Australia Part 14 - Myella Farm

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Cow boys, Rodeos and sore arses!!

I must say we were quite glad to be leaving Fraser Island; after all the deliberating as to whether it was worth the money or not and then for it to rain the whole time, we were feeling a little sorry for ourselves. It did feel like the weather gods were against us – come on I mean it’s not like we don’t get enough rain back home or anything!!! So on the good old rail network again we were now headed for the dim lights, cattle and incest of Rockhampton or Rocky as it’s known to the locals. Famous for sheep, a giant cow boy statute and F-all else, but hey it was dry at least. You may wonder why we were bothering, but some time ago I’d read about these outback/farm stay type holidays and was intrigued but unsure. But after also chatting with Ben and being determined that following the “rough guide” book was not the way to see places I wanted to do something that wasn’t mentioned or “recommended” as we all know how that’s gone before!!

On arriving in the dark at Rocky we had to wait at the station a while to be collected by the YHA van, so stood around on our own, loitering and trying to look interested in there display of model railway machinery where the highlight was a broken speaker that garbled something about the famous farming region of Rockhampton. I said if you listened carefully you could hear Rolf Harris in the background – Nath reckoned I’d just been on the train too long!! Anyway we eventually got picked up only to find that, as with most of our journeys so far where they say they have a complimentary shuttle, what they really mean is the shuttle is for the bloody Grey hound buses so if you come in by train you are dictated by their timetable. So we sat in the car on a garage forecourt for about an hour waiting for the delayed (again) greyhound bus. Only to find that there was no one on it for us to collect – god dam it!!

On arriving at the hostel which had rave reviews (from blind people it would seem) we were shown our shared dorm which I’d booked coz we were only staying for one night. However it was the tiniest of rooms with two sets of bunks squeezed in, a door frame where the glass fell out if you tried to move it (which Nath did as it was on the piss so he thought he’d help and then this followed with “bugger bugger bugger shit dam”) oh and two people who had been living there for some time it would seem as there were plants and all sorts growing out of old socks and pants that were left lying around – nice!!!

This wasn’t the worst of it though; to take part in the farm stay, as you’d expect the day started early so we were to be collect t 6am so had to get a god nights sleep. However one of the two guys we were sharing a room with was the loudest snorer to date and that included the room inhaling woman from New Zealand!! He was so loud that at one point Nath (rather than me) actually got out of bed and shock the man awake to say “shut up or roll over, you’re snoring really loud”. Of course the man looked a bit dazed and this seemed to have worked for a while but then he was back to blowing that fog horn, so all in all we didn’t get much sleep that night and I made a plan to change our room to a double on our return!!!

So up early the next morning with an “accidental” fall onto the guy who had been snoring “oh sorry mate did we wake you!” We waited outside for our pick up. Here there was another couple waiting too who seemed even more tired than we were – turned out they were on the next greyhound bus which was again very late and had only arrived a few hours or so ago!! They seemed lovely but as we were all so tired there wasn’t any real conversation for a while.

We were collected by Olive, a hard faced lady who even by Aussies standards was a fine example of the sun ageing effect of living in this country. She was lovely though but obviously not one to own either a sense of humour (I think most exchange this for a kangaroo when they are 6) or airs and graces. Very straight talking and unsympathetic to our lack of sleep, especially considering she hadn’t lived a day in her life where she hadn’t been up with the birds doing something on the farm. So with neither sympathy nor an understanding of sarcasm, we shut up for the rest of the journey and had a little snooze.

We arrived at Myella farm in the bright sunshine, which made a nice change from our previous trip (perhaps our bad luck with the weather had now stopped) and were shown around the farm. Now I’ve no frame of reference but it was a very basic farm, dusty as I had imagined but not over run with kangaroos and koalas. The central “entertaining area” was just some kitchen units and washing up areas under a corrugated tin roof, a set of table and chairs and the main fire with a tin billy already boiling away on top of it. Unlike most kitchens it also had two parrots talking to themselves as we walked past. Soon we were introduced to Lynn, the daughter of olive who now ran the farm, pink Floyd (the flaming gala) and Harry no feathers (a grey parrot – with bald patches because he had some disease that meant they didn’t grow properly). We were also introduced to the scary on the outside crunchy on the inside husband of Olive Pete. He had a stooped back, dungarees of course and one eye!!

