GRADUATION

Hi again, thought I would change the background of my blog, was getting a bit bored of the pink. I didn't think it was quite me! I just looked on the Outback Packers (the company we did our training week with) website and noticed that the comment I left in the visitors book has been posted on the web! They were going to put photos of us all up too but not had time to look and see if that is the case yet. There is a link to the site on the right hand side of my page.


Ok, back to where I left off last time. Sorry for all the horse chat last time, I know some of you didn't reach the end of that blog!


Tom's graduation was held at the Quantas museum in Longreach. It wasn't quite as dressy as ours were. The boys were all in either jeans or cream trousers with shirt and tie. The girls were all in smart dresses. It was an good service and had some very funny photo presentations and talks. There were also a number of awards handed out for the top of some of the courses. Below is a photo of Tom's class.

After the service there were nibbles and all the adults got a free beer! This was really interesting as one of the Agri students, Truckie, who I met in the pub the Friday before introduced me to a number of other students and their families. We then headed to one of the motels where there was to be an after party with a barbeque. The thunder has started as soon as the graduation service started and when we left the Quantas Museum it was absolutely pouring with rain and there were a number of flashes of lightening. This resulted in a very wet start to the after party. Although the party was in doors, the bar was beside the outdoor pool and so you still got rather wet just going to the bar. I really enjoyed the night. I met a number of students and learnt a lot about farming methods out here - especially the horse side of things. We left about 10pm to go back to the motel as we had to leave at 5am to drive back to Jundah to get Sarah to school.


The drive back was rather interesting as there had been quite a bit of rain and there were a number of places where the roads had flooded. Also going back so early there were a number of silly kangaroos and calves running out in front of the car, thankfully we missed them all!


Last night there was a meeting here about the draught situation and then food provided at the hotel. Tom went along to the meeting and Sarah and I then went to join him for the meal. Last night was good as I got to meet a number of the locals and had a few games of pool - Paul I could have done with you being here and showing them how it is done! Our games seemed to go on for ever and my playing has got worse down here!


Today I have spent some time at the school joining them for their break up party as it is the last day of term. I arrived just as they started playing on the water slide. They spent ages on it and had a great time. If it wasn't for lunch arriving I don't know how else we would have got them off it! We then had a picnic style lunch and I helped them finish off Christmas presents they have made for their parents.
Looks like I will be here for one more week then we are all heading to Noosa to spend the week before Christmas there. After this I plan to head to Newcastle to spend Christmas with the family I did my training with. Thankfully Ryan, Bobby and the rest of the Craibstone boys (some family farming friends from home for those of you down in Edinburgh!) have managed to get accommodation in Sydney for Christmas and New Year so I am going to meet up with them for New Year - should be a blast. I am then going to head down to Canberra for 1-2 weeks before coming back to Sydney where I will meet Jo from my training week and we will head up to the Blue Mountains. This will be the start of my travels as I will then head up the east coast towards Cairns, stopping at a number of places on the way.

Hope I haven't bored you as much as my last post! Thinking of you all.
xxxxx