As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the clock last time, I have to tell you about a horse. Tuesday morning meant leaving Base Backpackers on Magnetic Island to catch the bus at 7:25am, then heading towards Horseshoe Bay to Bluey's Ranch. In addition to Kim and me, there was a bunch of girls from Perth (Scottish version, not the Australian rip-off) and a few from other countries as well. While we waited for everyone to get there, we had a chance to survey some of the horses. I was starting to get a bit nervous, having never had any more contact with horses than giving them polo mints. One horse in particular was quite unhappy, his ears flat back on his head as one of the staff tried to put the saddle on while he squirmed. Kim (who had a little riding experience) said that she wanted any horse except that one. Guess which horse she got? After having signed the usual form ("horse-riding/skydiving/white water rafting etc. is a DANGEROUS activity with the risk of INJURY or DEATH, if you die it's your OWN fault and you CAN'T SUE US") I was assigned a horse which rejoiced in the name Mischief. Thanks to my long legs I was able to swing myself up onto the saddle with no problem, then sat helplessly on Mischief's back as he wandered over to nearby greenery and started eating it. Once I'd got the hang of using the reins to at least pretend to be in control, we were led off by a tiny German girl on the biggest horse I've ever seen. Mischief actually gave me few problems to start with, he didn't need much prompting to follow the other horses. Every time we stopped, though, he'd be into the bushes to eat anything that didn't move. After walking for a bit we started to trot (which was quite painful on the old dog-bite) and tried a rising trot (although I was bouncing up and down on the saddle anyway, so it was no different from a normal trot) and a canter. I'd been on a horse for 20 minutes, and already we were cantering through the trees. We had more stops to let some of the other horses catch up, then made our way to the beach on Horseshoe Bay. The horses were tethered up, and the girls from Bluey's Ranch removed the saddles. Then we had to get back onto the horses - without saddles - and take them in single file towards the sea. So far so good, and it was actually more comfy sitting on the horse without a saddle. Once we got to the water the horses walked in until the sea was up to their backs and we walked along parallel to the beach. Nice and refreshing, the effect being slightly marred by one of the horses relieving himself with a string of floating yorkshire puddings. We were given the opportunity to stand on the horse's back and let them swim out to sea, but I knew my limitations by that point. On the way back to shore, Mischief (having run out of greenery to eat) had moved on to biting other horses' backsides. I was getting the hang of reining him back, but unfortunately he'd obviously got wise to my attempts to control him. As we left the sea, he decided that the best thing to do would be to have a little roll in the water. As he leaned down, I decided it would be wise to get off with some haste, so I landed in the water as he stretched his legs. He obviously enjoyed it, though, so I led him back to the post to reunite him with his saddle and me with my trousers. The journey back to the Ranch got more interesting, as Mischief decided to bite our leader's horse (you know, the MASSIVE one). This horse administered a quick kick to Mischief, also hitting me on the leg (thankfully not hard). Mischief was hitting his stride by this point, though, and at our next attempt to canter he overtook the leader's horse until I managed to persuade him to stop. Then he refused to canter, nearly causing a pile-up behind us. Overall, though, I survived my first horse experience with just a few more bruises and a couple of sore muscles that I'm sure didn't exist before. The Oz Experience bus the next day had only six passengers (me, Kim, two girls who were staying in the same dorm the previous night, and the two Danish guys who'd gone skydiving) and was driven by a sheila called Alison (which made a nice change from the previous two drivers, Cosmic talked constantly and Dane was just an obnoxious idiot). There are three important points to know about Airlie Beach: 1. There's no beach. 2. It's where you can go sailing to the Whitsunday Islands from. 3. It's famous for its nightlife (you can tell this by the number of pharmacies on the main street, doubtless doing a roaring trade in chlamydia tests). Aside from the nightlife, there is unfortunately nothing else to do here during the day. The first night here we met up with Stu and Rob and a bunch of folk who were on the first Oz Experience bus, and drank quite a lot of VB and cheap wine. The next morning I discovered first-hand just how dull this place is during the daytime, and promptly booked myself onto the next Whitsunday boat I could find. My boat leaves this afternoon for a 3 day, 3 night cruise with lots of snorkelling and a free scuba dive. I'll be on an 82 foot maxi which was built in 1989 and won the 1990 Sydney to Hobart race. It was called "Drumbeat" at that time, but now it takes up to 28 passengers around the Whitsundays. The only problem with this boat is its current name. I'm going to be spending the next three nights on board a boat called "Spank Me". After having my backside bitten by a dog, scraped along a beach after falling 14000 feet and bounced up and down on a horse, there had better not be any hilarious spanking initiation ceremonies...