Away from the “entertaining area” were various out buildings which had been turned into double bedrooms, and a larger building that housed the hostel part of the stay. However we had treated ourselves to the double room as we had used our e-nights again (which was a good thing considering this was the priciest place out of all of the YHA accommodation ($47 each a night). Once we’d put our bags in our room we went back to have breakfast, which involved a selection of cereal with freshly squeezed milk from the near by cow, juices and fruit and of course a cuppa from the tin billy. Nath and I sat down and finally got chatting to the other couple who had come with us, now that we were all a bit more human. John (who we were to later learn is known as dopey John) and Emma, were a couple from “up north” and were pretty much doing the same route as us but in the opposite direction. We could have chatted with these two for ages, they were really nice and about the same age as us, which has always been unusual as we’ve been travelling round. But we had to get going and start the working day so we finished our cow juice and went to find some old “farmer clothes” from their store. This basically involved some form of cheque shift, jeans or old trousers that smelt of horses and some nice leather cow boy boots (which we had to polish on returning or one eyed Pete would beat us with a kangaroos tail or something).

Our first task of the day was to help Lynne milk the cows and then feed the babies before putting them into other paddocks away from the adults. Both seemed like an easy first job, I mean I’ve watched emmerdale and stuff before so how hard can it be? Well I found the milking to be ok, I was a little surprised at how hard you had to tug on them to get the milk to come out, but I was really pleased to see I had got the hang of it, well that was until I looked over to see that Lynn had pretty much filled her bucket whilst I was celebrating catching a dribble in the bottom of mine! Nath and john however found this all a little more difficult, not only coz they had big hands and engulfed the teat but also because they had to yank so hard it made them uncomfortable – understandably-what’s the point in tugging that hard at something if you’re not going to get anything out of it at the end!!! Now after laughing our asses off at feeding the baby cows, watching the milk spill all over their eager faces and milk snot bubbles come out of their noses it was time to move them. Now moving the baby cows must have looked funny to the other staff that were there, I reckon we looked like we were playing charades with the cows and trying to describe how the film featured a wind mill!! Eventually between the 4 of us trying not to look like we weren’t scared they would trample us and that we had some command going they let us think we had herded them into the next field.

With one of the milk buckets full and the other one coated nicely with a small layer of milk, the boys took these back to the “kitchen” as they would be whipped later on to make cream for our pudding and Emma and I went to collect the eggs form the chickens. It was really weird to be in with so many of them, I could almost see why people get a bit worried by them. Finding the warm eggs was a fun challenge even though most were covered in chicken shit and those that were clean were only so because the chicken that was giving you the “I’m gonna kill you later” look had just been removed form sitting on them. Emma was a great girl very bubbly and so keen to get her hands dirty. By comparison some of the other people on the farm were a bit too clean and I wondered why they had even bothered?

With our farm tasks done (looking back on it it doesn’t seem that impressive but at the time it took ages and was really hard work!) We headed on up to the stables which held about 20 proper no nonsense Aussies horses to be allocated the one that would be throwing us off later! As suspected Nath and John were assigned the larger of the horses, whilst I was given the one with red eyes and had love and hate tattoos on its hooves!! Before we were even allowed to get on the horses we of course had to complete a thorough health and safety briefing, so once we’d all finished showing we could ride a static metal bin painted like a horse we were good to go! It took ages to saddle them up, even after being shown I kept forgetting. You were told to take command of your horse, show it whose boss coz theses guys have idiots trying to rind them all the time so know when they can get away with stuff. I was quite proud at being able to get the harness etc on mine; even though it turns out I’d done it wrong. Nath of course having never done this before in his life seemed at ease with what was to him just a logical piece of puzzle work.

