Rockhampton and everything else...

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So....a lot has happened since our last post! Here's a quick breakdown of where we have been since Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands: after Airlie Beach we travelled down to Rockhampton for a few nights (including a day trip to Myella Farm (more on that later)) and from there we went to 1770/Agnes Water and then we moved on down to Rainbow Beach for a night (it's near Fraser Island) and from Wednesday 25th we have stayed with my family (my dad's cousin) in Coolum on the Sunshine Coast.

Since the last post we have tried our hand at a few new activities and although not being brilliant at all of them, they have all been an experience nonetheless...

When we stayed in Rockhampton (the cow meat capital of Australia and not Ellie friendly!), we decided to experience a bit of Australian outback and go to a ranch for a day trip to try our hand at some horseriding, dirt-biking and some other 'farm like' activities. Ellie and I were offered to stay at a ranch called Kroombit as part of our bus pass but a lot of backpackers go there (they have things like 'rodeo contests'😉 and we decided to go a little bit off the beaten track and explore a little family run farm/ranch (I don't know what to call it!).

Anyhow, it turned out to be a great idea! There was only four us all together (us and another couple) and for the first part of the day we were given a task to herd up some stray cows with our horses after being briefed how to ride them (Ellie had a horse called Picasso and I had one called Mandrake) and we spent most of the morning chasing after cows and taking them to their respective location! It was such an amazing experience and we really felt as though we were helping the farmanch (farm + ranch) out. After successfully (after a little help from our lead guy) putting the cows in their place, we had some lunch and moved onto riding a motorcycle/dirt bike.

This was pretty cool and although being a little apprehensive at first after only recently learning to drive a bloody car, I think Ellie and I made a pretty good job of it. We wobbled a bit on our respective bikes but after getting used to the gear system, we were well away and tearing around this well beaten dirt track next to the ranch. Well, I say 'tearing' - I think I managed to get up to about 20mph... However, being the budding Hell's Angel that I am, I did get up to 60mph on the straight at the end and was very proud of myself until some grit flew into my eye and halted my excitement!

After causing havoc on the dirt track, Ellie and I were asked to help milk a cow. Now, this isn't as easy as it looks. I started the milking session on a particularly bad note as when I went to sit down to milk the cow for the first time, I somehow managed to fall off the milking stall and fall flat onto my back much to the amusement of everyone watching. Apparently, no-one has ever done that before so I think I have made a bit of 'name' for myself at the ranch! Ellie, however, was much better than I was and made it look easy! As soon as we were finished milking the cow, we were asked to pick up some eggs from the chicken pen and then made our way back to the bus for the trip home. The day had absolutely flown by and we also managed to meet all the family and learn some of the history of the place. Everyone was so friendly and from what we heard about Kroombit, we definitely managed to get a much better deal out of it! It felt great to actually help out with the day to day activities and not get in the way too much (even if I couldn't control my horse at times!).

Anyway, after the highs of the Myella Farm stay and another night in Rockhampton, we moved on down to a town called 1770 (near Agnes Water). Apparently, 1770 relates to a chap called Captain James Cook who is apparently a big deal over here (no idea why) and his landing in the area. Australians aren't brilliant at naming places (they normally state the obvious like 'One Mile Beach'😉 and so the town of 1770 was named a bit unimaginatively named like that. Although, we didn't let the name fool us as we managed to arrive in the town at completely the right time as the 1770 Weekend Festival was on celebrating the landing of the Captain himself. The festival ran for two days over the weekend and was a very hippy type of festival with tie-dye tshirts and plenty of folky music being played. The festival also included a rubber duck race in the sea, eating lots of different world cuisines and the locals meeting up for a beer up.

Whilst in 1770, we took it upon ourselves to hire electric bicycles and explored the town without having to exert too much energy at all. We 'cycled' all around and went up to the main coastal point overlooking the beaches and surrounding areas and generally had a nice leisurely cycle around this rather small town. With only one pub in the whole town which closes ridiculously early, it is not a main place for backpackers to stop over but Ellie and I had a really great time working our way round the town at our own pace and getting involved in the festival with the locals.

We also managed to fit in a surf lesson one day in 1770 and this was a very intense experience! The surf was fairly big so the instructor admitted that it wasn’t an ideal introduction to the world of surfing for any new surfer. However, we both had a go and managed to stand on the board at least once (for a split second each) and this definitely hasn’t deterred our fleeting surfing careers. As we are working south and past the Great Barrier Reef, the waves will be ever present so Ellie and I have said to each other we will have a few more goes and hire some boards at relevant beaches along the coast.

So, from 1770 we caught the bus to Noosa (a town with no traffic lights whatsoever) and met up with my rellies - Jackie and Bill in Coolum on the Sunshine Coast. Coolum is a lovely little place and as well as getting well looked after, we have managed to get down to the local beach and build an EPIC sandcastle (pictures to follow). However, today we decided to visit Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin's Zoo) and near enough had the place to ourselves. It was empty! At times we were on our own in the exhibits and wondering whether we should actually be in there! We managed to cover the majority of the Zoo and the shows (the time absolutely flew by) and fitted in a picture with Ellie cuddling a koala, stroked a baby alligator and saw some crocs being fed. There is a new safari exhibit being opened in September so we will hopefully be visiting again to tick off the bits that we missed. It certainly was an incredible experience.

On that note, I have waffled on far too long and this weekend we are just going to explore some more of Coolum and surrounding areas (we might go to a junior surf comp) and then we move on down to Brisbane on Monday. Hopefully, we will be staying in Brisbane for 2/3 months in order to work so we are actually quite excited by the thought of knuckling down for a while. It certainly has been fast flowing the last 3 and a half weeks so a bit of stability is definitely in order....!

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