David and all
I spent much time out in the bush off the beaten track in the Top End and
usually had a 4WD. But having such a vehicle is no guarantee of not
getting into trouble as Laurie Knight has stated, and I was always very
careful.
The buffalo shooters and catchers I worked with never questioned my
abilities. Neither did Aboriginal relatives except on one occasion;
I told my older sister Esther that a large Datbe (Mulga Snake) had
explored my boot and leg with its tongue before sliding away over my
boot. She was very fearful of that snake and thought I must have
mistaken it for a python. She didn't know what I knew, that the snake
was too close for me to move out of its way when I first saw it, and I
was safer just freezing; and that Mulga Snake's fangs are too short to
penetrate clothing anway.
Yet on two occasions field assistants suggested I shouldn't be out alone
in the bush. The reason? I was a woman. Laughable seeing they were from
the big smoke and I had clocked up years in the remote Top End. And one
of them took enormous risks that not only horrified me but could have got
us both into trouble.
I remember too a scene from a film, the name of which I forget, in which
a father, separated from his young children for some time returned to the
village where they lived. While out with him the children spotted some
sheep in a paddock. "I wonder what they are!" exclaimed the boy. His
younger sister shook her head. She didn't know either. The father was
appalled. His children had spent years in the country and didn't know
what a sheep was!
They explained to him that what they didn't recognise was the breed of
sheep. I wonder if a similar lack of experience is the reason why some
are questioning Carole's judgement.
Denise
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