So with Mustard (Naths horse) and Atlantic (my horse) saddled up we decided who was brave enough to go first and we were off walking the plans of Australia (or Myella at least). It was surreal and one of those moments when travelling where you suddenly take in your surroundings and realise you’re in a different place. It sounds a weird thing to say but when a lot of your time is spent finding somewhere to stay, using public transport and going food shopping you almost forget you somewhere else. We were on the horses for about a week (or so it felt to our arses) which was made worse by the short periods of running the horses to do to catch up with one another. It was so hot out there too so I’m glad we all had sun tan lotion on. Lynne showed us the extent of the land on which their cows grazed and explained about how little they make from each cow and what work goes into looking after them. It is a hard life out on the deserty plains it world seem and not a profitable one, same as back home I guess. Half way round the tour of their estate we met some of their stock that looked like the saggy cows from India with the dropping udders and that dangly bit under their neck. Then in traditional nonchalant aussies style we went looking for snakes in the grass but they said to be careful as if the snake bit the horse it might run of with you on top – great!!!

On the way round I got chatting to Lynne about my job training animals which she was really interested in, especially from a farming point of view as they had given up using dogs to herd the stock as they just couldn’t get them to work properly. Now I don’t know about the specifies behind what they require a dog to do with the herd but I definitely didn’t agree with how she described the “training”. but hey that’s not my place to say. After I’d bored everyone else to death about Hearing Dogs etc I moved on to chatting with Emma and John and found that Emma was a hairdressers, which I should have guessed from her bubbly personality and ability to talk to anyone, and that John’s dream was to run a deli one day. It was great hanging out with them as they had the exact same sense of humour as we did – which helped immensely considering the farm people were as empty of humour as the land they owned was.

After our expedition on Atlantic and Mustard we were very pleased to be handing them back but unlike back home where you dismount and then head off, we still had to take all the gear off them and then give them a brush down. Apparently this would help build a relationship with them for when we go out to ride again tomorrow – I think I’d built a very close relationship with Atlantic considering how long my body had moulded to his back!! Because we’d been so slow at saddling up we were now late back for lunch and starving so really pleased to find the food was just all set out for us to help ourselves. It was at this point I think I ruined my bond with Lynn over dogs, as we were still talking about training in general and collies etc and she mentioned how they just couldn’t get the dog to stop chasing. Now I didn’t mean it to come out so rudely but I think I said something along the lines of “well any dog will chase if you let it” which I was using as part of my conversation that would then follow about how it could be improved etc and I only meant this is a general term not implying that they were rubbish dog owners. However I think she must have taken this in an insulting way as for the rest of the stay dog training was never mentioned again!!!

During lunch we were joined by Pete, the one eyed farmer man and the two parrots Pink Floyd; whose party piece was to keep repeating his name and give kisses (although when anyone except Lynne tried it he bit them) and Harry no feathers who just waited for you to feed him the seeds from the passion fruit and melons and then freaked out when he climbed under the table and couldn’t get himself back up – stupid bird. We chatted with Pete about our adventures so far and this is when I realised we were being very British again in our ability to whinge about most things. We were talking about how the whale watching in new Zealand wasn’t quite as impressive as we had hoped, what with images of free wily in our minds; Pete literally turned to us (with his one eye) and said we were bloody lucky to have seen anything (bloody winging poms) - and he was right but its funny how for us it was second nature to always look at what wasn’t right about stuff- must improve on that when we get back. During lunchtime we were also aware of the “local” kangaroo that was hopping around the farm, he was fairly friendly and would come over but if you didn’t have food he would bugger off – nice to know he’s not completely domesticated! Although the idea of staying at the farm was to join in as much or as little as you liked, it was still a pricey excursion so we had decided we’d do everything that was offered to us. There was still only the four of us plus a French girl that was due to leave that afternoon, but by the time lunch was over we were joined by a bunch of regular campers who would come every year around this time from Germany and had an agreement with the farm that they could pitch on the land. So the place was starting to get a little busy now and when it came to the second chance to collect chicken eggs and feed baby cows there were already too many offers for me to have another go – bloody foreigners!!!

