Northern Pigeons, jet noise & Captain bloody Cook!So after a rather eventful drive north we finally reach Darwin. Now Darwin is a remarkable town, that I call proper Australia. When we reached there the weather was at 38ºC at 90% humidity, you had to chew the air before you breathed. Our first stop after driving around town for a while was Howard springs. Like English towns like Bath and Epsom, Howard springs has laid claim to curing quite a few sick people with its supposed healing qualities. To us, it is a lovely local swimming hole rich in wildlife with an abundance of Geckos, Goannas and those dirty looking white Jabirus, pigeons of the north I call them, they are all over the place. In the hot sweaty conditions the place was perfect for cooling off, having a barby, and sinking a few cans. Unfortunately you cannot camp there so we headed back into town to Mindle beach markets after the place had closed.
Mindle beach sunset markets are the meeting place for all the travelers. You will find literally hundreds of campervans and converted busses at these markets with all kinds of buskers, street performers and food stalls selling everything from sugarcane juice, [delicious and as the sugar is raw it still has an enzyme in it that protects your teeth and releases it’s energy slowly, they should sell it in supermarkets] the best Thai takeaway ever, with my favorite, Thai king prawn green curry, prawns as big as a grown mans thumb! The most amusing though was, Outback Jacks Road-kill Grill. You kill em,’ we grill em.’ The name says it all! Then we all sat on a beach which you couldn’t swim in due to a box jellyfish infestation and watched the sun go down drinking beer and smoking joints, it was beautiful. The sunset, not the jellyfish!
As usual in Australia the wildlife can invent new and agonizing ways of killing you and the Box Jelly fish comes right along side the stone fish on the agony scale. These almost invisible nastys don’t really require a poison so lethal to go about their business, and seem to have developed this toxin solely for the purpose of spite. The dreadful creatures come in the most hottest and humid time of year making cooling off in the water neigh on impossible unless you want to get yourself into a wetsuit that even covers your face, or cover yourself in petroleum jelly, neither sounded appealing to me. Anyway we had to find a place to camp.
Now there is plenty of vacant land around Darwin where you can just pull up and set up camp but we did not want to camp in some dust bowl getting smothered every night in sand flies and mosquitoes. Talking about terrible wildlife, the sand fly along with the March fly are right up there on the drive you mad scale. If you are within 5 km of the beach during sunset or rise in the first hour of either, these tiny, [you can’t see them but you can breathe them] sand flies swarm around you. You can’t escape them, they can get through fly screens they are that small. They have a habit of finding a piece of real estate, mainly human, and marking their territory in the usual manor by pissing on it. Now that thought is bad enough, having swarms of flies pissing on you but to make matters worse the piss is so irritating that it causes swellings about 5 times the size of mosquito bites and about 10 times as irritating. The March fly on the other hand, is the exact opposite. They are about 4 times the size of your usual blowy, and sound like a Chinook helicopter when they fly near you, their bite is like being stabbed with a hypodermic. They are out during the day. They take it in shifts. So we drove out of town for a bit near the Industrial estate and found a few tracks. Fortunately, we took the right path for once.
Now there is plenty of vacant land around Darwin where you can just pull up and set up camp but we did not want to camp in some dust bowl getting smothered every night in sand flies and mosquitoes. Talking about terrible wildlife, the sand fly along with the March fly are right up there on the drive you mad scale. If you are within 5 km of the beach during sunset or rise in the first hour of either, these tiny, [you can’t see them but you can breathe them] sand flies swarm around you. You can’t escape them, they can get through fly screens they are that small. They have a habit of finding a piece of real estate, mainly human, and marking their territory in the usual manor by pissing on it. Now that thought is bad enough, having swarms of flies pissing on you but to make matters worse the piss is so irritating that it causes swellings about 5 times the size of mosquito bites and about 10 times as irritating. The March fly on the other hand, is the exact opposite. They are about 4 times the size of your usual blowy, and sound like a Chinook helicopter when they fly near you, their bite is like being stabbed with a hypodermic. They are out during the day. They take it in shifts. So we drove out of town for a bit near the Industrial estate and found a few tracks. Fortunately, we took the right path for once.
