Day 228 – Friday 18th December – Kroombit Cattle Station

I don’t even know where to start describing today – It was non-stop from dawn until almost dawn again. We started with quad biking and since we were still the only guests we were taken out for two and a half hours as opposed to the usual one and a half – absolutely brilliant fun. We returned for showers and lunch which was when the new backpacker coaches started to arrive.
Once everyone had eaten, a load of us went to muster the goats for the afternoons goat rodeo which was probably the highlight of the day for me... or was it the ‘ring-of-fire’? (which involved an 11,000Vcattle prod!!). To enter the goat rodeo you needed a team of two; one to be the catcher/brander and the other to be the tipper. And you need a team name. Ant and I were the Hairy Chins (don’t ask... I haven’t found out yet either.) The team enters the ring with all the goats and stands in a small semi-circle to one side whilst the rodeo leader nominates a goat for the team to brand. The clock starts when the audience yells the question, “Hairy Chins, are you ready?” and the Hairy Chins reply... “F**k yeah”. The tipper must remain in his spot whilst the catcher (that’s me) catches (by the leg) and drags over (by the horns) the nominated goat, the tipper then ‘tips’ the goat onto it’s back and holds it steady whilst I rush over to get the brander and press it firmly onto the goats butt for 3 seconds, at which point the clock stops. All sounds very simple. There are 5sec time penalties for various faults such as body slamming the goat instead of tipping it, branding in the wrong place and the tipper leaving his post. I have to say it was the most hilarious thing I have seen in a long time. We watched a few teams go first... lots of running round in endless circles, goats kicking, goats peeing everywhere, goats wrestling the tippers and at least one goat being body-slammed into the ground! But we were outstanding and as the only team with no time penalties we took first place! Yeeee-Haaaa!!!

The day just didn’t stop there though; we learnt how to crack whips, to lasso and to shoot rifles. We watched Boss fall out of the tree, drank ‘giggle juice’ and laughed at everyone on the mechanical bull. We tasted goat meat, we drank local Rum, we won tug-of-war and we listened to Al’s talk about the history of the Kroombit area. We finally gave up and went to bed in the early hours after watching many rounds of a very lively outback drinking game and helping a slightly homesick Danish girl make drunken decisions about her love life. A truly awesome day. I want to be a cowgirl.