Anyway it was now time to either veg on the farm and enjoy the sunshine or learn to ride a motorbike, so of course we went for the later. None of us had ridden before and poor old Emma had never even learnt to drive, so this was gonna be interesting. Again as with most places outside the UK attention to detail when it came to health and safety was minimal. I think our waiver involved being asked if we could drive, take instruction and whether we were stupid enough to ignore what we’re told. It was all very down to earth “if you don’t listen you will fall off and we’ve already warned you what can happen” was the introduction to our session. Lynn was not conducting this lesson her dad Pete was, and she had already mentioned “in passing” that don’t take offence it’s just the way he is”……..right…..what did she mean by that we’d thought. Well after being called a stupid pom and yelled at like we were in school, everyone was feeling really positive at their ability to ride this new bike!!

We were “taught” where everything was and when asked to kick start the bike which I was surprised at how heavy it was. But what bothered me more was that the gear change was by my foot and the clutch was on the handle. Now for anyone that has ridden a bike this isn’t unusual but once driving around I often found that I went to break using the handle and therefore didn’t stop just coasted. We drove round a little course and had to show we could change gear at the right time, so often when (and I’m mainly talking about m here, Nath was fine) I’d zoom past with the bike squealing in pain at the gear I was using; Pete would shout “CHANGE GEAR YOU MORON”. This of course did wonders for my confidence and I started trying to figure out if I could “accidentally” run him over!!

Finally we were all pretty much ready to go off road around the farm but I had one more manoeuvre to tackle, stopping……as I came towards the queue of other bikers waiting to be let off I again went to break and accelerated, then I panicked and went to try and stop the bike with my feet when suddenly the wind rushed pasted my ears and Pete came bellowing NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. He was sprightly for 102 years old!! All I could think is how did the bastard see me with one eye! Anyway he asked me if I actually knew how to drive so rather than shrink and go all silly, I decided a new tact would probably work and shouted back, I can bloody drive but I’ve never ridden a bike before so sorry if I don’t get it straight away (sarcasm – which I immediately thought he probably wouldn’t understand). Anyway as punishment I was made to do the track a few more times before I was released to join the others. So by this time I was way behind and therefore had Pete driving behind me to make sure I didn’t make any other stupid mistakes.

The rest of the group had had their fair share of shouting sorry teaching but I’m sure I got most of it. By comparison Nath had taken to this like an Aussie to a vegemite, and Emma who’d never driven in her life seemed to be handling it with ease. Anyway once we had all gone round in a loop of the farm land we headed back to base to have the rest of the day to relax before dinner (being as we had started so early that day it was still only about 4pm!). as we drove back I was feeling particularly pleased with myself that Pete hadn’t shouted at me or at least not seen what I was doing wrong to shout at me; so on the way back I got a little bit cocky which was short lived as I accidentally accelerated over a sandy hill when I meant to slow before it (stupid back to front accelerator). So the idea of riding the motor bike back to the spot on their land you could watch the sunset later was looking like it wouldn’t happen for me now as it was gonna take the rest of the evening to remove the bike seat from my clenched buttocks!!

After all that driving we all decided that what was needed was another brew from the tin Billy. I sat watching the farms “pet” kangaroo trying to hop into one of the hammocks in the garden, which was amazing in a learnt behaviour kind of way that he had clearly watched others get into the hammock so knew what he had to do, but was actually more funny because obviously he failed each time. Managing once to get a foot in their but with his huge knee/ankle area getting caught would then freak out at his inability to then hop the rest of his body into the ever swinging piece of material. I had tried to video this but unfortunately by the time I had finished laughing and picked myself back up off the ground he had stormed/ hopped off – you could say he was “hopping mad”………………yeah sorry.

Lyn soon informed us that the sunset looked like it was gonna be a good one that evening so I decided I wouldn’t miss out on this but I wasn’t going on a motor bike, so instead we all (Nath, John and I) took push bikes instead, which again had been ridden to death and were a hard ride over all the uneven ground – I spent most of the time pushing mine along and even contemplated leaving it out in the bush and collecting it on the way back. We seemed to wait for ages for the sun to set but in the end it was worth the wait. Loads of purples and oranges setting with a foreground of Aussies gum trees and bush which could have easily been a postcard view. We saw a fair few kangaroo gangs you know hanging out, playing chess and drinking coffee etc but they never came over to introduce themselves. Nath took ages taking photos of well dust essentially (which I’m sure I’ll appreciate later) and I noticed we were quite close to some little boggy areas that looked like any second would produce a croc to drag us to our deaths so we didn’t linger long.

