Hard to top that even if the reasoning was crazy.We did indeed make it to Nourlangie and sank gratefully to the landing strip for more fun times, not. In incredibly oppressive heat and humidity we unloaded the plane until a seeming mountain of supplies sat in a forlorn pile, waiting to be collected by Nym, Al's Aboriginal jack of all trades who Al assured me, was on his way to take all the stuff into the camp in the Nourlangie truck. The camp and landing strip stand on a half-mile long hump of land on the flood plain. The only way in was by plane, until the Dry once more made road access possible.
TRUCK STUFFED, BEER WARM
Unchained from its weight, the plane escaped back to Darwin, mocking us by zooming up like a rocket and making a derisive pass over our heads as we waited for Nym , who eventually ambled up the path after the half-mile walk from the cluster of huts and larger dining pavilion which made up the lodge. Nym was a welcome sight but as far as I was concerned would be more welcome if he was driving the truck. No such bloody luck.
Nym explained that the vehicle had given up the ghost for a number of electrical reasons, will not start and there was no way he could breathe life into it. Al, always a deft hand at dealing with adversity, said no worries, we would take the supplies to the camp in two ancient wheelbarrows. This prospect made me think I would have been better off spending my vacation mucking out stables at Fannie Bay wearing a hair shirt.
I gloss over the next two hours getting those supplies to the camp --three trips a half mile down a rough bush track then back again. I was not comforted by Al's advice to keep a sharp eye for buffaloes, although, he said offhandedly only lone rogue bulls were likely to charge. Great. Just what I needed , skewered by a frustrated buffalo blowing off its testosterone.
By the time we lugged everything into the camp I could barely trust myself to speak to Al, even if I could, because, to quote the immortal words of Bazza McKenzie, my throat was dryer than a dead dingo's donga. I was consumed by thoughts of an icy-cold beer sluicing down my neck and making my skin pop as it replaces the gallon of sweat expended on the hated Nourlangie Wheelbarrow Trail.
Unfortunately the camp frig is a kerosense-powered beast which does not do icy cold. Cool, yes but not icy cold .
The bright side is I will have fun getting stuck into the barra population to maintain a supply of fresh fish. The same applies to hunting buffalo for meat, although I was soon to discover, it was a stretch to call this caper fun.
BARRAMUNDI GALORE
The fishing was a snap as the billabongs and lagoons dotting the swamp around Nourlangie teemed with barramundi and catching them was easier than doing your dough at the track. The fish, plump voracious bronze beasts had experienced little fishing pressure and chomped almost anything. At Nourlangie the favored lure was two .303 cartridges strung together with a treble hook between them and one at the end. Chucked into a barra pool this crude but deadly wobbler attracted a bite almost every throw. No rods were involved and I skull-dragged them with a 50lb. line wrapped around a beer can.
Sport fishing it was not. Most of the fish were in the 4 to 8 lb. range an ideal size to feed guests at the camp. Personally I gave the barra a miss at the dining table because their eating qualities left much to be desired -- taken from the fresh water their flesh borders on the mushy and its taste, muddy. The same fish caught after it returns and spends some time in the salt water of the estuaries is a noble beast, firm and flaky of body and a taste of briny delight.
The fishing boat at Nourlangie was a 12ft tinny powered by a one-manpower motor -- that is to say one joker and a pair of oars. Here a word about crocs may be apt. You may well ask were they not a matter of concern when abroad in their territory in such a small boat? These days certainly, then, not a problem.
When the first Europeans were settling the north, the swamps, rivers and estuaries of tropical Australia were home to very many saltwater crocodiles maybe even outnumbering the mozzies which is to say and they were thicker than ten Northern Territory coppers lined in a row. By and by people got around to shooting the dickens out of them for their skins and by the time I was at Nourlangie they were very scarce after decades of jokers trying put a couple of .303s in their scones.
CROCODILE NEWS
They retreated to the impenetrable reaches of the swamps of the great flood plain fighting a battle against extinction. If you wish to get a picture of the swamp country and its characters at this time, go no further than "Crocodile Hunt", by Territory chronicler, award-winning journalist and prolific author, the late Keith Willey who brilliantly recounted the dying days of the professional hide hunter in his iconic book, now I believe sadly out of print.
In 1974, nine years on from my time I am writing about, the federal government declared all crocodiles protected species and their numbers rebounded, giving grist for the mill of the NT News known waggishly by many Darwin residents as the Crocodile News as it dearly loves to splash tales of crocs snaffling the unwary, lazing in suburban backyard swimming pools and cruising off the town's beaches looking for marks.
All those years back the lack of crocs at Nourlangie explains why I had no hesitation sliding into the tea-dark water to unhook a lure snagged in the depths. Most times I landed enough barra to feed the camp in the first half hour and and from then on it was catch and release until I was weary and wondering if it was beer o'clock.I had been at the lodge for five days when Al announced we were going buffalo hunting to replenish meat supplies as three paying guests from Melbourne were flying in for a four-day experience of the untamed outback.
