Hey, Feels like I only sent the other big email a couple of days ago but it's been a busy week and we've got some time to kill so doing more emails while we can! So I will take this opportunity to bore you all some more! Lisa and I did the homestay at the farm 2 hours outside of Rockhampton. Real old style outback farm run by a lovely family who've lived there for almost 50 years. We spent the morning horseriding and helping to move some of the cattle from one paddock to another - yee hah! I managed to trot and even cantered at one point and thought I was going to fall off the horse having only been horseriding two times before! Was brilliant fun though (was bloody saddle sore tho for the next couple of days and walking around like JOhn Wayne - very attractive!) Did motorbiking, helped feed the baby kangaroos that they look after there - lots of kangaroos are killed on the roads round there but the joeys often survive in the pouch so they have a couple there that they are looking after! Felt like I was in an episode of the Australian equivalent of animal hospital as we helped change the dressing on the one them who had a broken foot and fashion a splint for it! Rolf Harris eat your heart out! It was a bit like being in the Thornbirds - mum, this is probably just for your benefit as I'm sure you're the only one who remembers this old programme and was then cruel enough to make me watch the entire series when I was 14!! But anyway, that's what it was like for those who are au fait with the Thornbirds! We had an early start the next day to get on the bus to Airlie Beach (7 hour bus journeys not a good idea the day after horse riding!) Arrived in Airlie Beach and booked our sailing trip round the Whitsundays islands which we got back from yesterday afternoon. It was amazing! I know I am probably seriously overusing the word amazing (and exclamation marks) but this really was and deserves exaggerated punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had a really good group, about 18 plus 4 crew, and met 3 girls from England (2 of whom were nurses and the other was a midwife so with lisa there as well there were loads of medical discussions and comparisons about who sees more blood or how much poo they have to clear up - Nice!) The crew were great - really relaxed, typical Aussie blokes and we had a good laugh with them! Did loads of snorkelling off the great barrier reef and had to wear an oh-so-attractive stinger suit to protect us from the box jellyfish - a lovely all in one black lycra number! Wasn't too bad tho, everyone had to wear them so we all looked ridiculous and we had some great navy seal diver impersonations going on! Oh, and forgot to say that the Captain's name was Kirk - we all found this hilarious but he'd obviously been met with all the jokes before! Not really sure what Lisa and I expected but having never been on a maxi yacht before we were a bit shocked to see how cramped it was down inside the boat! VERY cosy bunks and not great if your claustrophobic but it was great fun and all part of the experience and bizzarely, I think both of us got better nights sleep on the boat than we have had in some of the hostels! We were on a former racing yacht called Condor who apparently won tons of races years ago - Laura, I hope you are impressed with this!!! Only disappointing thing was that it was so calm that we had hardly any wind and couldn't really sail very much - but was still good fun and I definitely want to go sailing again although I'm sure the fact that we were sailing through beautiful aquamarine waters has something to do with the appeal and not sure Portsmouth would have the same allure! Had a very heavy night last night with everyone on the trip and the crew and didn't get back to the hostel til gone 3 - the guys who were part of the crew were big drinkers and it was hard trying to keep up but I think we gave it a pretty good go - would've been rude not to! However, we were feeling a little fragile this morning! Think that's it for now folks, I'm probably going on about stuff quite a lot but then you all probably know that I can't keep things short and would talk for England so these emails were never going to be brief! (If it is getting annoying or I'm emailing someones work address and you're getting threatened with improper conduct or something - let me know and I will stop bugging you, or bug you on a different email address!) Keep in touch etc, it's really nice to hear what people are up to back home as I do feel a bit out of it sometimes! (Have only just learnt that Souness was sacked by Newcastle - Sophie, I expected you to be keeping me up to date on all the footie news!!!) Anyway, ta-ra for now! Love, Anja xx