When we returned to the farm there were suddenly loads of people standing around ruining our quiet a private evening. It was a huge group of GAP year type kids and coupled with the load of Germans that had arrived earlier to camp it was pretty busy now. Emma, who hadn’t come on the bike ride, had been busy introducing herself in her lovely bubbly manner and helping set up for dinner. She informed us that the “miserable” Germans had insisted on having a little table all to themselves – if we‘d have had beach towels the seats would have already have been covered to highlight where they wanted to be!! I got chatting to Rhiannon one of the more talkative people form the group and actually in the world. If she hadn’t had such a cool welsh accent I may have switched off earlier. So we all reminisced about the UK and our different accents etc, the things you do all the time at home when you meet fellow Brits!!! And enjoyed the locally brewed draft which was stonking!!

Dinner was like heaven for us, a locally grown and shot I guess beef stew followed by apple crumble and home made cow juiced custard!! It was as though we were a predictable group of Brits or something, but of course from our end of the table when we joked about the best way to end the day was to find there was apple crumble we all cheered. There’s something about freshly squeezed milk in custard, I can’t put my finger on it, and maybe it’s knowing we helped squeeze that out or maybe the satisfaction we could see on the cows face as we were enjoying it all….or maybe that was the home brew, but it was the best pudding we’d had in months!! Through out our stay at the farm there had been building works going on, and as Olive had mentioned on our arrival the blokes were behind schedule she already had their nuts in a vice to finish on time. But as they were there for a long time they had therefore joined in on meals and meeting the tourists that had come to stay. One in particular had that old man perv about him and told jokes that just weren’t that funny. To add to his charisma he had taken a real shine to Emma who he spent most of his time trying to wind up in I guess the hope that she would turn round and jump his bones because he was just such a catch?? She coped very well given with his attention and laughe at his jokes, the boys however found him more annoying so stuck with muttering into their home brew bottles.

We sat up all night chatting and drinking the home brew and even went and had a spy round the other accommodation being as no one was staying in it (the hostel rooms were really nice and half the price when I had looked on line, so apart from the fact we got this double bedroom on the cheap thanks to the e-nights, I’d have been really pissed off that as no one was staying in the hostel rooms we could have had the whole place to ourselves. Anyway after a good nose around and an attempt to “hotwire” the internet connection, with no luck we decided as it was getting late and probably time to head to bed, I mean not everyone can handle as much alcohol and staying up as late as us. However it soon became apparent that the old clock in the hostel lounge was not wrong and what we thought was a late night was actually only 8.30pm!! I guess we had forgotten in all the excitement that we had only got a few hours sleep the night before and had also been up and “working the farm” since 6am.

Next morning after a great nights sleep, not because the bed was brilliant just because we could barely move our muscles once we got into bed, we were up relatively early (well early for us but perhaps not early for the farm hands) and made our way to breakfast. The new group that had arrived last night had beaten us to the calf feeding and egg collecting – bastards so all there was to do was collect the passion fruits from the mouldy chicken run. My highlight of the morning on that occasion was that I manage to grab a chicken, a real massive chicken, not a frozen one, and hold it quite still for a fairly long time before it shat on my hand and I dropped it (animal lover I promise). The set up of the farm was pretty much the same everyday so after breakfast you could either laze around and watch the local stupid kangaroo try to figure out again why he couldn’t get into the hammock or you could go for another hose ride.

With such a huge group all needing to ride the metal horse on their safety induction the 4 of us got started on our horses and were expected, now we had seen it done once, to saddle up everyone else’s horse whilst we waited. This was easier said than done, and I think every one of my horse’s girths was re done. Once we were all mounted we had a little practise in a padock which was fine except some tears form one of the girls who started to freak out. It turns out she had been thrown from a horse several years ago and not been on one since! What made her decided not to say anything at the mention of riding a horse, nor the induction, nor the health and safety briefing, but finally when she was already on the horse and waiting for the rest of the group to be ready!!