We found a camping spot behind the Girls Collage with a spring fed dam, a rope swing and enough shade to park under and sit around in all day. This will do just fine. The security guard from the school came down and told us as long as we stay away from the collage and report anything suss, we can camp there. Sweet! After lazing about drinking beer, smoking weed and a couple of E’s for a few weeks, we ran out of money, so it was time to get back to work.
I eventually get work with a road laying company, driving various types of machines and laying hot mix, which was no fun I can tell you. We often had to go to some dusty godforsaken stretch of road and lay hot mix. Now it is called hot mix for a reason, you get bitumen which is ⅓ bitumen, ⅓ kerosene and ⅓ sump oil with powdered rubber and lime added, heated up to about 180ºC and mixed with an aggregate in a giant superheated drum roller. My god the smell! By the time the hot mix was to be laid and worked, it had cooled down to a pleasant 85ºC. So effectively you are working in conditions that are inhumane to say the least. 35ºC direct sun on your back, 85ºC hot mix in your face with a sometimes 100% humidity, and constantly bent over. We drank at least 10 liters of iced water per day, easily. No wonder we got paid so much. All this heat gets to some people, and go troppo, a kind of heat induced nervous break down. If you don’t drink enough water, you can develop Gall stones, we had one bloke pass one on the side of the road, and judging by the look on his now purple face, and his rather loud screams, it didn’t look too pleasant. He also wasn’t impressed by the un-relenting and merciless March flies either.
Our next job was at Jabiru in Arnham land. What a crazy place that was!
Jabiru is the main town inside Arnham land. Named after those filthy pigeon like things I had mentioned before. It is a mining town where the workers from the Ranger Uranium mine live, inside the world’s largest indigenous reserve. We were living in an outpost which was made up of two storey A frame huts, with a few dongas for catering and storage etc. We lived there for two months building the ‘Yellow cake road’ the people that live out here are a hardy bunch to say the least.
I eventually get work with a road laying company, driving various types of machines and laying hot mix, which was no fun I can tell you. We often had to go to some dusty godforsaken stretch of road and lay hot mix. Now it is called hot mix for a reason, you get bitumen which is ⅓ bitumen, ⅓ kerosene and ⅓ sump oil with powdered rubber and lime added, heated up to about 180ºC and mixed with an aggregate in a giant superheated drum roller. My god the smell! By the time the hot mix was to be laid and worked, it had cooled down to a pleasant 85ºC. So effectively you are working in conditions that are inhumane to say the least. 35ºC direct sun on your back, 85ºC hot mix in your face with a sometimes 100% humidity, and constantly bent over. We drank at least 10 liters of iced water per day, easily. No wonder we got paid so much. All this heat gets to some people, and go troppo, a kind of heat induced nervous break down. If you don’t drink enough water, you can develop Gall stones, we had one bloke pass one on the side of the road, and judging by the look on his now purple face, and his rather loud screams, it didn’t look too pleasant. He also wasn’t impressed by the un-relenting and merciless March flies either.
Our next job was at Jabiru in Arnham land. What a crazy place that was!
Jabiru is the main town inside Arnham land. Named after those filthy pigeon like things I had mentioned before. It is a mining town where the workers from the Ranger Uranium mine live, inside the world’s largest indigenous reserve. We were living in an outpost which was made up of two storey A frame huts, with a few dongas for catering and storage etc. We lived there for two months building the ‘Yellow cake road’ the people that live out here are a hardy bunch to say the least.
Now fishing here is highly illegal so I can’t say that we partook in any of this pleasant activity in these gorgeous surroundings. But the size of the Barramundi that just miraculously, jumped into our boats, were enormous! They are apparently rather tasty with a bit of butter and garlic.
Some of the local indigenous population took to robbing the huts when we were all at work. The way they went about it, was to climb up upon the air-conditioners and break in through the top floor windows. What a few of the guys did was to set rabbit traps and glue razors on there to discourage them from this. It didn’t work, so what we ended up doing was just locking up all the valuables and ‘tea’ in the dongas while we were working.
