My Outback Adventure (part one!)

---

My time in Australia has largely been filled with beaches, goon and more beaches, however I had the privilage of spending a day at a working cattle station in the outback on the 21st Feb, so I finally have an activity worth blogging about! The trip to the cattle station was included in the Oz Expirence ticket. It was a long drive from the town of 1770, however our fantastic driver guide 'Uncle Buck' managed to make it not just bareable but fun with his games. We crossed the Great Dividing Range, the mountains which seperates the coastal towns (where everybody lives) from the outback (where nobody lives). It was a beautiful and exciting ten minute driving round the mountain's nail biting hair pin bends!

Kroombit Cattle station is over thirty minutes from the nearest town, its 100,000 acres with 10,000 head of cattle, a few hundred goats, 60 horses and many other exciting animals. Its so big they have to hire a helicoptor to round up the cattle about twice a year (the existence of extremely well paid mining jobs in this part of Queensland means that a helicoptor is the cheaper option than labour costs). Now this, (bare in mind that I live in a rural village in England where you have to get in the car to buy milk and I spent my entire teen years moaning about living in the middle of nowhere) this is the middle of nowhere!

I immediately liked Kroombit. The few people who live and work there walk round in cowboy hats and scarfs, not for the effect but out of necessity. Its hot. Very hot. Our first activity was lunch. And because we are in 'cattle country' where there's only one meat on the menu, lunch is steak. Streak cooked on an outback, outdoor BBQ. We just have to stroll over to the Cowboy cooking it and let him know how we would like it cooked! mainly becuase I'm starving and have no interest in waiting 'rare' is my decision. Its my first 'bloody steak' (don't get to jel Rach!) and I'm bloody lav' it!

As we are eating Andy our Cowboy host rides over on a horse to tell us about how the 'Goat Muster', an extra activity priced at $30 which Hannah and I had decided to give a miss, would work. It sounded amazing: 'We are a working cattle station so we gotta go round up the goats so you guys can do the Goat Rodeo later, we ain't guna do it for ya this is a real job'. I hear a voice say 'is it to late to join in?' Uh Oh! Hannah, ever the weak one in the hands of temptation, has caved.

So twenty minutes later I am lying about how much riding expirence I have and being introduced to my equestrian companion for the afternoon, Tramp! Now I need you to imagine a ranch in the westerns - you know the paddocks that are made of wood and filled with the most beautiful chestnut horses and even one or two glamourous ones with those cow like markings. Its an amazing place and even before the 'Goat Muster' starts I'm thanking my travelling companion for her ability to give into temptation!

There are about twenty riders on the muster, we walk out and begin the hunt. Tramp is a wonderfully energetic horse, hes a leader of the pack type, great fun! Before long we have found about fifty goats and we begin to fan out and scoop them up. We make lots of noise to get the goats moving, my throat becomes sore from woops and cries of YEEEEEEEHA! After dropping the first bunch (I'm fairly sure that more the kind of word you employ to describe grapes than goats, oh dear!) we head of in pursuit of some more (I'd say the rest but on a station this big thats unachieveable!). We successfully repeat the exercise and I'm honoured when Honey Bear asks me to join him in gathering the goats which have strayed from the first lot we rounded up. By this point my tranformation into a Cowgirl is compete any embaressment I may have felt at the beginning has vanished and I'm right in amongst the goats as we close the gate and congratulate ourselfs with yet more crys of YEEEEEEEHA on a job well done!

to be continued........(my internet time is up!!)

---