On the edge

There’s the outback and there’s the wilderness. Territoreans recognise the outback in a similar way to we do the ‘suburbs’. The wilderness is a totally different kettle of fish. A number of years ago I visited Tomsk in Siberia. Well you would wouldn’t you. Who hasn’t? Tomsk itself sits pretty much in the middle of my boyhood supersize Collins World Atlas, in the middle of a uniformly green double-page spread. Its atlas position promises nothing remarkable but one interminable journey. If you fly from London to Moscow, then the same distance again plus an additional 700km, you arrive at the most remarkable city of Tomsk. Its ornately carved wooden houses are a joy to behold. But then ‘Tomskians’ have had to devise something to do in those long deeply sub-zero winters. And having an endless supply of wood on the doorstep, the house carving pastime took hold uncountable generations ago. Not the adrenaline rush you might expect from croc jumping in Humpty Doo, or playing the pokies of downtown Darwin, but I’m sure a damn sight more productive and enduring. But then in the NT, only the indigenous aborigines have skills and pastimes honed by forgotten generations. Those predominantly white Territoreans from European stock are (in the grand scheme of things) still finding their way as ‘newbies’ and looking to what might float their boat through those savagely hot days and nights. Whilst I’m in awe of their hardiness and sheer guts to cope in this climate and terrain, I’m pretty sure ornate house carving ain’t gonna be their claim to fame in centuries to come. No matter how many millions of tons of wood are waiting to entertain them.

Anyhow, whilst in Tomsk, courtesy of the British Council, a visit to the town of Batkat was organised for my group. Informed it was a small town in the ‘suburbs’, we were collected by minibus very early one morning with the temperature at around -20C. For me the suburbs are bus stops along the Leeds outer ring road, with names such as Horsforth, Rodley and Calverley. They are definitely not places that are still unreached after 3 hours of being shaken around in a minibus bouncing and spinning itself through what I could only describe as an endless ocean of blinding white snow and conifer forest. You might think the scenery sounds beautiful, somehow idyllic. Trust me that’s called a photograph, or a ‘safe in your home’ TV documentary rendered all the more comfortable by the wonderful voice of David Attenborough or the like. The emotions journeyed through stages, commencing with an initial and short-lived ‘Wow can I get a picture through the window?‘. Then comes the ‘OK so what comes next, this is getting tedious?‘ And finally stage three – ‘These trees are menacing and closing in on me, and hundreds of miles of snow in every direction is cutting off any chance of escape – I want to go home’.  I promise myself that if we get out of this alive I will never watch that movie ‘The wrong turn’ ever again. How I was wishing for the excitement (and reassurance) of spotting another vehicle on the road, its driver foolhardy enough to be sharing our predicament. The two occasions on which this great conjunction did eventually occur brought a shared relief and outbreak of nervously excited conversation that is difficult to comprehend. You just had to be there.

It was only much later, having arrived at our distant Siberian destination, that our immensely warm and grateful hosts explained to us that the name of their town, Batkat, was old Tartar for ‘Rotten Swamp’. I suspect the boys from Batkat on a Saturday night on the pull in Tomsk met rejections all too familiar to the dudes from Humpty Doo on their Darwin sojourns. Over a far too generous lunch of grilled river fish, various species of mushroom and wild berries, which is pretty much the daily smorgasbord of ‘Rotten Swamp’, we discussed the challenges of living so far out in the Siberian ‘sticks’. My genial hosts chuckled and through our interpreter, assured me that whilst Batkat might be considered a sort of Siberian outback, it was definitely not the wilderness. “But my friend” a particularly wizened old patriarch (with more limbs than teeth) directed at me, “This is not the wilderness. The wilderness is something else. It is not a place for you or me. The wilderness is for beasts and spirits”.

It was with recollection of that previous sage advice from a distant continent, that we ventured to Kakadu. We, the unicorn jockey, the croc whisperer and the free spirit. Driven by our lifeline Sam the Driver.

There is no right side of the road to drive on the way to the wilderness, just the opposite side to the bone crunching holes and rocks which you suspect have been placed there by the spirits to discourage your progress. In a disconcertingly short space of time, we reached the – ‘These termite towers are menacing and closing in on me, and hundreds of miles of red rocky earth in every direction is cutting off any chance of escape – I want to go home. And I promise myself that if we get out of this alive I will never watch that movie ‘The wrong turn’ ever again’ – stage.

Our first ‘track side’ stop was precipitated by the appearance in the far distance of a termite mound which was clearly going to be more formidable than the hundreds that had appeared to observe our progress to this point. When it finally arrived, we could see it had the height of a double storey house and stood about 50m back from the track. That 50 metres sat between ourselves and the essential photo. Not the self-congratulating group selfie in front of a termite mound, but purely a shot of a wonder of nature. A piece of the wilderness not to be tarnished by human form and those inane tourist selfie poses which I was beginning to recognise and categorise since arriving in the country. Not that I’m in any way a judgemental person. However I’m sorry but if there’s a termite mound the height of a house you don’t need a grinning buffoon in the foreground pointing it out for you – just in case you missed it!

