11 March 2009

Today we departed from Airlie Beach for our longest journey on the Ox experience. It took us about 10 hours to reach Kroombit cattle station with a short break on the way to play some bare foot bowls in a remote town off the east coast! Oz experience do this so that you have a break in between long journeys and a chance to sample some local culture. Me and Lucy were not the best and bowls but it was nice to have a break from the bus. The bus was better than we thought and we watched a few films during the trip. One of them was 'Backpacker Murders' a true story about 6 backpackers killed in Australia. Not the best choice as we were driving up a mountain to the middle of nowhere...We arrrived at Kroombit at about 5pm and were shown our dorms. The cattle station is a compulsary stop on the Oz bus due to the very long journey from Airlie to Rainbow Beach. The night actually turned out to be really good fun. We had a roast beef dinner with soup to start and then got to have a go at lots of activities like cracking a whip and riding the mechanical bull. Me and Lucy didn't last very long on the bull but still had a good time. We had a few drinks and then headed to bed as we were being woken at 6am the following morning for a morning on the ranch!

12 March 2009

The next day we woke up extremely early for breakfast and then were taken off on the bus for a few more cattle related activities.I attempted to learn how the throw a lasoo but again wasn't a natural cowgirl. The group also learnt how to muster goats which looked really difficult. After all the activities had finished we boarded the bus for the next leg of our trip to Rainbow beach. Unfortunately most of the journey was spent speculating about whether our Fraser Island trip would go ahead as cyclone Hamish had caused quite a bit of destruction on his path up the coast. When we arrived in Rainbow Beach later that evening they confirmed that the island hadn't been re-opened as yet and would not be leaving the following day. This left us stranded in rainbow beach with nothing to do and left us wondering whether we should move on quicker. We decided to sleep on it and see what the situation was the following day. After two days of travelling we decided it would be nice to settle in one place for a couple of nights and then decide on our next plan of action.