I CAN happily report that, although the drive was longer, the four-hour trip from Queenstown to Launceston this morning was much smoother than our Burnie to Queenstown leg and most of the boys were able to sleep most of the way.

We went to a fundraiser at the Queenstown footy club last night which was pretty good; there were about 80 people there and we got a nice roast meal and everyone seemed to have a good time.

It was straight to bed after that finished a bit after 9pm because the boys decided we’d like to visit one of the many mines around Queenstown early in the morning before we headed off to Launceston.

We ventured down there and got the drill on how it all works with emergency procedures and stuff like that and then they got us into our gear with head lamps and all the rest and then it was down the mine.

We went down about 550m below sea level which I thought was going to be pretty daunting but it was actually not too bad. I thought we were going to be in a little cage, but the space was probably about 5m by 5m which is big enough for the mining trucks to drive down there.

They showed us how the iron ore was pulled out of the mine on these massive trucks which carry about 50 tonnes of dirt; it was really interesting.

It’s a pretty weird feeling down there because there’s obviously no sunlight whatsoever and the only sound you hear is the trucks.

We were only down there for an hour, but when we came out it was like we’d been down there all night because there was so much sun glare and all our eyes were really blurry. It was a really good experience though.

We jumped on the bus for Launie soon after we left there and stopped in Burnie to get some lunch. All the boys had Subway, but I went to the bakery as well because I was really hungry and then we went straight to Aurora Stadium for a training session.

Because we were the furthest away, our group didn’t do anything once we got to Launceston, but all the other guys were out and about doing community activities during the day.

I think Hodgey’s group went to a local winery – just to look, not taste - and then played mini-golf with some handicapped children after that.

It was really good to see all the lads again. Being so far away from everything down in Queenstown, we had no phone reception so contact with the outside world was a bit difficult, but now we’re back with all the other boys and everyone’s pretty glad to see each other.

Once you meet up with everyone else it’s like you haven’t seen them for two weeks when it’s only been two days.

I really enjoy the type of stuff that we’ve been doing over the last couple of days, but I must admit it was great to get out on the park with the boys and have a kick of the footy again.

We’ll have a few meetings tonight and discuss the next few days with Thursday set to be a pretty big day with more community visits and a super clinic in the morning.