Crocodile Dundeelion
My
adventure to Australia’s wild North, the edge of the island (continent).
“It will be hot” “it will be humid,” “it will be
amazing - I LOVE Darwin”, “it’s my absolute
favourite,” “Darwin has so much going on for it”. “Kakadu is great, the
Northern territory is JUST…WOW!” They said…
So after a year of, let’s call it a 'sabbatical,' A lot
of losing oneself was done over the previous year, so in 2015 I found myself
‘finding’ myself again, going through the peaks and troughs of life (at that
time of life at least – what seemed like a peak then might be a trough now and
what seemed like a trough then is laughable now…) but such is life and the
beauty of it all, is just THAT…the joy of finding yourself – finding yourself
is only enjoyable really when you make the conscious decision to embrace it and
go with the flow, through listening to your soul. It will tell you what you
need to do. I like to lose myself occasionally so that I can find myself...you picking up what I'm putting down...?
Since being in Australia, perhaps 2 years afterr, I had
my eye on a job in the Northern Territory at one of the Luxury Lodges of
Australia – for someone who has always dreamt of having my own luxury lodge
(African style) and chased this dream, in terms of working at an African Lodge,
without going back to Africa (just yet – the fear is that once I go back – I’ll
stay) this was the real deal – applying for this role twice before, the
universe somehow did not let me get it – the previous manager never got my cv /
application and the first time I ended up somewhere else. Nonetheless, I applied again, when I saw it
open up, hoping for a 2IC role - which I have received as Hospitality Manager (room for interpretation).
So as the year of the GOAT?! (2015) came to an end
(GOAT? Thank goodness for that, what a lame year) I went to find the snow in
Canada (1 week only - coz these things are fun, and fun is GOOD!), after which I started my job up here in the WILD side of Australia
(from one extreme to the next). The Northern Territory - where crocodiles
feature on the front page news, almost daily… where speed limits are 130km/hr,
the air so thick my arm hairs start curling. Where the wallabies feed and
buffalos roam while mosquitos LITERALLY have a feast, every night.
My soft skin gets lathered, first with sunscreen and
then with Aeroguard (Tabbard) and you shower a minimum of twice a day (and then
lather again). You sweat so much you don’t know yourself, and can completely
comprehend why the beer consumption is so high in this state.
It thunders on a blue-sky day, lightning lights up the
sky but doesn’t necessarily mean rain, although you wish it would pour down and
slice the atmosphere into breathable portions. Welcome, to the WET, Northern
Territory’s version of Summer. What people LOVE, is the DRY, the WINTER
apparently, you can’t have the sunshine without the rain ;-)
So as my calling was clearly answered to get me up
here in my ‘piece of tame Africa’ I find myself here as part of the
cleaning/re-opening team. The lodge closes over the start of the wet season for
3 months, so as part of pre-opening team, we get down, dirty and sweaty in a
week of intense cleaning, power hosing, scrubbing, de-nesting, de-insecting,
painting anything that is man-made and wood. Drinking beer & swimming in
the pool. Did I mention sweating? Smelling yourself to the extent that you
don’t know yourself.
A great week and lots of skills to carry, revamping a
dated lodge, or highlighting the work that needs to go into proper maintenance
– if only every lodge I worked at before could have the discipline, time,
patience, sensibility and ability to maintain a property with such precise and
definite goals.
A team of 4-6 and we were ready to welcome guests. It’s
something funny about these openings of lodges – we are busy till the last
minute – but the beauty of this art
is that they (the guests) just have no idea. We straighten our skirts, iron our
shirts shake the guest hands and put on our smiles – sweat? blood? tears…no
dear guest...not us, we merely glow.
A
true account on Australian WILD life. *not seen or experinced by any guest, this is why you pay the pay the big bucks to live at places like this*
In
order of domestication;
Geckos:
I
am yet to see a fit looking, cute, fast gecko – these guys are FAT as they eat
very well up here – no doubt. Most of them oddly shaped as they’ve lost their
tails – surely for being fat and slow and then getting caught, but for the geckos
I am grateful as they eat the bugs in my rooms. Come to think of it, I haven’t
seen my gecko friend in a while… um, what eats geckos…?
Insects
/ Specifically spiders: Albert, Albert is a
St Andrews Cross Spider – he has a beautiful house on the side of my tent –
the attention to detail is just remarkable and the pure genius that has gone
into the design. Albert is nice, because he keeps to himself. I am sure over
the first week I got in contact with all the spiders you can find up here -I
would like to say that I am cool with them – which I am… until I walk into the outdoor
rooms where they are in the roof, the walls, the bannisters and when asked to
clean the webs – one hundred million babies run out ! THEY’RE ALL OVER ME!
(not really but you know how it feels...crawling on your skin and in your ears
-goosebumps just thinking about it).
