Goat Branding

  Koombit, Queensland, Australia
Monday, June 2, 2008

It's a long journey North and in land to get to the cattle ranch, but finally they seemed to have managed a big bus. We head out through the bush entertained with lots of random info and crazy stories from our bus driver, Forest. We arrive at the station in time for a steak late lunch at 2.30pm, dump our stuff in the stables/dorms and head off across the station for shooting and goat branding! Others have gone out on horses to muster the goats (not cattle!).

Clay shooting

We have 5 shots at the clay pigeons, I hit the first and then all goes a bit pear shaped! The winning guy and the winning girl then get the opportunity to shoot at a gas canister which Forest has spent most of the journey trying to track down - It's Sunday so most the shops were shut! The gas canister is a smallish aerosol style can in case you were imagining a huge canister like I was!
 

goat branding

Now its time for the Branding of the goats. Obviously the goats cant really be branded every day, so a little imagination is required as the cold branding iron - painted red at the end - is used. First we split into teams of three, so Ben, Saun and I stick together.

goat branding 2

First challenge is to catch the goat by the horns, second to grab one front leg and one back leg to flip the goat onto its side with a knee by the head, the third person must then run across the slippery, muddy pen to get the branding iron without touching the red bit and hold it to the goats hide. The aim is to do all this in the quickest time. Obviously some goats are more docile than others - and the demo being done on the most lethargic! Somehow our dream team, 'Nannies and the Kid' managed to get the quickest time! This resulted in us performing the Demo for the late coming horse riders!

rounding up the goats

 

By this time its nearly dark so time for the canister shooting. The canisters are placed by a small fire. Each winner gets two canisters and two shots.

blowing up canisters

They explode with an almighty fireball - pretty awesome, but totally stupid! Fireworks over, time to take the bus back across the muddy fields without getting stuck in time for more station food, followed by mastering whip cracking and riding the mechanical bull! We get to about the 5th person on the mechanical bull and he manages to completely destroy the bull instead of falling off! Quite impressive and a little sad for the bull. The staff try and distract us with games for an hour so while they try and fix it. Eventually its semi repaired so we all get a go without any of the complicated turning and a maximum of 8 bucks! One buck was more than enough for several people - off straight over the head before it had barely begun. Other guys chose to come straight off as they realised their crown jewels were being crushed! I managed to fly off on my 8th buck, not bad.

mechanical bull

 

Monday and its another early start as it really is our longest day on the bus. 7am and we are off back across the bush.

Tropic of capricorn

We stop at the line of the tropic of Capricorn and from the temperants we pas into the tropics - an my can't you tell, its hot and humid already! We stop for some bare foot lawn bowls in Serena, bizarre but fun. Then moving quickly on we stop at some random old lady's shop full of junk/hidden treasures depending on how you look at it I guess! I manage to find strawberries in a desperate attempt to buy something in a place full of old magazines, books and kids bikes! And then finally on to Airlie Beach where we start our Whitsundays cruises. On arrival Forest proudly shows us his trick of getting inside the tumble dryer, shutting it and going round and round with it. 'Really?' I hear you ask. Yes. Funny - but shows quite how random our bus driver was. Next, time to check in with Oz sailing ready for tomorrow. It turns out Ben is also on Powerplay, my boat for the next 3 days.