The Cattle Ranch!!!

From Airlie we headed to a rural place called Kroombit the home to a large cattle ranch full of bugs, horses, goats, and over enthuastic Aussie farmers! The trip down was an experience in itself thanks to our bus driver named Gweedo and only the three of us likely lads and a Scot named Dave!

At each courtesy stop we undertook in some ‘extreme’ events…1st up was the boomerang catch! Sounds simple but when there are 4 feisty lads all competing to catch one boomerang at the same time it turns into something very similar to American football minus the padding and the sportsmanship!

Next up was lawn bowls, a sport renowned for the elderly, even older than our old dears, however us four stooges brought a new dimension to the lawn! Paired up, me and Dave vs the formidable pairing of Hubbsy and McEvoy the fierce competition was underway! After some classic bowling the unexpected victors of myself and Dave took the other two to the cleaners winning 12 points to 4!
Anyway, we arrived at the cattle ranch at around 6pm, perfect timing for a couple of beers before dinner! That night we undertook in some ranch activities including cracking the whip where the end of it breaks the sound barrier releasing a small sonic boom…sounds exciting but after our coordination was comprised by the Aussie lagers it ended in a fair bit of pain when we whipped ourselves time after time!

The mechanical bull was next on the list of activities. After riding these bulls back in England at various events and succumbing to zero pain we thought nothing of this...however after the demonstration by one of the ranch girls we immediately regretted signing up to this event due to its violent nature in the groinal region! After each man was rejected of the back of the bull in new worlds of pain our time had come to mount this beast…we, like everyone else, spent little time on this however Baz came out victorious with an impressive 20 second stint!
Later that night whilst myself and Hubbsy we in bed (not together!), we got anxiously awoken by Baz. It had turned out, much to our amusement that an ‘acquaintance’ of Baz’s, a female Dutch dentist, had been bitten by something rather painful and poisonous. We got up to help out the worried party and assured her she was ok with zero confidence in our own judgement. The next day it turned out she had been bitten by a centipede which can cause ‘some’ discomfort!

The previous day one of the farmers was excited at the prospect of doing something different with a bus of lads…death was mentioned due to the lack of female presence!
So the morning had arrived and the same chap turned up and asked again if we wanted to kill something…being lads we naturally said yes! So we headed off in his jeep to the clay pigeon range and some shot-gun fun…a warm up for what was to come! We had 5 clays each with Hubbs shooting 2 out of 5 clays and myself and Baz drawing on 4 out of 5 clays! Impressive!
After being informed that the farm was out of goat meat we were 99% sure that a goat was going to die, but how we were completely unaware! Unlike in the UK these ranches don’t have the same humane ways to kill their animals. Dach pulled the short straw, and was handed a very old .22calibre rifle very prone to blocking.
So…the time had come and nothing could have prepared us for what was about to unfold in the pen (of death). Hubbs and Baz stood outside the pen whilst Dach readied the rifle and got it into position whilst the farmer held the unsuspecting goat down by the horn.
It must be made clear at this stage that none of us had been made aware of a goats thickened skull…
So the shot was released and much to our amazement the goat did not die, instead Dach was then instructed to reload and take a second shot and to avoid the flailing hand of the farmer as he struggled to hold the goat in place…still this time the poor goat was not at rest…I briefly turned round to see Hubbs and Dave struggling to watch…I unfortunately didn’t have that privilege and Baz remained poker-faced throughout, camcorder trained firmly on the assassination!
The second shot was fired and once again the goat survived, by this time the gun was blocked so the farmer ended it all in a very old school way, Swiss Army Knife!
All a bit shocked about what had just happened we skinned and gutted the goat which seemed a lot more soothing!
A very brutal experience however we were all happy to have witnessed and unfortunately undertake in a necessary way of life in the Australian outback!

Before we left the ranch to make our way to Hervey Bay one more challenge awaited us ‘the cattle prod’! The prod is used to ‘manoeuvre’ the cattle by sending 11,000volts through them. It has no current so cant kill you however as expected provides a kick with it! One by one and not really sure whether the farmers were being serious we stood forth arms out and took the voltage! Least to say it left us with a bit of a tingle!
All in all a very good experience was had at the ranch and Fraser Island now awaited us!