Week 6 of the DownUnder Tour

Having just returned from Ayers Rock, the Olgas and King's Canyon, we began week 6 with a few study days for the children intermixed with time on the BMX track, in the swimming pool, on the jumping pillows, and most importantly, seeing the local attractions around Alice Springs.
One of these is their fantastic Reptile Park. Everyone made friends as can be seen in the photos and now Mariah wants an olive python for her birthday while Christian thinks a bearded dragon is the go. (I think he has been reading too much about those sweet dragons in the Harry Potter books.) The problem is that pythons eat bearded dragons so "never the twain shall meet". Even Maree enjoyed holding the python and it seemed very comfortable on her. Perhaps we could breed these and give them away as gifts for those who would appreciate the latest fashion accessory. This one is even Maree's colours...

Have you ever met someone who is a bit "prickly"? Well for this poor unfortunate "thorny devil" pictured on the right, he can't be any other way. Needless to say, he wasn't getting many cuddles at all!

On another day following the formal lessons we ventured to the Alice Springs Desert Park where we learned about the strategies that plants and animals use to cope with the harsh climate. Some can even go without water for years! Amongst the birds there was this beautiful fairy wren, pictured on the left. How do you hide from your prey when you are that striking?

Other birds are proven great hunters with incredible agility and finesse, such as the brown falcon shown on the right. The Desert Park has a "Birds of Flight" show where there is a bird that picks up a rock and repeatedly drops it on an emu egg so it can have a feed. Good training? No. It is actually hard-wired into them from birth according to the experts.

We finally felt as though we had covered what was to be seen and done in Alice Springs so set off for Tennant Creek to see the "talk of the town", Jimmy of Gum Tree 69. Now Jimmy is no ordinary bloke. He has been featured on television and in magazines, including having a segment done on him on Australian Story. Having said that, Jimmy would be one of the most "down to earth" people you would ever meet, and someone whose ego is inversely proportional to his fame, so much so that he cleans toilets at the caravan park for his day job.

Jimmy has an Aborigine mother who taught him about bush foods and survival techniques from the time he was small. When he was old enough he set out on his own as a prospector and worked at it for 18 years while living at Gum Tree 69. When he did not realise his dream of finding a huge gold deposit he began to share his knowledge of the bush and took the job cleaning toilets in the local caravan park, a job he still does today. As the sun sets though, Jimmy comes into his own, holding campfire presentations on bush tucker and bush medicines while telling bush poems and stories.

We had the pleasure of trying many of the bush foods, such as live grubs that live in bush coconuts, the eggs they lay, and the bush coconut itself. We had snotberries and bush ginger and learned about where to find the witchetty grubs. We then cooked a few in the coals of the fire and we all couldn't get enough of them. Take it from me, they are delicious! Jimmy also teaches people how to cook kangaroo tail and other bush favourites. We really enjoyed the evening and even bought his bush poetry book, personally autographed on the spot.

Offhand I can''t think of anyone else I would rather have access to if lost in the bush. He knows what can and can't be eaten, what to use for insect bites / stings, and how to find a feed almost anywhere. If Burke & Wills had Jimmy with them, they would never have gone hungry or thirsty. I respect this man's immense knowledge of the bush and admire that he is trying to share that knowledge with those who take an interest, including those in the Aboriginal community in Tennant Creek. Unfortunately he says that the young of today are more interested in Austar that learning about bush foods. This is a bit of a shame as we found that you can't buy bush foods anywhere! Not only are there no witchetty grubs to be purchased, most aborigines today would not know where to find them, which is a crying shame. If there were an entrepreneurial person who started a business supplying true bush foods I think they would find a market. If they took this one step further and opened a restaurant serving the food and teaching others how to prepare it they could have a small gold mine. This would be a great way to begin to reduce the high unemployment in Tennant Creek in the Aboriginal population.

From Tennant Creek we followed the road north to Mataranka, known as the area of "We of the Never, Never" and for its hot springs. The springs were magnificent with clear warm water flowing slowly along in a beautiful setting free of crocs. One cannot say the same for some of the areas downstream however, with warning signs in prominent places warning of both the fresh and salt water crocs, or Estuarine as they are more appropriately known since they are not limited to salt water but can be found everywhere from small freshwater billabongs to 100 miles out to sea. We will have more info and pics of the salties soon but for now, I am inclined to stay clear of any area where they may be.

The hikes at Mataranka are not as interesting as those in many of the places we have been but one thing I did find of interest was the termite mounds. These are so prolific in some paddocks that the area looks like a cemetary, with the termite mounds as the headstones. Just have a look at the pic on the right of this mound that was alongside the road, offering too good an opportunity to miss with the camera. Mind you this is not nearly the biggest mound we have seen, with some towering 3.5 to 4 metres and 2 metres across! The information stations all tell us how good these termites are to the ecology and that there can be millions of the little critters in one paddock. If only there were a way to harness them to good use....

From Mataranka we ventured to Katherine Gorge, which is a beautiful spot as depicted by these pics from the lookout. We will have more on Katherine Gorge next week as we take a boat trip up the gorge and learn more about this area, its formation, seasons, flora, fauna, and, of course, its crocs!