Innocent that I am, I expected this expedition, led by the Great White Hunter himself, will be an adventure to remember and a source of wonder as I recounted it to rapt grandchildren dandling on my knee. Previously the biggest game I had hunted was rabbits and I thrilled to the challenge of tackling the mighty descendants of the Asian water buffalo loosed into the Top End swamps after the failure of the first white settlement at Port Essington.
TASTY SNAKE
Come the day of the big hunt I discovered Al is a little careless with the truth when he said "we" were going buffalo hunting as he will not be present having other pressing matters such as taking a kip in the long, hot languid afternoon. He delegated a joker name of Bill Dean as the point man. Bill, self-proclaimed bushman extraordinaire and one time partner of Keith Willey in their crocodile hunt, was in his late twenties and hailed from down Wollongong way.
He drifted around the Nourlangie - Jim Jim vicinity occasionally spending a few days working for Al before trekking off through the swamps to lob at another bush camp. He was a big fan of bush tucker and his delicacy was file snake a non-venomous species very much present on the flood-plain. "Grab 'em by the neck, wring their head off, find some dry land make a fire and chuck 'em on the hot coals. Delicious. Tastes...... just like file snake," he told me.
Bill had another strange quirk, claiming "When I catch a barra I only eat the guts. The flesh makes me real crook." I was not able to test this claim, and I wished mightily I have a steaming heap of barramundi guts to offer him, but the opportunity never presented itself.
Laden with two .303 rifles and two backpacks for the meat we clamber into the camp boat and with Bill doing the navigation and me handling the hard yakka , we set off through the swamp. Bill assured me it was practically just a spit to a spot he knew was crawling with buffalo. It turned out to be a pretty long spit because it was 45 minutes before we nosed into dry land and the haunt of the herd. With Bill leading, rifle athwart, and me lugging the rest of the gear, including the spare rifle, we trudged through the speargrass, which I soon found, was aptly named. All the time were accompanied by a head-high mist of insects.
Finally we spotted our quarry, great grey beasts slowly grazing and snuffling through the grass. I was transfixed -- would they charge us or break into a panicked stampede before Bill could get a shot. He was looking to bring down a yearling heifer, because the older animals, particularly the bulls are "on the chewy side" which is Billspeak for inedible unless you are a lion.
BATTLING SPEARGRASS, INSECTS
We sneaked up on the grazing animals which did not seem the least concerned that we, or rather Bill had buffalo steak in mind. He picked his mark and loosed off a shot, sending the herd into a panicked rush for the exits. Bill assured me he hit his target and says we must chase the mob to finish if off.
For more than an hour we blundered through the speargrass trying to find the wounded animal which had me thinking maybe Bill was not such a great shot because when he fired we were close enough to the buffalo to exchange phone numbers, and, I was to learn later, most hunters regarded shooting buffalo as difficult as shooting farmer Jones' moo-cows and about as risky .
At last we spotted it -- a young heifer which was obviously not feeling too chipper . Bill lobbed a couple more bullets into it and presto-- we had meat for the camp. The intrepid hunters had delivered. Bill drew a knife which would do Crocodile Dundee proud and we set about skinning our trophy and hacking off the choice cuts. Here I will give you a primer on Buffalo Butchering 101 which, on a discomfort scale of one to 10 is about an 86. The massive swarm of insects which habitually accompany buffalo immediately abandoned the carcass and descended on us but thankfully did not bite but tried to crawl into every orifice.
I discovered a buffalo's hide is very thick, maybe not as thick as the bitumen on the Arnhem Highway but close. And tough. In the heat, the flies, the blood and the sweat we carved up that f....ng buffalo and jammed great chunks of quivering meat into the backpacks. The walk back to the boat was weird with the meat continuing to quiver like dozens of tiny restless animals.
Bill explained that because we butchered the animal immediately after is was killed the nervous system took some time to realise it was game, set, and match. Our exhausting stroll back to the boat gave me time to consider the future course of my life and then and there I decided this will be my last buffalo hunt because it is an outing which is as much fun as being burnt at the stake, only lasting longer.
Buffalo hunting apart, the enchantment of Nourlangie has stayed with me for life -- a serene and beautiful place of birds descending like great white flowers to decorate the flooded forest, lagoons strewn with giant lily pads, and harbouring deep dark, pools where the barramundi waited and at the camp itself, a shy invasion of wild life, wallabies, dingoes, and even buffalo drifting in from the bush at dusk, padding around the huts where, lying on your bunk you are enfolded in the vast silence of the outback night barely broken by the squeak, and rustle of tiny animals hunting and being hunted, and the soft padding of something bigger.
I must says it was a magical experience, up there with cracking a Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double for serious cash, which I do a few years later when Tobin Bronze and Red Handed salute.
NEXT : Prime Minister charged .
( Safari. Hunter. Blake. )