Australia Trip Report

In mid-June my Aboriginal relatives and I featured in a documentary series made for Discovery/Animal Planet, about a snakecatcher who tours Australia introducing various reptiles. The cameraman Leighton DeBarras and director Duncan Chard worked on the Big Cat Diary series. Leighton had us in stitches with his tales including one of how lions actually climbed in the car with the film crew after somebody played a hyaena tape.

The first day we accompanied the crew to wetlands near the world-famous Fogg Dam. Large white and mauve waterlillies (Nymphea spp.) and tiny fringed lillies (Nymphoides spp) and masses of spike-rush spread across the shallow water and spiky pandanus and graceful paperbarks grew on the banks. Such a beautiful place.

For eight hours, accompanied by the film crew we ploughed around in the water gathering up great armsful of soggy vegetation in the hunt for file snakes, water python and turtles. We were all quite exhausted at the end of the day. During breaks in filming I pointed out birds to Duncan Chard, the director who was also a birder. Tree Martins flew above the water, and Long-tailed, Crimson and Double-barred finches watched us from the nearby pandanus. A White-bellied Sea-Eagle quartered low of the spike-rush that stretched the full length of the lagoon.

The next day the film crew and I went to Kakadu where Bruce the presenter, cameraman Leighton DeBarros and I hopped aboard a helicopter which whisked us to a huge rock platform which towered above the escarpment. The helicopter then flew circles around us Leighton filming all the while. I kept my eyes peeled for Arnhem Land endemics such as Chestnut-quilled Rock-pigeon wondering if I would find the birds in such a spot. However the only obvious inhabitant was another endemic, Black Wallaroo which left in a hurry after spotting us.

The next day we drove to Arnhem Land across the tidal East Alligator and 120 km on to my relatives' country at Baby Dreaming. There we camped at Kikkiyaw or Little Bird Dreaming. The ancient eroded sandstone constitutes the end of the Arnhem Land escarpment - the towering walls formed a magical backdrop to a corroborree put on by my sons. Only a few metres from the campsite were tiny caves where the 'old people' lived until only a few decades ago. Opposite the caves were ancient rock art mainly of pregnant women, mermaids and fish. Fan palms, Livistona inermis and a taller, sturdier palm Gronophyllum ramsayi grew in the sandsonte along with 'spinifex' (Triodia sp.) and a herb Petalostigma quadriculare and many other plants I didn't recognise. Not much is known about the fauna and flora of the area.

The men painted themselves with white ochre gathered from a creek near the outstation, using a frond from the fan palm as a brush. The didgeridoo (mako in Kunwinjku) was made from a stringybark sapling (Eucalyptus tetrodonta). One song my adopted sons sang for the dance, about the Blue-tongued Lizard was particularly haunting. Esther, my oldest sister (in her late seventies) who is the senior custodian for the area came along too to 'make sure the men sang the correct songs'!

Everybody was enthralled with the performance. In 16 years of marriage Stephanie, my daughter-in-law had never seen her husband (my son Peterson) painted up and dancing before and she sat beside me gazing in wonderment. Working 17 hour days didn't leave much time for birdwatching (I rose at 4 am each day and went looking for snakes in the dark). Nor is the middle of the Dry Season is not the best for birdwatching. There were few calls compared with the dawn chorus I experienced on visits earlier in the year. However I did see three Banded Fruit-doves that flew over the camp, and heard Black-tailed Treecreeper, White-throated Honeyeater Sandstone Shrike-thrush and White-lined Honeyeater - their songs are the reason the place is called Little Bird Dreaming.

Nor is the middle of the Dry particularly good for finding most reptiles. I searched unsuccessfully for the endemic Oenpelli Python, but found several geckoes including Oedura gemmata (also endemic to the area), and O. marmorata, Gehyra nana and G. pamela and a goanna, Varanus tristis.

After searching unsuccessfully for File Snake we called upon relatives at Mumadewerre, the next outstation who had found two the previous night - unfortunately the reptiles had already been eaten. We arranged to meet them at the nearby Goomadeer River, catch some bait and then go fishing for the snakes. The Goomadeer is home to a couple of 4 m. estuarine crocodiles and so I in particular had to be careful as I needed to wade into the river to throw my net. I stayed a few metres away from the edge of the big holes, and when my net snagged asked the film crew to enter the water to stand behind me. That way we would have presented a bigger silhouette to the resident croc if he decided to attack. Leighton the camera man responded immediately, grabbing a big stick as he entered the water. But we didn't see any crocs.

Among the pandanus roots we caught two small file snakes. Other reptiles seen on the trip were Varanus panoptes and V. gouldii , Water Python Liasis fuscus, File Snake Acrochordus arafurae and black whip snake Demansia sp. Leighton thought Kikkikyaw 'magic - one of the 'most wonderful places' he'd even been and offered to approach a friend who is Bill Oddie's producer, at the BBC about Bill making a production at Baby Dreaming. It may not happen of course but it's nice to know he liked the place that much! Coincidentally The Goodies (a British comedy series) are a favourite of my relatives at Baby Dreaming and they find Bill the funniest member of the trio!. Before we left the film production company donated $800 which will help the Baby Dreaming residents buy a much-needed generator. (Birdwatchers too have been generous donating work shirts and binoculars). Exposure to such people has helped to turn negative attitudes to white people around. Indeed one of my relatives gave a little speech to the crew saying that working with them had helped to build bridges between Bininj (Aboriginal people of western Arnhem Land) and balandas (white people). This particularly articulate resident was an itinerant in Darwin until the project began last year and had been diagnosed with alcohol-induced psychosis. We were all scared she would die. Now five ex-drinkers and petrol-sniffers are living permanently at Baby Dreaming. Five people who are now safe.