Animals of the Outback

This is officially my last swing at work. I have 3 more days of being an Exploration Field Assistant. It’s always in the last days of a job that you start to appreciate (more) your surroundings. It’s a time of “lasts”, eg the last time I will sleep in my donga, the last time I will have a laugh with my work mates, the last time I will go four wheel driving in the outback, the last time I will get on the plane to Perth etc.

This past year I have been lucky enough to have experienced the unique Austrlian Outback and all its glory. A big part of that glory are the animals that inhabit this vast red wilderness, animals that are as Ozzie as beer and barbies.

Below are photos of animals I have come across throughout the past year.  There have been some animals that I have failed to snap photos of, emu’s, wedge tail eagles and others I can not think of, but enjoy the ones I got.

Dingos. I’ve seen plenty of  these wild dogs cruising the outback. Dingo stole me baby!

dingo

Kangaroos, my new favourite animal, they’re so bouncy, happy and unique, plus they don’t want to hurt you, unlike most of the animals in OZ.  I’ve taken a lot of Kangaroo photos at work, but decided to post this comical one that I took 3 weeks ago when camping in Margaret River.   “Mum have you seen my socks”?

kangaroos-version-of-putting-your-head-in-the-sand

Cattle.  Woodie Woodie where I work is located on a cattle farm, so there are always our bovine buddies walking around camp feasting on the green grass of the camp, which is very much a delicacy in the outback, its like eating lobster in the desert.

cattle

Camels.  Australia is home to the largest wild camel population in the world!

camels

This is my pitiful photo of the first snake I saw. And yes I was scared shitless, that’s the reason the photo’s taken from a million miles away, check out my blog post I did on my my encounter with my first snake.

my-first-snake-and-yes-i-squeled

Donkies.  Now that’s a great arse!

hello-mr-donkey

Bungarras.  Otherwise known as Goanna’s are commonly sighted around the camp. From the tip of their tale to their head they are easily over a metre long. When you walk around the side of a donga (sleeping cabin) and startle one of these miniature dinosaurs, it requires a change of underwear afterwards.

bungara-finding-some-shade-under-the-dongas

bungara-outside-the-office-door

Frogs.  Now I’ve heard of  toilet ducks (toilet cleaner in NZ), but toilet frogs! You can imagine my surprise when busting for a pee and being confronted by this little fella (frog), to pee or not to pee? Now that is the question.

toilet-frog

It wouldn’t be an authentic outback post without mentioning those annoying little flying maggots that are so abundant this time of year. The flies applying first aid to my cut.

my-friends-the-flies-applying-first-aid-to-my-cut

The Australian Outback is a harsh unrelenting place to be, especially if your a sick/elderly camel.

The story behind the photo below is, I was riding shot gun with El at the wheel and the two passenger side wheels start sliding down the river bank into the boggy area. El giggling as my passenger side sank down so that I was nearly face to face with the decaying carcass of the camel. As you can imagine I exited the vehicle through the drivers side, but didn’t last long before I jumped back in as my gag reflect was about to start due to the stench. Luckily I was able to unbog it from the comfort of the odourless drivers seat.

bogged-by-dead-camel

As mentioned before, carcasses are part of everyday work up here, especially when travelling on the 400km of sealed outback highway-on any NW Australian highway for that matter- to Port Headland.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that cattle and fast travelling road trains hauling our manganese don’t mix.  But I had never seen anything like the photo below that I took a couple of swings ago while doing a field trip to Mount Sydney. It’s a mystery to me, maybe it’s the site of  a camel cult mass suicide.

grave-yard

OK Hap, enough of the dead animals.  Best I leave you with a warm fuzzy cute animal photo.  Although I have not come across any of our woolly four legged friends during my Outback chapter, they deserve a place in the blog.  Why? Because although us kiwi’s get the reputation as…….how do I say it ………as “sheep lovers”, it is our big brother Australia that has the largest sheep population in the world! (NZ has 40 million sheep and Australia has 90 million-and yes I realise that’s a ratio of 10 sheep to every kiwi and only 5 sheep to every Ozzie, but let’s not focus on that, Australia has the biggest sheep population, end of story).  

sheep_racing

PS, while googling for a “sexy sheep photo” (weird I know), this website came up as first choice,  AdultSheepFinder – The Worlds #1 Sheep Sex and Dating Personals Site  – now that’s weird! (bet you its an Australian site – haha, come on Australia I’ve had my fare share of sheep jokes, it’s about time you guys got your share). The website was blocked on my work computer, I just hope the IT guys don’t over my internet browser history!

Stay posted for my next post, it will be the last post of my Australian chapter.