Yeah...so now would be a good time to come clean, I guess. Before this Australian Adventure I honestly believed the entire country was like this.
And a great deal of it (in the middle) is...but there are also rain-forests and mountains, beautiful beaches and waterfalls...just beautiful.
But we won't be seeing those for a while.
We've left the bush and heading across South.
100 degrees plus in the shade.
Iron red clay and dust working its way into every crack and crevasse.
The Fence...stretching from sea to sea across the country.
Desolation, short scrub and the occasional gnarled tree.
All manners of critters and bugs...most of which are poisonous.
Why are we here again?
And aren't you glad this is virtual.
The Simpson Desert located in the middle of South is beautiful, but brutal. Because of numerous deaths...the area is closed to tourists in high summer
(December to March 15th) when the daytime temperatures reach 140 degrees and the sand can reach 203 degrees and can melt though shoes.
Good call.
The desert has an area of 68,000 square miles. The only semblance of a road is The Donahue Highway...an unpaved trace that runs across. It is the World's largest sand dune desert.
Sand Dune Climb (Big and Little Red)
https://youtu.be/wTl2U86jhuA
Herds of feral camels are found in The Outback.
These remnants from the early 19th Century when the area was being mapped and explorers used them to cross the vastness. With the replacement by motor car a great many camel were simply let loose (and thrived) in the Outback. So much so, that when their estimated numbers reached 1 million in 2008 (and it was projected to double in the upcoming years)...the government sponsored hunts and they were brought in line to a much more manageable 300,000.
And then there was The Emu War.
(...no...I am NOT making this up...Google it yourself...)
It seems that camels aren't the only creature who found this baked land hospitable. By 1932 the Emu population was in excess of 20,000 in the Campion district of Western Australia. The local government decided something must be done.
They employed soldiers, ex-soldiers and farmers with Lewis guns to solve the flightless bird problem.
The public dubbed the entire affair
The Emu War
The Lewis Gun.
They weren't screwing around.
This was the Machine Gun of the day.
The Battle began on November 2nd decreed by this man, Sir George Pearce...who would go down in history as The Minister of The Emu War.
The troops were dispatched.
By November 8th over 2500 round of ammunition been discharged...and only 50 birds had been killed.
An ornithologist would later remark
The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month
The Australian House of Representatives discussed the matter and Pearce was forced to withdraw his troops.
After the withdrawal Major Meridith would compare the Emus to Zulu Warriors
If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world... They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop.
That is right.
Australia lost a WAR to Emus.
(...and don't even get me started about them bloody 'roos, mate...)
"War is Hell" Emu War Survivor
More Anon...
