Happy Easter!

As you can see I'm now in Magnetic Island, just arrived this morning. And with an hour's free internet as part of the package thought I'd try and get up to date with blogging my adventures so far!

So we left Hervey Bay early last Sunday to begin the longest section of the journey, from Hervey to Airlie Beach. Oz Experience breaks this up by an overnight stop at a cattle station slightly inland at Kroombit. This was a random but activity packed afternoon, and so much fun! We arrived in time for lunch and afterwards were given the option of going horseriding to round up some goats for later (yes, this is as weird as it sounds). I decided against this as I wanted to try some shooting later instead (not goats this time though!). So instead I went with some others on a walk up a hill called Sunshine Mount, for a view over the ranch and the area.

After this we got driven over to the ranch for the afternoon's activities which included lasooing - at which I'll admit I was terrible, I couldnt even get it over a goat's skull tied to a post! Didn't think I'd have much chance with the real thing! Had a go at clay pidgeon shooting and I was a bit better at this, managed to shoot 2 out of 5. After this the big ranch man told us to get into teams of 3 for a goat wrestling competition. And he meant it! He let one goat into the pen at a time and as a 3 one of us had to lasoo it, the other pick it up and "tip" it over, and the third pretend to brand it on the bottom! Needless to say I wasn't given the lassoing job. I had a go at tipping it but it was a big fat heavy one so in the end I just poked it with a cold brander, and that was my contribution! It was hilarious though, like when Ellie, Amy and Jonny asked for a small goat and got a little squealy one that was really fast and noisy... needless to say neither of our teams won this particular competition. It was getting dark now and just when we thought the afternoon couldn't get any more random, the ranch man let all the goats out of the pen (Ellie and Amy weren't impressed having spent the afternoon rounding them up!), arranged us inside holding hands in a circle, and sent an electric shock round us with a cattle prod. We also watched our driver get gun happy and blow up a load of explosive stuff (including the toy bunny awarded to the best goat wrestlers), quite an impressive explosion!

After this we were driven back to the main shed for dinner. Tried a bit of goat for starter - kind of like lamb, but less tasty. We rounded off the evening with a mechanical bull ride - turned out to be the highlight of my stopover! Everyone sat to watch as we got called up one by one for a go, it was hilarious to watch especially when people flew off at the first buck! I was so proud to stay on 19seconds and then 26seconds, - when even some guys dropped off after 3. Worth the pain, i think!

The next morning we were up and off early for the longest journey of the trip (which we had to do on one of the smallest buses, so uncomfortable) We left Kroombit at 7 and with stops got to Airlie Beach just before 6pm. Airlie Beach is "the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands" and also a nice resort in its own right, small and pretty and buzzing with nightlife. It was raining torrentially when we arrived - worrying when we were setting off for our Whitsundays trip the next day, but we crossed our fingers it would pass...