Yet another crazy early start to get on the road. First major stop of the day: Sarina, for a bit of exercise in the form of barefoot lawn bowls. It's surprising quite how many greens you see as you travel along the East Coast, and our guide tells us the game is gaining new popularity with young people. Don't expect too see too many of Chippenham's young'uns playing any time soon though - it's mainly because the clubs here sell heavily subsidised beer and can usually expect to have glorious sunshine to drink it in.

Even so it was good to try out a new activity, and it's a shame there weren't any locals playing because most opf us seemed to pick it up fairly quickly. All too soon though it was back on the bus and, with little to distract us on the way... well, apart from an unplanned demonstration of the mini-OzBus' offroad capabilities... we were in Kroombit Cattle Station for the early evening - and officially out of the tropics.

This place is a working cattle station ('ranch' doesn't really do it justice - it's flippin' huge, although the largest is said to be roughly the size of Switzerland), and quite cool. Things to do include trying unnamed meats out of a pot (turns out it was goat, and very nice), learning to crack a whip (which is great when you get it, but makes you look a complete plonker until you do) and riding a mechanical bull (as before, but you look a plonker anyway).

Early next morning and it's out onto the range to learn how to throw a lasso properly - and then use it on the goats in a rodeo. It's actually a lot easier to catch one when they're running around, so cue lots of grown adults trying in vain to harass the goats which plainly couldn't have cared less.

It weas still only 8 am by the time we saddled up the horses to move the goats to their new field. The horses were pretty easy to control, although I expect they have probably done the same thing with countless other first-time riders before. Nevertheless, I'm going to say I was directing the horse, not the other way round.

All to soon though, it was back onto the bus. Not much to report on the way down to Hervey Bay, except that we passed fairly close to the town of 1770, which effectively marks the end of the Great Barrier Reef. We have a surprisingly nice hostel here in Hervey Bay, so obviously we'll be camping tomorrow!

Next up: Fraser Island.