For me the really mind-blowing aspect of these heaps of sculpted red earth is that each granule is placed above ground with such care and precision by the army of tiny workers, whilst digging out a continuously expanding nest and labyrinth of protecting tunnels. The resulting mound itself is an efficient network of ventilation shafts to maintain precisely the right environment for the precious nest below. The resulting feat of engineering is truly astonishing. It’s blindingly obvious that such structures don’t appear by chance. That’s a given. Yet I see no evidence of a Project Manager, so there must somewhere be an algorithm that somehow shapes the build. I’ve therefore a simple question – just where is that essential data stored? In those microscopically tiny heads? Individually or collectively? Both fantastic and amazing.

However we were currently separated from our ‘up close’ monster miracle termite mound pic by the small matter of 50 metres of hot red earth, loose rock and clumped long dry grasses. The mulga snake is a lengthy creature (2-3m) but of unremarkable appearance. Better known as the King Brown. A mulga’s venom is one of the most lethal in Australia’s rogues gallery of deadly snakes. Compared to this beast the cobra is a benign wuss. The mulga doesn’t just spit and hope you’ll get the message. No the mulga bites savagely, hangs on and chews whilst it injects a massive dose of 150 mg of venom which destroys your blood cells, muscles and nerves. Another, slightly smaller but equally lethal compatriot, responsible for over 50% of Australia’s deaths by snake bite is the Common Brown. A name I don’t really warm to. Firstly no bright red or yellow blotches to announce its presence and secondly, that worrying adjective ‘Common’. Then, as if that wasn’t enough to put you off your wilderness, there’s the taipan. This small, skinny, shy killer hides amongst rocks and crevices, and is reputed to be the most poisonous of any land snake. Its venom 50 times stronger than that wuss of a cobra. An untreated bite by this little fellow can kill you inside 40 minutes. Trust me, when bitten out here by any of this team your odds are short. Even if by some freak chance Skippy himself happened to be watching from some distant rock, the superhero marsupial would not be able to hop back for help (a feat I recall him performing in each and every episode) in time to prevent your agonising demise. Your gonna die mate – catch’ya later!

It’s surprising therefore how stretched a mere 50 metres can appear when you’re convinced that a brown or taipan has been patiently awaiting your pre-destined footfall. It heard you coming down the road an hour ago. ‘Hmmm, your distant vibrations announce this week’s company is finally on its way. And of course, no one can ever resist stopping to tread around MY marvellous termite mound. It’s time for a bite. ‘

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean a ‘brown’ isn’t coiled beneath that next clumsy fatal footstep. I almost regret being too proud to wear anything more protective than non-visible trainer socks with my carefully selected khaki outback shorts. I couldn’t possibly imagine being airlifted for anti-venom dressed ‘Englishman abroad’ style with calf length socks protruding from my designer Nike trainers. What would those sun-bleached blond NT nurses think of me. “This one’s not worth saving Rach, must be past his best, just look at the length of those socks. Save the anti-venom for a hench who can still give a girl a good time”. Or worse still, what if the love of my adolescence, the girl in the Terrible Ten, is now a nurse in the ‘Most serious snake bites in the wilderness’ emergency rescue service. You just can’t take the chance with sock wear.

Despite such misgivings I gingerly ventured out, camera in hand, across the no man’s land between feet and termite mound. My random, erratic and increasingly uncontrolled hops, were designed to leave any one foot on red earth for the least possible time. To the distant observer (of which there were only two possibilities within our horizon space) my performance could have resembled that memorable Dudley Moore scene from ‘Ten’. The one in which he hopped barefoot from the sea, zig-zagging uncontrollably to reach the sanctity of his beach chair. A goal from which he was separated by approximately 50 metres of scalding hot sand. If you’re too young to have caught it first time around, just ‘google’ it. You’ll chuckle. Although I must confess that Dudley’s beach dancing antics in that late-seventies mid-life crisis movie, is not seared into my memory with quite the same permanence and clarity as that of the hypnotically beautiful Bo Derrick, emerging from the waves wrapped in a sensuous corona of sunlit salt and spray. The goddess then gliding quite effortlessly, long golden hair braids flowing in her wake, across that very same 50 metres of equally golden sand, to reach the luckiest beach towel in the universe. If you weren’t too young to catch it first time around, just ‘google’ it, it’ll make you feel much younger. Good on’ya mate.

Having achieved my objective, I stood in front of the red monolith towering above. The new challenge was to take my pic of this termite marvel whilst not daring to break focus from my naked ankles. Fortunately Francesca had followed behind me with her characteristic bound. A footfall as heavy as it is uncontrolled. No doubt a highly effective technique for ‘beating’ out any brown snake or taipan within the Northern Territory. As no such reptile or any other appeared, we took turns to watch feet whilst securing our various termite mound images. The shared selfie just wasn’t going to happen.

On the return leg, Francesca reached the air-conditioned pleasure and security of our our vehicle well in advance of her father. A gap I insisted, that was not down to levels of fitness, as whilst she’d covered a mere 50 metres, I’d jumped, lunged, hopped, mostly ‘on point’, a distance which must have been in excess of 200 of the same. Whilst my daughter returned at an uncaring ‘I know I’ll be OK’ canter, mine was closer to barefoot Riverdance on hot coals. However Francesca rides unicorns.

Safe, for the while at least, in the air-con comfort of our motorised fortress, we continued on our cautious way. Our destination – a night under canvas at the Wildman Wilderness Lodge. Base camp and last refuge on the edge of the vast Kakadu National Park. An evening to share a last supper before we meet the wilderness and all it holds for us – up real close! Wyrd bid ful araed. Fate is inexorable.