Wasps
& larvae
If wasps had facial recognition I would be toast! One
of the most traumatising experiences was slashing open wasp nests who were squatting
in my soon-to-be home. All these larvae (even the word larvae makes me feel
ill) all these larvae fell out of the nests and started squidging across the
platform – trying to focus on the larvae and their speed-squidging whilst
feeling exceptionally uncomfortable for destroying their home – trying to be
aware of the spiders dangling from the ceiling and the wasps that are due to
return - only to find that I, the human, the most feared, dangerous and selfish
animal of them all – had destroyed his /her whole family and house – they were
only babies...they were only…larvae… it was a complete massacre and I was
emotionally confused at this point. On the first day I shoooed the wasps away
with purpose, now I see them and feel deeply sorry for them – thinking they
might know me and attack me one day – Vengeance of the Wasp (horror flick in
the making).
Wallabies: Charles & Sylvester. Oh, Charles
and Sylvester. Charles and I were off to a rough start as he jumps on my
platform (my front deck) at about midnight – never before midnight then
shuffles around, jumps off goes for a run and comes up again, thump thump THUMP
shuffles snort snort sniffle GRUNTS -as a newbie to the Australian wildlife
sounds – I Had NO idea what this was, until one night I had a hole in my tent
and shined the light his way – clearly seeing the silhouette of a wallaby. What
a relief.
Sylvester on the other hand – what a DORK, he sleeps
under the platform, almost exactly the location where my head is whilst
sleeping. Sylvester gets in at about 2am and ALWAYS bumps his head, not once or
twice but continuously. He then grunts and snorts (I believe Sylvester is a
male…and subsequently then believe Charles is a female) apparently the males
get a bit…frisky and they grunt snort thump and chase the ladies – who then go
crazy at night and run a muck around the staff area – away from these male
animals (i.e. Sylvester below the deck). Well the wallaby on the deck’s name is
DEFINITELY Charles, so we can establish the wallaby couple on my platform is a
homosexual pair and Sylvester is courting Charles. Explains the excessive
grunting.
On the point of wallabies – what is the biggest
/oldest size of wallaby to be carried in his/her mum’s pouch? I saw a toddler
wallaby climbing into its mum’s pouch - there was just limbs everywhere as it
disappeared into this tiny little sack…stretching the fur and jabbing and
stabbing and then…off she hopped. I do not even like marsupials but I felt uncomfortable
for that wallaby – the mother…the mums don’t get that big you know. With that I
thought – it must not be too different in the animal kingdom – when should the
child sleep in its own room? Stop breastfeeding? Start walking? Get out the
pram… move out the house or POUCH?!
Flipping
Frogs! Man, CANE TOADS – what a mess!! The amount of times I have almost stepped
on one after work – they just look up at me knowing that I am going to move
around them and they don’t even budge. What disgusting creatures. Then there’s
the little red frogs that I almost had jump on my arm as I was cleaning the
glass on the room lights – this guy was living IN the glass – between the glass
and the light bulb – he might have been beige before red, either way RED
generally means stop, and so I did and got someone else to deal with it –
leaving him in the room and me keeping a beady eye on him with his long dangly
frog legs.
Fish:
BARRA mate! Yellowfin salmon, catfish (which is like a
wallaby of the river out here – no one CARES!) Barramundi is what everyone
wants. That’s all I got about fish.
Buffs:
Oo the Asian water buffalo, or swimming buffalo as I
like to call them. I’ll repeat that – SWIMMING BUFFALO?!?!? The property I work
at is a working buffalo station. Apparently these guys get shipped overseas for
their meat (but some of them are the mozzarella kind – yum!). Fascinatingly
boring animals. Early in the morning, just after sunrise they make their way
over to the floodplain, en route through or around the staff area. They then
hang out on the banks for a bit – unless they find some cut grass under the
rooms and feast on that, which generally throws their whole day’s schedule off.
So after hanging on the banks they then jump in the water and walk/swim
depending on the level of the water and you’ll see them out on the floodplain
all day. The cows, quite literally come home at roughly 5ish – not to different
to us humans now. Then they hang on the banks again until dark when they move
back through, away from the water for safety from crocs. All to wake up again …
and do the same thing. Not quite the Cape Buffalo, but they try.
Can’t quite decide
which one of the following takes precedence over the other…. :-/
Crocs:
Hmmm what can I say – the NT’s national animal, face
of the state- loved and hated. Everyone
around here has a croc story – I’ll prefer to get to end of season and NOT have
one. So for now – there are many, and they are hungry. Savages. 1 per every
100metres.
Snakes:
Stay. Away. From. Them. All. I actually hate snakes, especially Australian ones –
when they’re tame and at those snake parks let’s talk – but out here in their
territory… It’s all yours pal. When I open any toilet I do a snake check and
have done this since I was a child – to this date never found one -hoping to
keep it this way. Everywhere I go my snake senses are alert – but I fear that
up here in the WILD – I might actually meet one.
Plants
Today (week 3, Day 2) I got attacked by a plant – even
the vegetation has survival mechanisms out here. It truly is the survival of
the fittest. I stepped between the plants leaves and the next thing I knew I
had tiny little claw like thorns in my legs and ankles - gets stuffed if you’re
an animal. Pandanus Plant 1: Ilse 0.