Some of the local indigenous population took to robbing the huts when we were all at work. The way they went about it, was to climb up upon the air-conditioners and break in through the top floor windows. What a few of the guys did was to set rabbit traps and glue razors on there to discourage them from this. It didn’t work, so what we ended up doing was just locking up all the valuables and ‘tea’ in the dongas while we were working.
One night after work we were sitting around drinking ‘tea’ as alcohol is illegal here outside of the confines of Jabiru, when the aborigines started fighting outside our camp. Being blokes, half cut on ‘tea’ we went over to see the ruckus. Two groups of about 20 aborigines a side were fully swinging into each other with a variety of hand held weapons such as clubs and spears. In the ensuing melee, one guy got speared in the leg and another 3 knocked out cold. I must admit, we found it all to be hilarious.
I’m the kind of guy who when in a strange land, I often like to go for a walk and take a look at the place for myself, as I find other people distracting and I miss too much. Upon one of my walks I came across a group of about 20 - 30 aborigines playing a card game called ‘Picaring’ or something like that. Where huge amounts, well, thousands of dollars changes hands rapidly. When I approach, I get a few nasty baleful looks from eyes filled with hate, but almost immediately I am ignored. Now all the money for this game comes from mining rights, and the locals don’t seem to have realized the value of it, they treat it like monopoly money. There were women walking around with money stuffed in their tops and one approached me with a couple of hundred, a face like a bag of smashed crabs, and her front teeth knocked out and asked, “Kishhhh me like a moovy shtar!” upon which I refused her kind offer where she replied “Go ‘n’ shuck ya own dick den!” Where if I could, it would have been more preferable. You gotta love Darwin! After we finished the ‘yellow cake road’ it was time for the next job. Tindal air force base.
Tindal is a joint Australian / American air force base with lots of sexy equipment flying about. After a long day laying hot mix, waiting for the engineer to get back to us with the results and riding around the surrounding bush land on motorbikes, we used to sit back with a few bevies and watch these magnificent pieces of engineering take off and land. We set up our observation post about 50 – 60 meters from their take off point. I loved the roar when they took off and flew low overhead, the sound was as if they were ripping the sky apart, utterly thrilling! When they hit their after-burners upon take off, the jets had a tail of like, blue diamonds of pure energy behind them, gorgeous!
Tindal is a joint Australian / American air force base with lots of sexy equipment flying about. After a long day laying hot mix, waiting for the engineer to get back to us with the results and riding around the surrounding bush land on motorbikes, we used to sit back with a few bevies and watch these magnificent pieces of engineering take off and land. We set up our observation post about 50 – 60 meters from their take off point. I loved the roar when they took off and flew low overhead, the sound was as if they were ripping the sky apart, utterly thrilling! When they hit their after-burners upon take off, the jets had a tail of like, blue diamonds of pure energy behind them, gorgeous!
Now there’s a movement in Darwin trying to stop the jets flying low over Darwin, but Darwin is the sort of town that loves this sort of thing. I had a sticker as did many others on the back of my car that said “I love jet noise” to counteract all the moaners with their “Stop the racket” and “Go away, USA” stickers going about. I used to love sitting on my porch, seeing and hearing these demons of the sky rip the heavens asunder. I loved it! I hope the goodie-goodies haven’t won like they have everywhere else. I mean no one was injured when the jet dropped its dummy missile upon that Landcruiser, he was in the pub! He now uses it for a letterbox! He still loves jet noise. You gotta love Darwin!
On our way home we stopped of at the Berrimah Hotel for a few drinks and half of us ended up staying the night in this place of out-and-out mayhem. Berrimah hotel is run by the Hells Angels, and what goes on in and outside of there is beyond even Hollywood. We were watching a band which I think was called “Matt Taylor & Chain.” Which were awesome in their own right, but the bar was filled with bikers having a ball fighting, topless women, mechanical bull riding and they were bringing their bikes in doing burn outs and dounuts. You gotta love Darwin!
