Hey Guys (a very very brave Amy here - you'll find out why in a minute),

Since we last wrote on sunday I believe it was we've left the poohole that is Koala's at Airle beach behind us and spent an amazing night at a real life cattle station.

Sunday evening we spent as little time as possible in the "mouse toilet" that was our bedroom and sat in the bar with our new irish friends (from the disasterous boat trip). Had a nice chat and we're hoping to catch up with them again in Sydney as they're going up and down the otherside of oz.

Monday morning we left Koala's early and got the bus to Kroombit a real working cattle station. It was very much in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived we (well I did) tried some meat, they wouldnt tell us what it was, later on they told us that it was goat. It was ok lol!! We had tea, very nice Steak with veg and then we were allowed to try the whip, it was harder than it looked to make a sound and so 500 unseccessful attempts later we actually managed to make a small squeak!!! Then we all got a go on the mechanical bull, it was Norhtbound bus vs Southbound bus, we were slightly disadvantaged as there were 16 of us and about 40 of them. Sam started the show of for us and managed a very impressive 17 ( even more impressive seeing as the first person on the north bus fell off after just one buck) and then I managed 15 (obviously I could have done more but I wanted to let Sam win). Thankfully they averaged the scores and so we won!!!!!!!

In the morning we got up at 'Cowboy O Clock' (6am), had breakfast, and then went off to do a real life goat rodeo. We have some interesting pictures. We were in teams of 3, one person caught the goat by the back leg and dragged it across the ring, the second person tipped it over and knelt on it and then the third person branded it (not for real though). Guess which one I did.........obviosuly the third one lol!!! It was made somewhat harder though by the fact that there weasn;t one goat in the ring but about 30 and so you had to keep you eyes on the one you were meant to be catching!!! After this is was time for goat mustering on horseback. Well I guess most of you will be saying "I bet Amy won't do that" well thats were you'll be wrong. I decided to be very brave and give it a go (not that I wasn;t slightly pressurised). It was actually good fun, after I'd gotten over the initial fear of having nothing to support me other than the thing I was sitting on that I wasn;t in control of. We had to walk back up to the pens and get the goats out and then move them to a paddock a couple of fields away. My horse was very old and a bit stumbly but perfect for me. I just kinda walked along behind and rounded up the odd straggler, Sam was a lot better but she does have the added advantage of being able to ride. We also had to do this really random shout when we were rounding up the goats, made you feel a little bit silly. What made it even funnier though was that amount of "Goat Rape" occuring, the male goats seemed very interested in the female ones and so there was often about 5 of them all crowded round attacking the females.

Following this we got back on the bus (it smelt lovely) and made our way down to Hervey Bay which is where we are now. We passed the tropic of capricorn on the way. Our hostel is truly gorgeous, the absence of mouse poo on the walls is a vast improvement and it has a lovely kithcen so we enjoyed cooking ratatouille for oirselves last night and did a huge pile of washing!!! Simple things hey!!

Today we've been for a walk along the esplanade and paddled in some rock pools (more sand pools) on the beach. Saw a huge crab and some small hermit one and also this thing in a shell which stuck a kinda soggy tentacle out of its shell and moved itself into the water, kept us entertained for a good few minutes. Had a lovely lunch (Jacket potato with garlic butter, chese, bacon and pinapple on it, topped with sour cream and chives - Sam's minus the bacon and pineapple - was very nice and I was tempted to lick my plate).

Hopefully later we're going to plan the rest of our trip, well down the sydney anyway.

Love to you all.

xxxx

PS - Chloe is that slightly more holiday diary esq. for you????