Hello again! As a brief interlude to my cattle station job, I'm working on a tropical island helping take care of koalas! I'm on Magnetic Island working at Bungalow Bay Koala Park. On my way over to the island I stopped at the Reef HQ in Townsville. It's quite a cool place, like a gigantic aquarium of the Great Barrier Reef.

 Reef shark

 Funny little spotted shark that will actually walk along the ocean floor with his fins

 Jellyfish or "stingers" as Australians call them

 Can you spot the mud fish? These guys can escape predators by jumping up onto land and staying there for a while

 Some creepy moray eels, not something I want to meet underwater!

 Not sure how this works, but the jellyfish are solar powered

 I wasn't real impressed by the color quality of my camera, but here's some of the different corals

 The mighty sea cow... well, a plastic one anyways

 Anyone hungry for some sea cucumbers?

 Big ray

 Big colorful lobster

 The ray was pretty camera shy for me

 Tiger fish

 Another creepy moray eel

 And a creepy sea snake

 Box Jellyfish aka Sea Wasp aka Fire Medusa aka deadliest jellyfish in the world! Thankfully this one is made of plastic. Fun fact! 12 of these bad boys were netted in the past year in the bay just a 5 minute walk from where I'm staying here on Magnetic Island!

 These turtles are much cuter, and are a sea creature I wouldn't mind seeing in the wild!

 Nemo and Dory!

 Small crocodile

And a barramundi

Godzilla the spider!



And now I'm on a little tropical paradise called Magnetic Island! In the first couple hours of being on the island I saw a wild koala, a wallaby with her joey, a couple lizards, and a bunch of cool little red clawed crabs. Then I had a kookaburra who wanted to get into my little bungalow at night!

 Home sweet home for the next two weeks

 Can't see him very well, but this guy is super cute!!

And here's some pictures of the fellas I'm helping to take care of!

 A few of the lizards

 The blue tongued lizard

 Some smallish crocodiles, the one in the back with his mouth open is one of the salties you hear horror stories about. But, fun fact, statistically the deadliest animal in Australia is actually a horse!

 This is Thor

 Pebbles

And Claudia. Aren't they adorable! And they really are as soft as they look! But I'm told if you tried touching any of the wild ones they have very sharp claws that they aren't afraid to use

 An echidna

 Donovan the python

He's about 6 feet long

 Harry the big fat wombat

Two minutes out in the sun sure tired out Harry, he ran as fast as his fat little legs could carry him straight back to his air-conned house

 Georgie the jungle python, he looks green in shade and yellow in sun! I just thinks he's pretty

 Shadow the black red-tailed cockatoo, can you guess why? Australians aren't very creative with some of their names, haha. He's also the doorbell, whenever someone comes through the gate he squawks to let everyone know.

Here's the kookaburra who hangs out by my bungalow

On a different note, I've had to say good bye to my little Hotel Barina. After a collision with that most murderous of objects- a rock- me and my coworkers did everything we could trying to save her but she finally gave up in a big cloud of smoke. This is my new ride! A little manual Toyota Corolla that is really fun to drive, she's got a sport engine :)

Oof that was a long post! I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!!

I'm sorry! This was supposed to have published a couple weeks ago! Well, better late than never, I guess...



Howdy, howdy! Things are much the same here: wonderful! I haven't been mustering as much anymore, instead we've been busy fencing, fixing water troughs, feeding animals, and everything else that needs doing! But rather than tell you all about it, I'll just throw a bunch of pictures up for your viewing pleasure :)

 Little Mac and Cheese

 This is sweet little Brisket, unfortunately I didn't get to keep her, she is causing mayhem for my boss's 9-year-old niece. She should really be called Houdini for her amazing ability to get out of any enclosure!

 Some of the ladies waiting for their calves to get branded and vaccinated etc.

 My ever growing poddy family

 Some of the horses, that short, fat white thing is Trumby

Hello again! Sorry for not posting anything for a while. We've been busy mustering cattle which has been a new experience! We do it all on horse back and I've now realized I'm not a very good horse rider haha, I've fallen off a couple of times already. We're also busy branding, tagging, vaccinating, etc etc all the calves that get mustered in. I've got a little group of poddy calves I get to take care of everyday- poddies are calves that for whatever reason don't have a mother around. Every day is different and we stay plenty busy! We've been fencing, fixing windmills and water troughs, putting out mineral lick... All sorts of stuff! Sorry I don't have many pictures, we get busy and then I just plain forget!

 Some of the "weaners" that have been brought back to the home place, they're about 6-8 months old and we feed them hay and get them used to people, dogs, and getting mustered.

 This is Buster, one of my main horses

 These are my poddies

 Mustering a big mob into the yards

Rookie, this is the horse I ride most of the time

Guess what! I've got a job on a cattle station!! But I haven't posted a blog in about a month so along me to catch you all up on what I've been doing...

After getting to pick up Dr. Kreykes from the airport, I brought my car in for a quick service and get just get a few things fixed on it. Well that quick job took over a week during which time I pretty much just sat around twiddling my thumbs. Some friends from church were super kind and allowed me stay with them. Definitely not what I had planned but it was a good week nonetheless. Saw my first snake! Albiet a roadkill one, I don't think I need to see any more of them up close. Also saw an echidna and LOTS of kangaroos. I was also able to send out job applications during this week and that's when I landed the job I've got now!

So once my car was out of the mechanics shop, I started driving and took a few days to drive from central NSW to central QLD. Along the way I toured a camel dairy which I thought was super cool! Did you know camel milk will cure all your ails and will save the planet!? 

The area is called the Scenic Rim; this was my view while driving to the camel dairy. Unfortunately these clouds didn't drop any rain but it was still quite pretty!

I would drive for a while and then stop at roadside parks to sleep in my Hotel Barina for a while. One night I pulled in after dark and parked beside what I thought was a large tree stump. I was a little surprised when I woke up and saw this strange creature looking in my window!

When not driving, I would stop and read a book on the beach. 

And I would treat myself for breakfast by going to a coffee shop, yum!

And then I got to my new job! I'm a "jillaroo" on a cattle station. Basically that means I do whatever I'm told to do and hopefully soon they will let me on one of their many horses and get in on the mustering. So far I've been busy helping with the drafting, branding, etc of the animals that get mustered into the yards and following along as they all get brought back to their paddocks picking up any calves who can't walk all the way there. Been fixing fences and putting out quite a bit of mineral lick- and man do those bags get heavy when you are out in the heat! Feeding calves, a couple horses, and a pig are part of my daily duties. Oh and trying to not get lost in the maze of paddocks, "quick roads", mining tracks, and miles upon miles of barbed wire fencing!

No mice for roommates this time! Just cockroaches, giant spiders, and a little white toad who lives behind the toilet.

 Some of the calves on the homestead who I get to feed hay to everyday.

 Following the mob of cattle on their way back home.

These guys decided to help me as I was mucking stalls... Names are Princess, CutCat, and Marilyn (Monrow)