We get back and there is no more work for a few weeks so we decide to go on a sailing trip to Groote Eyeland. Now this would have been rather pleasurable if we had been on a seaworthy boat with a seaworthy captain, but unfortunately, neither, was not to be so. The captain at hand bought this trailer sailor cheap, as a fixer upper, which would have been alright if he had been a marine carpenter. He wasn’t. I also should have realized when I saw the boat. An un-painted 24 ft Sonata and looking a bit worse for the wear to say the least, he just fobbed of my concerns. I also should have realized when we get to the bay if he had checked the tide times, of course, he hadn’t even checked the weather. Now to let you know how dangerous that is, Darwin’s weather system is sub-equatorial. It was now the wet season, cyclone season, which happen every year but one hits Darwin about every three years or so, one hadn’t for about four.
I also should have realized when we get there and the mast and keel kept getting stuck and we were a few guide ropes short. I also should have realized when the only supplies we were taking were 6 slabs of VB, I didn’t. I definitely should have realized when I asked him about the outboard motor, he replied “Captain bloody Cook never had an outboard, she’ll be apples, no dramas!” We weren’t. Luckily enough though, we only got across to the other side of the bay, partly because that’s the way the wind was blowing us, as we couldn’t tack, partly because there weren’t enough guide ropes to set sail properly, and partly as he had just so kindly informed me, this was the first time he has ever been sailing!
We get back and there is no more work for a few weeks so we decide to go on a sailing trip to Groote Eyeland. Now this would have been rather pleasurable if we had been on a seaworthy boat with a seaworthy captain, but unfortunately, neither, was not to be so. The captain at hand bought this trailer sailor cheap, as a fixer upper, which would have been alright if he had been a marine carpenter. He wasn’t. I also should have realized when I saw the boat. An un-painted 24 ft Sonata and looking a bit worse for the wear to say the least, he just fobbed of my concerns. I also should have realized when we get to the bay if he had checked the tide times, of course, he hadn’t even checked the weather. Now to let you know how dangerous that is, Darwin’s weather system is sub-equatorial. It was now the wet season, cyclone season, which happen every year but one hits Darwin about every three years or so, one hadn’t for about four.
I also should have realized when we get there and the mast and keel kept getting stuck and we were a few guide ropes short. I also should have realized when the only supplies we were taking were 6 slabs of VB, I didn’t. I definitely should have realized when I asked him about the outboard motor, he replied “Captain bloody Cook never had an outboard, she’ll be apples, no dramas!” We weren’t. Luckily enough though, we only got across to the other side of the bay, partly because that’s the way the wind was blowing us, as we couldn’t tack, partly because there weren’t enough guide ropes to set sail properly, and partly as he had just so kindly informed me, this was the first time he has ever been sailing!
We drift over to the mangroves and the keel gets all tangled up and the bloody thing jams. Of course, we would have been sweet if we had a frigging outboard! But Captain bloody Cook here couldn’t see that. Then it starts to get worse. The tide goes out. Now we are stuck, tangled in mangroves and now on a 45º angle. Then it gets worse. We jump out of the boat with our only tools, a wheel brace, for some weird reason, and a few scrapers and try to hack at the mangroves entangling us, thigh deep in stinking fetid mud. Then it gets worse. A crocodile takes an interest in us, we see his eyes bob up and down in a frighteningly short distance away sussing us out. So we end up back in the boat, by this time rolling drunk throwing empty cans at the crock. I keep the wheel brace close, Captain Cook just didn’t care. Then it got worse. The sun went down. Now as I have explained to you before if you are within 5 km from the beach at sundown or sunup, sand flies eat you alive. That is because they breed in the mangroves. It was the most miserable night of my life. These evil, vindictive little BASTARDS! I called each and every individual fucking microscopic one of them that personally! There were swarms of them, clouds of the tiny, little, invertebrate shits crawling up my nose and ears marking their territory by pissing in every orifice, crack and crevice, some I didn’t even know I had. It was the most frustrating time of my life. Now there are two ways to avoid all this suffering 1: Insect repellent only lessens them but of course, we had none of that or 2: Roll in the mud making a layer they can’t penetrate. Unfortunately, our friend the crock eyeing us up from the water put an end to that idea. Even drinking the warm beer we had was bad, as the little CUNTS! would just end up pissing on your tongue and lips.