So she got walked around the field by her horse that didn’t care much for the gibbering wreck on its back whilst it sniffed and scratched itself against stuff. We didn’t really help much as having been told on the day before that two of our horse didn’t particularly like each other so to keep them apart (we got to see the little scuffle first hand!!!) we were all nervously keeping our horses apart who all decided they wanted to drink form the same water bucket, were trying to tell her that it would be fine. This time Trevor and Ivan two of the other “drovers” (I only know that term coz of the film Australia by Baz Lurman, which is a long winded film that could have easily finished a good hour before it did) would be leading us. They weren’t as talkative ay Lynne, although after insulting her dog training ability Lynne hadn’t actually spoken to me since the ride the day before! I tried my best to make some conversation as it was a very quiet and slow walking round but soon gave up and sank to the back of he group with Nath to enjoy the scenery go by – it was so hot that day!!!

By the time we got back it was again lunch time, with a great spread of salads and meats etc (although often there were flies buzzing around, but I guess when you work around large animals and poo all the time a few flies on your food is the least of your worries, -if I’d have said anything I’d have been referred to as a whinging pomme I’m sure! After missing out on the animal stuff in the morning, bar holding/dropping a chicken, I was able to be first in to collect the afternoons round of eggs. The deal with the chickens is you have to offer them something i.e. lunch so I went armed with a bucket of feed. Now I’m not scared of chickens but having been rushed by a hungry mob of about 20, I can see why they may make some people a little nervous!

Whilst the rest of the big group started their afternoon bike lesson – from the sounds of it Pete was using the same old trusted technique of more shouting, we took part in a different activity – rope lassoing and whip cracking. Now Lynne had shown us the night before at dinner that she was excellent at both. Anyway it looked really easy and we all started with the ropes tying to get them to move around us and in front of us. The whole time the workman had decided it was tea break (again) and were laughing their arses off watching us stupid foreigners try and move a bit of rope. We all managed in the end to get the hang of it, John doing particularly well but before long we all wanted to move onto whip cracking. Now I think the boys did better at this mainly because they weren’t scared of hitting themselves by the whip as it went pasted as much as we girls were. The wind rushing past my ear meant that my back swing, which should have had the snap in it ended up flopping at my side like I’d tried to throw a ball or something. Nath did very well with this (see the video) and I had to ask him to stop in the end after seeing the menace build up in his eyes- I can see what he’s gonna be asking for xmas!

We were having so much fun the four of us all agreed we wish we’d paid to stay for another day but none of us could as like us, Emma and John also had daily plans of where they had to be next. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, drinking tea and practicing the lasso and whip. Nath of course not prepared to give up till he had mastered both. It was soon time to take off the sweaty dirt covered jeans and chequered shirts we’d become so fond of and shine those boots so one eye Pete wouldn’t shout at us. Deep down he was actually all mouth as a few times when you caught him off guard he was smiling. I think Nath who was taking last minute photos of everyone asked him to give us a smile and he smirked slightly which Nath caught just in time. There was time for one more tea from the Billy can on the fire and a bite on the nose form Pink Floyd before we headed off in the van with Trevor into the sunset.

Trevor it would seem was a bit of a talker and by talker I mean he didn’t shut up all the way back to Rockhampton. The only brief moment of silence was when the local police pulled us off the road to clear a path for a huge piece of mining machinery being transported in the opposite direction. So very tired and with a ringing in our ears we said goodbye to Trevor and checked back into our rooms at the YHA. Nath and I had upgraded to a room on our own after the snoring incident in the shared quarters, so were super pleased to find it was a whole porticabin to ourselves with an ensuite toilet and fridge etc. it also had a sign on the wall to say it was a piece of history, a porticabin that had been used to house some of the athletes during the Sydney Olympics – wow what a spectacular and amazing waste of money!!

