Toad Busters

In 1996 the Simpsons had an Australian episode that closed with a toad jumping out of the back of Bart's pocket - a bit of a riff on the not-so-funny issue of invasive cane toads. I've spent the last 30 minutes looking for a clip, but the closest I could find was this:

The short shorts with boots, Akubra hat, roadhouse look, diminutives (knifie/spoonie) - this could be the Territory. Pretty spot on.

But back to toads. Cane toads push out native amphibians, and they are quite poisonous to Australian wildlife. Large, uncharismatic and ubiquitous on the roads in the rural areas at night, these toads are widely despised. A common bumper sticker reads: I'm not drunk, I'm just bustin' toads.

The other night I went out for some busting of my own with group of volunteers who scour various parks and open spaces in Darwin. Led by the Lord Mayor, they have collected more than 40,000 toads over the last two years. Quite impressive.

I arrived 15 minutes late, and, as apparently the Toad Busters are both civic-minded and punctual, the group had already fanned out. From the road, across the close-clipped span of the driving range, all I could see was the sweep of torches along the grass and their reflections in the golf course's little pond. I strode out into the dark, and ended up with an older couple. Clearly pros, they shared a large flashlight and were equipped with gloves and a plastic sack.

My light was dim, and so my search area was just the small sweep of grass ahead of me. Accustomed to the large toads, I scanned rather passively, unproductively, only to find out that my companions had been catching tiny toads - small, brown and nubby, like halved walnut shells tucked in the grass. So I slowed down, concentrated.

It was an odd type of walking meditation, not only in that it was partly motivated by the buzz of destruction, but also because the golf course was hosting a 'disco' for young teens from remote communities that night. The soundtrack was muffled Michael Jackson, Hot 100 hits, and the periodic screams of the kids; that, and the soft whoosh whoosh sound of my sandals on the cut grass.

In the end it was much like fishing: an absurd amount of time waiting, made irrelevant by the excitement of catching something, anything. And I'm not sure what the ecologist would say about it's efficacy, but I know that the sociologist or community organizer would love it. And I think that is where I fall, because certainly I was poor excuse for a Toad Buster. My final tally: two toads, two golf balls, one tee, and an evening out with the neighbors. A success.

Kakadu Bushwalking

A few weeks ago I headed down to Gunlom Falls in Kakadu National Park with Linds, Bec and Mal for a long weekend of bushwalking. The term 'bushwalking' is apt; Linds spent the week before the walk prepping for the walk by entering lat/long points from Google Earth into his GPS unit. A unit, which, it turned out, you have to periodically knock against your thigh to wake up.

There is no trail, so our route followed a creek up onto the escarpment, and then shot across the top of the tableland to the next gorge, marked by a GPS waypoint. It all looked quite resonable on the permit application and on Google Earth - we stretched the pointer across the digital escarpment: 12 km, no worries, mate.

We headed down to Gunlom on Friday evening, and we spent the first night at the campsite. It's a popular place with showers, toilets, an ice cream stall, and access to a giant pool fed by a waterfall that surges off the escarpment. We set off quite confidently, and I enjoyed walking through the creekbed in my hiking sandals. Nice and cool.


The creek turned out the be the easiest bit of the walk, and didn't drink much water. We then emerged on the escarpment - no water to be found - and started bush-whacking though shoulder high grass (see below, perhaps a wallaby trail). We had hoped that the area would have been burnt by a ranger who had walked through earlier, but those patches were intemittant. It was hot (mid-90's F), spikey, and hard-going. Linds and I were doing fine, but our companions began to flag.


Above: Looking down onto the creek from the escarpment.

It was tough walking, and when we finally saw the green slice of Baramundi Creek interupt the yellow, flat plateu, we decided to descend. Not waiting for a gentle path, we deleriously, thirstily stummbled down the steep rubble slope to the creek below. Lukily we landed at a sweet sand beach, under huge trees, next to a clean, slim but deep pool. We had planned to keep going to a set of falls, but instead we camped. I went straight to bed, and Linds had to peek in the tent door to get me up for dinner. The next day, when Lindsay and I walked to the falls, we found that our's was really the only suitable site for kilometers.

Below: A few pictures from the falls, morning day three.
The final night we were back at the creek on the Gunlom side of the escarpment. A beautiful, open site with wonderful swimming pools. We hiked out in the morning with plenty of time to get back to Darwin and get Bec home to pack for a trip to PNG. It had been a more or less seemless, if hot, mega-bushwalk.

But of course it doesn't end that way! An hour down the highway we end with two flats. Good natured companions all, we played cards in the long grass until a truck came to tow us to Adelaide River. With some hot french fries and a new tire from the service station, we cruised back into Darwin - the Southern Cross already high in the sky.