By the time the tide came in and we got back home I was red as a cooked lobster, with odd shaped white blotches all over me, and swollen twice the size. When I walked in the door my girlfriend couldn’t stop laughing, she thought it was hilarious and started telling stories that sounded like heaven. Sitting in the air-con, drinking wine, a Jacuzzi, then a movie. So that’s what we did.
It was now fully into the wet, and as I told you before, Darwin was due a cyclone. She came. They always give cyclones female names for some odd reason, why not cyclone Steve? Anyways, this one was called Rachel. Darwinians don’t understand when they watch the news in the states and see people leaving the area en-mass, when a hurricane comes their way. In Darwin, since Tracy in 74, all buildings had to be made to cyclone code, which is the reason why houses cost so much there, there is twice as much building materials. Rachel came with the usual warnings on the telly but the peoples were in a rather festive mood. You see, here, a cyclone means a few days off work locked in a house playing with family and friends. The supermarkets and bottle-shops are packed with people stocking up on supplies for the cyclone party. Ya gotta love Darwin!
It was now fully into the wet, and as I told you before, Darwin was due a cyclone. She came. They always give cyclones female names for some odd reason, why not cyclone Steve? Anyways, this one was called Rachel. Darwinians don’t understand when they watch the news in the states and see people leaving the area en-mass, when a hurricane comes their way. In Darwin, since Tracy in 74, all buildings had to be made to cyclone code, which is the reason why houses cost so much there, there is twice as much building materials. Rachel came with the usual warnings on the telly but the peoples were in a rather festive mood. You see, here, a cyclone means a few days off work locked in a house playing with family and friends. The supermarkets and bottle-shops are packed with people stocking up on supplies for the cyclone party. Ya gotta love Darwin!
When Rachel came knocking, we were all looking forward to the event sitting outside until it got too breezy and we head indoors. Annoyingly, it was a non-event. We were sitting on the porch getting buffeted around a bit watching the palm trees go bald when it all just fizzled out. Rather disappointingly. After cleaning up the yard and the Jacuzzi we all just settled into our regular routine. Considering it had been a few months now since I had any work our finances were becoming a little stretched. Time to get back to work.
We got work at a Mango farm in Humpty Doo, about a 100 clicks south, it had the nickname of Acacia hells, as it was apparently run by a German woman who made Mengler look like a saint. I just had to meet her. We get there and are shown to our quarters which were a comfortable 3 bedroom house converted with bunk beds and hammocks to suit its needs. So far so good. For the first night we sat around drinking beer, talking with the residence, watching the Geckos crawl around the walls and ceiling and generally had a good time meeting the folks that work there and just sitting under the ceiling fans staying cool. The next day we had to start work.
Now those of you who have worked in this climate before will know it is hard yakka at the best of times, with the oppressive heat and humidity. Fortunately we were far enough in land to not have to worry about sand flies which was a blessed relief, the irrepressible Chinook type march flies were still around though. If the heat, humidity and March flies weren’t enough there were also a new contender in the drive you mad scale, the green ants.
Green ants are a very attractive looking ant, with their bejeweled bodies and leafy nests. They have very lustrous emerald green abdomens and bright gold legs and body, they even have the added bonus the aborigines use, that if you grab a whole nest and crush it in water, squashing as many as you can, you get a nice refreshing lemony-eucalypty type drink which is loaded in vitamin C. Will cure any cold or flu. When we tried it, it was surprisingly nice, if you don’t mind a few squashed ants floating about your glass. Disappointingly though, with all their beauty, all their industrious little leafy nest building, all their beneficial pharmaceutical qualities. I hate the little creatures. For they have a terrible bite, not nasty or poisonous, just annoying on top of everything else.
