Safari 2019 August 25th

Sunday August 25th 2019  

What a day we have had. We walked here in Arkaroola this morning. John went with Neil and I walked with Helen. I do have to be very careful on these rocky paths. It is easy for me to fall..shudder. This afternoon the six of us went for a drive. David & Cynthia in David’s vehicle with Helen and Neil in the back seat. John and I went in our own vehicle. We chose to go on An Arkaroola Self-Guided 4WD Tour which was called the Echo Camp Backtrack tour. The day was fabulously interesting with the huge steep rocky hills predominant at every turn. This area is experiencing several extremely dry years, it is so dry I cannot describe the scenery. Trees are dying, bushes are dying, animals are dying all this because of the severe lack of water, consequently for the animals a severe lack of food.

Cynthia with the wallabies

 

The waterholes are dry even those which are termed ‘permanent’ water hole. Consequently with these conditions kangaroos and wallabies die alongside these water-less holes. The Arkaroola owners and staff are feeding the Yellow Footed Wallabies with special pellets formulated to suit native animals. They are also doing their best to fill troughs with water at specific points. We watched as John turned a tap to fill water into one of these troughs and Cynthia sat quite close to the trough to guide this water in so there was not waste happening. It was fascinating to see so many animals come quite close to her to drink. They were so very thirsty. Even these remote animals are fed on pellets and probably some kitchen vegetable waste similar to what we saw happen at ‘feeding time’ near the main reception and information areas.

It was a really wonderful day but I think it would be one of the most difficult or even the most difficult 4WD track in Australia. It took us over 4 hours to complete the 37 km of rough, steep and very rocky road. I am exhausted from hanging on through all twists, turns and rough terrain. John & David are to be congratulated on their driving ability.

Wide dry creek bed showing flood rubbish

NB..the posting of this blog is a couple of days late due to a lack of Internet Service.