Suddenly the unbelievable happens

Temperature - Day (maximum):
approx. 30 degrees

Anna Plains Station – 02.05.2001

Sally and Luke say goodbye to us and drive to Derby. Luke has already found a new job there as a head stockman. “I would have liked to help you with the camel training. But I think you can do it without me,” says Luke. We shake hands and wish each other good luck.

Tanja then takes care of her logistics again, while I prepare the breakfast buffet for our hungry boys. Then I climb onto the fence and watch them eat. We want to spend as much time as possible with our camels and be with them so that the new ones get used to our presence. They are very shy and run away as soon as they see us. They don’t even want to come and eat when I’m sitting next to them. However, I have plenty of time and hunger drives them to the feeding trough. They keep looking up nervously and watching me. Edgar seems to be particularly anxious because he is so excited and looking around that he hardly gets any of his good food.

It is a pleasant time to watch the animals and let the warm, tropical wind blow through your hair. I have the opportunity to think here and sometimes I even manage to simply enjoy the moment without being distracted by any thoughts. My gaze glides over the vast plain of Anna Plains. Large areas of this beautiful, wide coastal strip are under water and impassable. A herd of around 20 horses gallop proudly across the lush land. Some of them are still used to round up cattle today. Many farms in Australia are returning to this traditional way of herding cattle. Luke explained to us that the cattle are nowhere near as stressed as if they were being driven by vehicles, airplanes and helicopters. “During such a chase, a cow can easily lose two to three kilograms. Calves are also often separated from their mothers, which is a tremendous stress for the animals. If you convert that to a few thousand cattle and factor in the fact that the cattle are paid per kilogram, the loss is astronomical,” he reported. I would never have realized the benefit of these beautiful horses, but Luke’s statement makes sense.

Large birds of prey let my gaze wander into the blue sky. They hover in wide circles above the plain. One of them is attacked by several small birds. They are probably trying to keep him away from their nest with this action. The peace and quiet out here is only slightly disturbed by the distant sound of the generator. Our camels smack their lips and grunt with pleasure. Out of food envy, they sometimes bite each other in the head or eyes, whereupon the bitten one roars loudly. “Hey Hardie, stop that!” I scold him loudly as he tries to bite Jafar’s left eye again. So I sit here for almost three hours and study the behavior of our desert animals. Tanja comes by later to see if everything is okay with me. “Yeah, no problem. I was just watching our boys have a little tussle,’ I say.