Now those of you who have worked in this climate before will know it is hard yakka at the best of times, with the oppressive heat and humidity. Fortunately we were far enough in land to not have to worry about sand flies which was a blessed relief, the irrepressible Chinook type march flies were still around though. If the heat, humidity and March flies weren’t enough there were also a new contender in the drive you mad scale, the green ants.
Green ants are a very attractive looking ant, with their bejeweled bodies and leafy nests. They have very lustrous emerald green abdomens and bright gold legs and body, they even have the added bonus the aborigines use, that if you grab a whole nest and crush it in water, squashing as many as you can, you get a nice refreshing lemony-eucalypty type drink which is loaded in vitamin C. Will cure any cold or flu. When we tried it, it was surprisingly nice, if you don’t mind a few squashed ants floating about your glass. Disappointingly though, with all their beauty, all their industrious little leafy nest building, all their beneficial pharmaceutical qualities. I hate the little creatures. For they have a terrible bite, not nasty or poisonous, just annoying on top of everything else.
Another thing to make this activity even more enjoyable are the mangos themselves, when picked, leak an acidic milky sap which is rather irritating. Some of the good ones squirt out this milky white sap like a money shot from a quality porn film, which bought many a giggle from both men and women. It stained our clothes terribly. The way to stop the sap from burning our skin and the fruit itself was to wash them in an alkaline wash made from your average laundry detergent which also irritated, burned and dried out our skin. So with all the heat, humidity, March flies, green ants, alkaline wash and money shot mangos, there was one more factor to make this just so much more enjoyable, the most annoying, ugly, harsh, unforgiving thing of all. Fraudeline Goring.
This evil cow was most definitely a lesbian, she was as big as me, looked like me, stronger than me, and she took an instant dislike to me, much to my amusement. She used to push people to breaking point with her lack of humor, Germanic way, unbelievable temper and gave off a general feel of ill will. I wouldn’t have it. After you have been picking for 5 hours or so, people would generally get a bit lapse upon the way they handled the fruit, so fraudeline would be driving around in her Landcruiser and stop a few rows down and sneak up behind people and wait until they made a mistake and then literally scream at the top of her ample lungs, scaring the bejesus and intimidating the workers. I thought she was hilarious, she didn’t think the same about me unfortunately for her.
She tried her little trick on me getting in extra close and extra loud, spraying spittle in my face just as I was picking a mango. In the shock, I just spun around and the money shot went straight into her face. HA! Everyone else was sniggering into their sleeves, but not me, I was bellowing with laughter yelling “Hitler just got a facial, IN YOUR FACE YOU LESBIAN NAZI COW!” While she was washing her eyes out with soapy water she was defenseless, screaming incoherently while I was seig hailing and singing the English football chants the English had taught us all like “Two world wars and one world cup Ohhhh Ohhhh, Ohhhh Ohhhh!” Which she did not find amusing, although I did, immensely. None to say, I got the sack.
We had to head back to Darwin to find some more work. Luckily, lady luck was smiling upon us still, we found some work in a place called Dundee west of Darwin across the Alligator River. I don’t know why they call it the Alligator river since it is filled with crocks, anyways.
On the way there we had to drive past Acacia hells where we poached half of freudelines staff and headed to Dundee passing Litchfield national park, which is a stunning place to spend a week or so, but unfortunately, we could only spend the day and night there. Litchfield is full of waterfalls, swimming holes and outstanding natural beauty. This place although much smaller than Arnham land it is much more accessible and compact. We spent our time lazing about getting a well earned massage from the waterfalls then it was off to Dundee.
We had to head back to Darwin to find some more work. Luckily, lady luck was smiling upon us still, we found some work in a place called Dundee west of Darwin across the Alligator River. I don’t know why they call it the Alligator river since it is filled with crocks, anyways.
