I have now added an entire species to my list of enemies.

Yep, right up there with the sick puppy who created the Dental Elegance television advert and coriander is one of the most heinous and ruthlessly malicious species on the planet: rabbits.

You might be under the impression that they are sweet little mammals who only live to give Bambi life advice or dress lazy a Disney princesses, but that’s just what they want you to think.

Under their cute, fluffy-tailed surface beats the heart of a monster. These hopping balls of hatred thrive on destruction. For one, they leave many a veggie patch in a state of utter desolation. They’re also on a warpath with one of our country’s most beloved marsupials: the bilby. Furiously jealous of the bilby’s success as a deliverer of festive eggs to children who don’t really need to be eating a kilo of chocolate, the rabbit has been on a rampage against these furry Top Blokes; overtaking their homes, stealing their food sources and, no doubt, taking their jobs. It’s disgusting.

Not content with unauthorised veggie snacking or pillaging Bilby settlements, the rabbit is launching attacks on kind-hearted, charming people. Namely, me.

It might be a while until we get to the point here, but bear with me and I will reveal the chilling events of the weekend which has led my to this spine-tingling conclusion.

A group of us from The Office decided to act like normal people and have plans for the weekend. We had a couple of visitors to the region amongst us, so we decided to show our friends the land we lived on and booked a horse trail ride. We saddled up and went on our way, with the horses plodding along without much need for encouragement, or even steering for that matter. Everything was going fine, albeit a little on the slow side. Being the unapologetic show pony that I am, this wasn’t enough for me.

Let’s be honest here, I do like to play up to my Queenslander reputation, and am happy to pretend I know things about agriculture (sorghum is used to make Milo!). In fact, I once let our federal minister for agriculture assume I was reared on a farm and didn’t correct him despite knowing full well that the only farming activity on our block was that time my dad tried to outsmart the system and grow his own damn steaks. And after all, I did have three riding lessons under my belt from a woman in a long-term relationship with a man called Clancy. I was practically the man from Snowy River. So I was totally up for a casual trot.

So there I was, leading the pack atop a horse called Akubra of all things feeling like one of McLeod’s illegitimate Daughters (or at least a removed relative who had miraculously popped up just in time to run the homestead after another death/birth/ agriculturally-based tragedy). I had found my groove and I was only slowing down so people could catch up and see how somewhat adequate I was at remaining seated on an incredibly tame and un-energetic animal.

Everything was going fine until the rabbit-folk decided to intervene.

I had just broken out into a trot when a fur-covered little demon popped up out of its evil underground lair and gave my noble steed a right royal fright. While my years watching The Saddle Club made me expect a spooked horse would rear up on two legs and somehow cause lightning to crash nearby, my fall from Akubra (I’m actually annoyed because there was a horse there named Grace and that would have made this whole episode much more palatable had I literally fallen from Grace) was somewhat less dramatic.

Akubra did a step to the right like he was Jonathan Thurston cheekily darting through a sky-blue defence line and I went left. But I wasn’t technically “thrown” off the horse; it was more like I’d greased up my thighs and the saddle was made out of non-stick cookware. I slid off that saddle like a fried egg out of a frypan.

I hit the ground, and while I’m told I didn’t hit my head, I do finally understand the science behind those cartoon characters who see stars after an anvil lands on their head. Except I was shocked to find that there were no Looney Tunes characters flying around in a circle above my head: all I experienced was having what seemed like a shitty yellow Instagram filter over my eyes, like I was planning on hashtagging my vision with #nostalgic and #iamsoartisticanddeepbecauseiselectedtouseabuiltinfeatureofthisphotapp. I was mildly concerned at this point, because there was also this sensation of having black static in my eye and I couldn’t really see properly. This was a problem because I quite like being able to perceive my surroundings; it’s one of my favourite hobbies along with respiration and having an adequate blood supply.

Thankfully this subsided after a few minutes and I was right back on the horse. Yes, holding the reins with what turned out to be a fractured radius was uncomfortable, but at least being back in the saddle made me feel like a tough country girl.

It also meant I was a good one-and-a-half metres above a fucking bunny rabbit; I’ll be damned if I was going to let another one of those hateful bastards get close enough to me to finish off the job.