Another busy week - there doesn't seem to be any other sort here!

This week's big achievement was learning to drive the truck (basically a lorry but with a fixed cab), which carries horses, people, and anything else you fancy really from saddles to bulldozers! After a crash course in truck driving from Josh (3mins, turning the truck around from the loading ramp) we drove out to one of the paddocks for the others to muster some horses while I took the truck back to the yard at No 3 (one of the bores). I should perhaps say at this point that although the word paddock makes you think of a field a couple of acres in size, these are huge, sometimes 20miles across! Once they had brought the horses in they were drafted (sorted into mares, riding horses etc) in the yard, which is a kind of maze of fenced enclosures with lots of gates between them so you can direct the animals into whichever one you like. I was given my first horse to ride, a chestnut mare called Miss Grumpy, who is actually very sweet. She's so experienced at all this stuff and teaches me something new every time I ride her. My first riding experience was pretty chilled out, just walking the brood mares and their foals to a paddock about 2hrs ride away, which was good for getting used to the new style of riding. It's completely different to the way we do it in England - basically all the stuff my riding instructor tells me off for doing (like sticking my legs out forwards, and ramming my heels down as far as they'll go while having a mostly loose rein) I have to do here, and it's taking some getting used to. The saddles are very different, encouraging you to sit on the back of your bum and with rolls that go over the front of your thigh to stop it moving. They also use split reins here, so you just have one piece of rope attached to each side of the bit and not joined to the other rein in any way - I'm just hoping I'm never unlucky enough to drop one completely!

Tuesday started badly, as after I'd dropped everyone off with the horses and took the truck back to meet them at No3, I had a slight argument with a gate. In that as I went to drive through it the wind caught it and started to blow it back the other way. I thought this would be fine as I assumed it swung both ways, but alas I was very wrong. As I started to drive through the gate bounced back and got wedged on the cab - I couldn't go forwards as it would've dragged all the way down the truck, so I decided to reverse, and managed to bend the gate to right angles, and pull the bottom step into the cab right forwards, as well as taking the glass off the indicator light! As you can imagine I was in quite a state, and only got worse in the 2hrs I had to kill before they got back from mustering. When they finally arrived I burst into tears as I told them what had happened, but fortunately for me they were very understanding - as PJ said these things happen out here, and if it hadn't been me it would've been someone else, and besides that there was no way I was getting out of driving the truck that easily! And most luckily of all the damage I'd done was easily fixable - by Wednesday you didn't know anything had happened.

Wednesday was mostly spent starting to shoe the riding horses - we're going up to Mellish Park, the Webber's other property tomorrow foro 2 weeks to start mustering, and 7 of us have 3 horses each, all of which had to be shod. As we are so remote here, everything is done by the people on the station, from car repairs to farriery. I've never actually had the chance to watch a farrier close up, and see all the stages of shoeing, so it's been very informative, and Anne even let me have a couple of goes at finishing some shoes off, turning the ends of the nails down and rasping them. I was generally shoeing assistant to everyone since they all shoe their own horses, and was passing nails, tools etc, or holding horses that didn't like to be tied up. Generally, I'm so impressed about how chilled out these horses are - they havent been ridden for about 7 months, or handled at all in that time, and the majority of them, young or old, stand pretty well while their shod or have fly spray put on etc. I also met my other two riding horses Hairyman and Bel-Ray, neither of whom I've ridden yet, but that'll all change at Mellish. All my 3 are reasonably quiet and experienced, so hopefully all I need to concentrate on is learning what I need to be doing when I'm mustering.

Thursday we had a break from shoeing and Anne and I went out to No3 to clean the camp up there. It's pretty well equipped with toilets, shower, hut etc and a large covered outdoor area with tables etc. Having said that though, you still sleep outside under a tree. Cleaning took ages as the hut hadn't been used for about 8 months and had been taken over by spiders, hornets, geckos, and many other things. I spent hours cleaning out one of the fridges till it was spotless, while Anne removed all the green frogs from the toilets! I was very proud of my nice clean fridge, till Joe went out to put new hinges on it and managed to puncture one of the cooling ducts!

We had a killer on Thursday - which meant Alan and Kev killed one of the cattle so we had meat, and we had a BBQ in the evening. I was a bit baffled by the huge array of cow parts on offer, from kidneys, liver, pancreas etc, but thankfully PJ took pity on me and found me a plain piece of steak - after warning me that since my stomach wasn't used to meat this fresh I'd probably have diarrhoea for a few days! There doesn't seem to be much out here that won't upset your stomach if you aren't used to it, but luckily I got away with it this time!

Friday morning we were out at No3 again to get some bullocks to take up to the cows at Mellish Park. It was my first experience of mustering, and once I knew what direction I was trying to move the cattle in I was ok. Grumpy, of course, knew exactly what she was doing, and we even managed to block a big grey bullock several times, who was intent on escaping. Then it was back home to carry on shoeing, and we finished the day with barramundi for dinner with mashed butternut squash and potato - my favourite!

One thing that is very noticeable here is the amount of salt that everyone puts on their food. Bev seasons it when it's cooked, but then everyone adds loads more when they eat it - if you think about those cup things with the holes in the lid that you use for dusting things with icing sugar or cocoa, that's what the salt is put in. I don't know how they're all still so healthy - the only explanation I can find is that you sweat so much out here you need to replace the salt somehow.

Yesterday brought more shoeing, although Ege wanted me to help Luke on the truck for a while to hold the top of some bolts while he unscrewed them - it should have taken about 30mins, but 4 hours later we were still there, as it took him 2h30 to finish servicing one of the cars before he even got to the truck, and then when we did get to it most of the bolts were rusted in and a nightmare to undo! On the upside, I've now seen the underneath of a car, and have a better idea of what's under the bonnet. After lunch we finished the last of the shoeing and built a yard for the goats out of some portable steel panels like the cattle yards are made of, then we had the afternoon off which was a nice surprise. Anne and Alan spent most of the day watching the racing on and off, as they both have racehorses - one of Anne's horses ran last night, called Unscheduled and we all sat round to watch - racing's far more interesting when you know one of the horses! He came 3rd in the end, which wasn't bad since he got boxed in.

Today, Sunday, is day off, so I managed to catch up on some sleep, as did the boys after they got in from the pub about 3am! Anne and I have spent most of the day washing and cleaning the house so it's reasonble to leave while we're at Mellish. I've also packed my camp bag, which is looking pretty full, as I've accumulated so many pairs of jeans and shirts from Anne and Bridget, which is really kind - I'm properly kitted out now.

It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get chance to update again, as we're going to Mellish tomorrow and won't be back for 10-14days, but I'm sure they'll be a lot to say when I get pack.

Better go - btw, thank you to everyone who's emailed or written on the message board - it's lovely to read, and I'm so sorry I don't have chance to reply to you all individually.