On the way there we had to drive past Acacia hells where we poached half of freudelines staff and headed to Dundee passing Litchfield national park, which is a stunning place to spend a week or so, but unfortunately, we could only spend the day and night there. Litchfield is full of waterfalls, swimming holes and outstanding natural beauty. This place although much smaller than Arnham land it is much more accessible and compact. We spent our time lazing about getting a well earned massage from the waterfalls then it was off to Dundee.
Dundee was a one shop town which was a pub, fuel station, supply depot and post office all rolled into one. We meet our new boss who was an amusing fellow, if a bit eccentric, who was very pleased with me for bringing so many girls into this outback town, 5 girls, two were lesbian, and 3 blokes. The girls I was later to find out may not have been a good idea. We get to our new camping spot which was on the Alligator River near a pumping station supplying us with pressurized water to play with, as we could not swim there for the crocks. It was a beautiful place and the fellow left us with a 12 gauge shotgun for protection in case something tried to have a snack. It wasn’t only the crocks we had to worry about there was also wild pigs, dingoes and a dozen or so species of snake to fret about.
After work we used to go down to the local for a drink or twenty, and the place had about 10 locals drinking there. There were 3 on the first night but as soon as word got out that some ‘shielas’ had turned up it tripled in size. The publicans were a strange lot, the woman behind the bar was immense, she used to give you a look of sheer disdane every time you made her get up to serve you, inevitably, we made a game of this.
After a few drinks the locals started to get a bit more predatory toward the girls and started trying to herd them away from us. Time to go. One of our group got into a fight with one in their group and luckily enough the girls were smart enough and put a stop to it. Smart girls. From now on we got takeaways.
After we had finished picking the crop, our boss decided to take us out camping, one of his boys, his name was ninety, don’t know why, came along with us. We drove along in the Hilux and the Landbruiser for a couple of hours through a stunning, savannah type landscape with termite mounds dotted everywhere when we came to a lake. We get out the shotguns and got ourselves 3 geese [I got one of them] and 5 ducks. A good haul and great fun. We put the tinny back on the roof and go to our camping spot about a ½ hour drive away.
On the way there we come across some wild pigs and he sets the dogs onto them [2 English Bullterriers] and gives me a great bloody knife and tells me to finish it off. Now I have worked in abattoirs before, but have never killed anything bigger than a rabbit in this way.
The dogs start barking and flushed out a sow and she comes running straight toward me with a dog on each ear. I swear she knew she was dead and was trying to take me with her, she had a savage look in her eye. The way to deal with four legged animals when they charge you is to side step as they can’t do that. I knew this and have done it before, but when a 120 kg angry sow was charging at me, I just froze and she knocked me down and I end up in a tangle with 1 upset sow and 2 excited Bull terriers, what a melee. Finally I get on top of her and slide the blade into her heart and she dies. She really put up a fight the old girl.
On the way there we come across some wild pigs and he sets the dogs onto them [2 English Bullterriers] and gives me a great bloody knife and tells me to finish it off. Now I have worked in abattoirs before, but have never killed anything bigger than a rabbit in this way.
The dogs start barking and flushed out a sow and she comes running straight toward me with a dog on each ear. I swear she knew she was dead and was trying to take me with her, she had a savage look in her eye. The way to deal with four legged animals when they charge you is to side step as they can’t do that. I knew this and have done it before, but when a 120 kg angry sow was charging at me, I just froze and she knocked me down and I end up in a tangle with 1 upset sow and 2 excited Bull terriers, what a melee. Finally I get on top of her and slide the blade into her heart and she dies. She really put up a fight the old girl.
Now the whole pig was too much for us to eat unfortunately, so we took only the back legs, the fillets and the back straps. While we were stringing her up I was bragging and showing off to the girls saying how it takes a man to do a man’s job like killing and general blood and guts. While one of the other guys was cutting it up, the smallest and petitest of the girls reaches into the chest cavity and rips out its still warm heart and takes a bite. We were stunned, I was impressed. We get back to our camp we had a good few days of eating, drinking, swimming in the waterfall [crocks don’t like waterfalls] fishing and campfires before we head back to Darwin. You gotta love Darwin!
