise for me getting to carrying him around.  Astrid loves her alpaca walks and it’s a great way to get her to burn off some of that toddler energy!