I’m walking from the training paddock to the feeding enclosure and notice that Jasper is quite bored as he walks through the narrow connecting corridor. Why should we wait three days to put the halter on them when they’ve already got used to it, I think to myself and ask Tanja: “What do you think, should we try putting the halter on Jasper?” “Why not,” she replies enthusiastically. Before Jasper has left the passageway, Tanja hurries to its left end and closes the aluminum gate. Jasper apparently senses what is about to happen and before I can close the end of the passageway with one of the round beams lying around, he runs out backwards. I jump to the side just as he pushes his big butt out of the lock, turns 180 degrees and jumps past me to make a break for it. “Well, that went wrong!” I shout angrily. I suddenly feel a fighting spirit inside me. I quickly run after Jasper, following him through the large training paddock until he sets course for the passageway again. Because the corridor bends slightly to the left in the middle, he cannot see that its end is still closed. Jasper tries to run away from me and races into the connecting corridor without hesitation. As soon as he is inside, I pick up the heavy round beam again and place it as a cross brace on the wooden beams that form the left and right walls of the passageway. Jasper has now noticed that his escape route to the front is blocked and marches backwards with long strides. His mighty camel butt bumps against the bar I have inserted. There is an alarming crash. I quickly take another round beam from the ground and place it half a meter underneath as an additional barrier. Jasper crashes his butt against the barrier again. My heart is racing with excitement and it only takes me a few moments to put in two more wooden posts to secure it. Now not even an elephant can get out of here and Jasper is trapped in the narrow passageway. Nervous and anxious, he runs forward in the airlock, gets to the aluminum gate and rakes himself back in. “It’s best if we leave him alone for a few minutes. Let him calm down first,” Tanja suggests. A little later, armed with a lasso, I climb up the 2-meter-high passageway and try to catch Jasper’s head. I am now level with his raised head. As I have never thrown a lasso in my life, it takes me a few tries to get the rope over his swinging head. “I’ve got him!” I shout proudly. Jasper doesn’t like this at all and before I know it he is racing forward a few meters at explosive speed. If I had swung a leg over it to get a better grip on the beam, it would now be squashed to mush. I don’t think about a “should have” for long and pull the lasso with desperate strength with my right hand, while my left tries to hold the body on the wooden scaffolding. Suddenly, sweat pours from my forehead into my eyes. Jasper swings his skull left and right incessantly and roars like a hungry, highly aggressive lion. His roar shakes me to the marrow of my bones, but I somehow manage to hold on to the lasso. Jasper unexpectedly races forward only to jump the few possible meters backwards this time. He acts like a wild camel and once again proves to us what a tremendous elemental force lies within these animals. As he moves up and down, I constantly try to loosen the lasso so as not to strangle him. This means that when he comes to me the noose around his neck is loose and when he walks backwards or forwards it tightens. I hope that this will stop him trying to run away because it is unpleasant for him. The method seems to work after just a few minutes. Jasper stands in front of me, panting wildly. While I try to gently slip the halter over his head with my left hand, I hold him by the lasso with my right. So I balance my body only with my balance at a height of about 2 meters and hope very much not to fall down and break my foot. Every time I touch his head with the halter, he frantically tries to bite my hand. So I have to be very careful not to get terribly injured, because Jasper is extremely fast. Again, his head snaps forward like a cobra with a death bite. I can just about pull my hand away and take a deep breath until I try again and again. My thighs start to shake and my shoulders ache from the tension. “I won’t be able to do it any more soon,” I say to Tanja, who is balancing on the wooden beam next to me to help me. “I’ll quickly get the camera and film the action,” she says and climbs down. Without a second’s distraction, I keep my eyes glued to the wild, enraged animal. Suddenly the unbelievable happens. Jasper throws his mighty head back with a mighty jerk, snatches the lasso from me and stands on his hind legs. Like a volcanic eruption, he tries to heave his entire body with explosive force over the 2 meter high, massive barrier of the passageway. I can hardly believe my eyes and at this moment I feel as vulnerable as a little louse that is about to be crushed at any moment. Jasper roars deafeningly and has already flung half his body over the top beam. Horrified, I scramble to the side and when it looks like he’s going to break out, I jump off the airlock like a nimble monkey to save my bare skin. Tanja stands there, her whole body trembling with excitement. “Film, come and film this quickly!” I shout. “I can’t get it on!” she replies loudly. I quickly grab the camera to capture what can’t actually be there, but before it can run, Jasper has changed his mind and lifts his camel’s body back onto the inside of the passageway. He slumps into a sitting position without any transition. We hurriedly took the opportunity to make a second attempt to pull the halter over his quivering head. While I put the lasso back around his neck for safety reasons, Tanja slips the halter over him. It takes two or three attempts. Before we let him go, Tanja ties a 9-meter-long guardian rope around his neck so that we can catch him whenever we want or need to. She carefully reaches her hands through the wooden beams and works on his neck. If Jasper were to jump up now, Tanja’s arms would break off like matchsticks because they are bounded by a beam on her upper arms. “It’s all right Jasper. You’re almost there. I just have to tighten the knot,” she says to him in a calm voice. In the meantime, I pray that he doesn’t jump up and have a terrible accident. I would gladly take the risk, but my job at the moment is to hold the lasso. “Done,” says Tanja, to which we are both relieved and congratulate each other on taking a big step forward. The actual training with Jasper can begin immediately. After he realizes that we have let go of him, he gets up again. I open the gate of the airlock and release him to his mates.

As we’re so pumped up at this moment and don’t want to have the opportunity to think about how life-threatening this job is, we try Edgar straight away. I get him into the lock in the same way as Jasper. I climb up again to throw the lasso over his head. It works a little better this time. Edgar doesn’t try to go up and explode like a volcano. Its strength lies in kicking, biting and spitting. With a lot of patience I manage to put the halter on him. When I put the neck rope on him, he thinks about what it’s like to jump up. At the last second, I somehow manage to pull my arms out of the aisle and escape injury. Now that Edgar is ready to be trained as an expedition camel, we let him go. “They’ve had enough for today,” I say. Exhausted but happy, we climb onto the gate to watch them again. We are proud of ourselves, because over the last few months we have often wondered how we were going to manage to put a halter on wild camel bulls. “It wasn’t actually that bad, was it? I ask Tanja, who just looks at me with a laugh.

That same evening, we call our friends Jo and Tom to tell them about our success. They are both delighted and congratulate us on this big step. “Before you start teaching them how to shoo down, it makes a lot of sense to invest the time to dig a post into the ground. It is too dangerous to tie them to a fence. If they find out that they can squeeze you against it, they will. A post is ideal. If you tie Jasper or Edgar to this post, they can run around the outside in case of panic. This way, the risk of injury is relatively low for her and, more importantly, this method guarantees you both the necessary safety, she explains to Tanja.