The Cattle Station

Caz and Sarah caught up with us at 1770, and luckily Caz was feeling a little better by the time we made it to the cattle station. The journey was pretty rocky as we were traveling to a place called Kroombit which was out in the middle of nowhere! But it was by far one of the coolest places I've seen in Australia, it was just so different from what we've experienced already, yet typically Ozzy!

We arrived around lunch time which was awesome, because the owner of the station had cooked up some steaks on the BBQ, they were amazing, but there was far too much meat for one person! We got shown to our cabins, which were extremely basic but we didn't care, we were just really happy to be out in the sticks! The first afternoon we went out on horses and were told we had three hours to muster some goats through a few fields and back to the station! I had no idea what this entailed; all that was running through my head was that I had to stay on this great big horse for three hours; this just sounded like pure pain to me! My horse was called Beauy and was actually owned by the farmer's son. He was used back in the day as a real working horse and there were pictures of him everywhere mustering bulls, so I was quite impressed! However, I think with age came laziness, as he would not stop eating, and was a bit of a handful, but this made it extremely funny once the goats got involved! We must have been chasing them for a good few hours screaming 'hey ab ba ba' at them to get them into line. I'm not sure what that means, it must be goat-talk for get your arse moving or something! It was so much fun and the scenery was awesome, I felt like we had gone back in time or something! It is definitely a great life style living out there, very basic but so amazing.

Anyway after getting off the horses we all had to get into teams and try and brand a goat. One of us had to chase the goat, the other had to lift him and pin him down while he was branded, and then it was my job to grab the goat by the horns and pull him back to the pen. What a laugh we had tryig to handle the goat! It was so funny watching sarah chase round and round in circles but she got him in quite a good time. It was definately one of the fiesty goats, once I grabbed him he was extremely reluctant to follow me, I had to use my whole body weight to drag him into the pen. Our group was first to go and all the others watched around the pen, it was like a wrestliing match or something. Afterwards the other groups had a go and competed for the quickest time. Then, after we lost, the farmer made us all stand in a circle holding hands, and I had visions of GCSE Physics lessons all over again as he brought out a cattle prod! We had to let the charge run through the circle it was horrible, the charge was quite strong, I can see why sheep don't like it! Then on of the braver ones in the group agreed to let the farmer use the whole force of it on his leg. I have to say I've never seen anyone jump so high, it was extremely funny to watch! I think he felt a bit more than a tingle that time.

After our fun with horses and goats we had a go at clay pigeon shooting, using the lasaro (or whatever those ropes are called in western films), as well as the cracking whips. The whips are so hard to use especially for the vertically challenged. I kept whipping my own back; I had to give in before I was escorted off the premises for self harm! My back was covered with whip marks! Chloe's scars were even worse than mine but she actually managed to make the noise in the end. I figured I would not really need that skill for anything, and saved my energy for the mechanical bull.

I think the only word to describe the mechanical bull though is hilarious, especially when Sarah took to the stage, as she fell over twice before she even got to the bull, it was so funny, we were nearly crying! Chloe managed to get a picture of her climbing onto the bull and it was not the prettiest of sights! I think Chloe lasted for the longest on there out of us girls, but she's used to riding horse. I lasted a whole 2 seconds, it was so difficult. I just got flung into the air head-first both times. One guy managed to last 20 seconds, and the girl who worked on the cattle station was standing up on it and everything. It was a very entertaining night!

We all went to bed quite early as the flies were starting to get too much, and because we had to be up at stupid o'clock the next morning to make the long drive to ArlieBeach. I don't think any of us slept well after Chloe nearly stepped on a brown snake (one of the most deadly) on the way to the cabin. There is just something about being surrounded by deadly snakes and spiders that makes sleep rather difficult, I just can't out my finger on it!

The whole cattle station experience was just awesome, and I would love to go back!