Crocodile Dundeelion [Part 1]

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.