We had grabbed the last of the ensuite double rooms so poor Emma and John were in a tiny double with the toilet on the other side of the accommodation. So we decided we would use our place as a base for us all as it could hold food and also had a little patio area outside with table and chairs – sweet. Now being as we had a few days in Rocky and it was manly famous for cowboy goings on we decided to go and see a rodeo (as apposed to the other things cowboysrednecks are famous for -family members being inappropriate with each other). The Carlton hotel in Rocky where this was held happened to be on a Friday night only and at the oldest hotel in the area (so about 30 years old then). It looked like a proper old style wooden pub from out of a western, with the balcony and double front doors. We half expected to see people being thrown out of the windows and gun fire going off but then I guess we weren’t really in Wycombe anymore 😊

It was a normal pub at the front which was full of local aussies, so we tried not to speak and give ourselves away, and headed out towards the back of the pub where we were directed to head for the rodeo (so I guess asking for directions probably gave us away anyway then). It was like some kind of tardis pub when we got there, all of a sudden the pub stopped and we walked into what can only be described a an arena, with stalls of seats around a central dirt arena. There were loads of people there, a lot of them with cow boy hats on, so good ting Nath had his on so we blended in slightly. But the weirdest thing was there were actually bulls in a ring being ridden. I mean I know that’s what we came to see but I figured it would be like some Friday night down the local with a mechanical bull surrounded by cushions type of rodeo. Not here, it was a whole load of real life bulls with people being thrown about on top of them. There were also lots of little kids walking around with the proper “cowboy” gear on, hats and boots with spurs on that clanked as they walked past on the sawdust covered floor.

Anyway there was a huge queue for the food that was being handed out, which was of course every kind of meat you can think of on a huge bbq with chips and a small selection of what I guess they considered salad. So starving Emma and I joined the queue whilst the boys got the beers in. We were queued behind a lot of older men in cow boy outfits and little plastic badges like they were at some conference. It turns out they were, Emma asked in the typical hairdresser way what they were doing here, what they had planned, holidays etc (hehehhe) and it turns out they were from the local budgie fanciers group!!! Now if we hadn’t been in the land of “no sarcasm” I’d have thought they were pulling our leg but of course they were serious, and he started a conversation about how budgies don’t just come in yellow and blue. The guys got out a wallet full of budgie photos, like they were their feathery children – weird!!! The conversation kind of came to and end when Emma asked them what colour their budgie was and I laughed and explained it sounded a bit rude to ask – which of course met blank faces! When we got to the end of the queue for the bbq dinner we had all decided based on the prices we’d seen what we were going to have on our plate; but when we got there you just took a plate and took what you wanted and there didn’t appear to be anywhere to pay. No one seemed to be handing money over to the girls serving even though there was a price list. So we did what any hard up traveller would do – loaded our plates up with steak and sausages and didn’t say anything! Cheers!!

We sat and watched the bulls throwing people off into the dirt and then realised that all the riders were actually young boys, probably 16 and under riding some pretty huge beasts! Turns out it was the junior rodeo at the week end and this was like a trials night before the big event. There was also a bridge over the pens where you could go and have a look at the “beasts” which we never managed to get to in time as it was always full of people. The funniest part of the show when they bought out tiny little calf’s for the really small boys who tried to kick their little back legs before the kids fell off anyway. Apparently some of the littlest cow boys were only 3, no that’s not a typo, they were only three!!

By the time we had eaten our mountain of free food the rodeo had finished which was a shame as we were just getting into it. The budgie men had all gone and we seemed to be some of the only people left in the building. It was pretty cold too so we decided with the party over we may as well head back to our rooms for a nice British cuppa and a biscuit to wash away the taste of all that meat!

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Photos

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Emma feeding the baby cow

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How hard can I pull?

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This just feels wrong!

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Health and safety induction Aussie style

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Woah horsey

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Proper Aussie landscape

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What you lookin at Whillis!!

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Nice outfits!

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Mustard

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Atlantic

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(Pink) Floyd and Harry (no feathers)

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Thats the spot

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Not convinced "just dont fall off" is adequate teaching!

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Sunset after a long day

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Wish I'd brought my sunnies with me now!

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Proper wild roo!!