Living in the outback as a cowboy!

Hey hey hey!!!

So, on Sunday (10th) evening I arrived at Kroombit Cattle Station (after a ten hour journey on the bus, which was actually pretty fun, lots of crazy singing, being creative with foil, I made a boat, but it SUCKED, and the item game, as well as beautiful scenery the whole way). Kroombit is in the outback, which is near Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia, ooo exciting..... Before I arrived there we made a pit stop, and had a game of bowls, but barefoot, pretty exciting eh?! I was in a team with Gareth, and we played against everyone from the bus, and managed to get into the final, and won, wahey! It was actually quite a fun/chilled out game, the aim is to bowl your ball and to get as near as possible to a white ball on the other side of the pitch, and the nearest ball to the target wins, a pretty simple game! But the balls curve which makes it more tricky and its pretty hard to get the right pace. I was usually too hard or too soft, I couldn't get in the middle, lol! Anyways Kroombit was in the middle of nowhere, which you expect in the outback, on our big Oz bus, there was about 20 of us, and we all got on really well, which made the time at the cattle station more fun!!!

When we arrived we were given a bandana and a cowboy hat to get into the vibe of the place, so I felt like a bit of cowboy myself! We then had dinner; we were given some meat to eat, but weren't told till later that is was goat, it was delicious and had a similar taste to lamb, but better, and sweet potato, YUM! I then ate a bit of a goat testicle (sounds revolting) but it didn't taste that bad, it was just the thought of eating that was worse, all pyschological and that! We then had dinner, which was beef roast, which was awesomeee, haven't had a roast for ages, so it was a real treat, and the beef was great, and top notch gravy, mmmmm beef! As you can tell, being a traveller, I try to eat cheaply to save money, so having a roast is a big thing when travelling. Anyways....

After dinner we had a go at cracking a whip, which was awesome, the cowboy man could do it so powerfully, it was so loud, to make the sound so loud, you had to go faster than light or sound, one of those, I can't remeber, lol! I gave it a go and we had to wear funky googles when doing it, to protect ourselves, it was actually quite tricky as you had to do all these fancy arm movements, but really quickly to get the cracking sound of the whip. I managed to do it a few times, which was very satisfying and made me feel more like a cowboy, yehaaa (for some reason that made me think of Jesse from Toy Story)!

After that some of the group had a go on the mechanic bull, although I didn't go on it, as I had a dodegy back, so gave it a miss! And I'm glad I did, as the bull was called Nutcracker and it really was for the guys, I think a few of them won't be having kids (OUCH)! Ha! The bull was so powerful, it managed to throw people off which such force, crazy stuff!

The next day we had to get up at 6am for breakfast, boo hiss boo, I'm always getting up so early here, it sucks, I need my 8 hours, lol! After breaky (as the aussies say) we headed out, to go lassoing! First, I decided to have a go at clay pigeon shooting, with a big ass shotgun! I've never touched a gun before, let alone shot one, so it was pretty exciting!! I had to wear headphone things, as the noise when the guns fires is very loudly. Anyways on my first try, I was like wooo, as the power of the gun when you shot it was pretty forceful; you have to hold the gun really tight up against your shoulder to reduce the impact. It was pretty difficult aswell, because the targets moved really quickly in the air, and you have to have a really good eye. I had 5 goes as the rest of the group were watching me, pressure!!! I kept missing, oh dear.... but managed to finally shoot one on my 4th go, thank god! Lol! It was actually a good feeling hitting the target, and seeing it break up and hit the floor, very satifying and a great first gun experience, ha! I'm sure many more are to come....... But remeber kids, guns are dangerous, so be careful, lol!

After that we all had a go at lassoing, practising on a dead goats skull, to try and lasso it! Basically you have a big rope and you swing it over your head and have to use the hoop/loop at the end of the rope to catch the goat and then pull it back, to tighten the grip round it. It was actually pretty difficult to get the action right, but I managed it a few times! To be honest I kinda sucked, I think I needed more time to pratcise, and perfect my action, ha! So after a quick pratcise we got to have a go for real!!! We went into a goat pen, where there were lots of goats obviously and lots of poo all over the floor...... NICE! I had flip flops (thongs) on, so I manged to get poo all over my beautiful thongs and on my feet, which was rather lovely... Anyway we had a competition to see who could lasso a goat the quickest, then drag it out of the pen and then pretend to brand it for 5 seconds!

It was pretty tough as you had to first, catch the goat, whilst it was trying to run away for its dear life. First I had to try and lasso a goat, but I was pretty rubbish, as the goats kept running away from me, dam them! So eventually I had to call it quits, and instead just ran up to a goat, grabbed it by the horns and pull it out of the pen, so we could brand it! After running after the goats for a bit, like a lonney, I managed to grab one and drag it out of the pen, whilst getting pooo all over me, yay! So that was great fun (no really it was :D), a real good cowboy experience, and I know what your thinking, no our team didn't win!

After that we went on a bush walk to experience the scenery, high up on the hills, and it was just breathtaking; just pure nature, with no signs of human interference, it was awesome and really showed you were in the middle of nowhere! On the way back, we saw another tour group, who were throwing boomerangs, in a beautiful setting, a huge open field with horses all around! It was actually awesome as the boomerangs actually did come back, which I've never seen before, I didn't think it could actually be done, but it can and it was a very cool sight!

After that, our time at the Cattle Station had ended; and we said our farewells and jumped back onto the Oz bus, heading to our next destination Rainbow Beach, which is near Fraser Island! My next blog will be all about my intersting camping experience on Fraser........

Until next time,

Angus x