Word: cameleers
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...rolled out our swags beneath the shade of a coolibah tree and watched and waited, ravenous, while the billy boiled. This was a truly Waltzing Matilda moment except for one seemingly un-Australian note?the chime of a camel bell and the sight of its wearer extending a long, furry neck to prune the top of an acacia bush not far from our bedrolls...
...Rounded up on motorbikes and redomesticated, camels now provide visitors to Australia with everything from stately rides out for dinner to serious re-creations of the desert treks of the past. They're on menus and in museums, and camel racing draws large crowds to tiny towns whose individual populations usually struggle to reach three digits. There's no better way to get close to the outback than on camelback...
...getting to my camel camp of choice run by Explore the Outback (www.austcamel.com.au/explore.htm) turned out to be a trek in itself. I hitched a ride on the twice-weekly mail truck from the South Australian opal-mining town of Coober Pedy to Warriner, a long-abandoned railway depot in the middle of nowhere. "You'll be all right with Phil," the cheerful driver assured me. "He's a bit of a bushie." It wasn't a reference to his foot-long beard. Wearing a check shirt and a tall, rabbit-felt hat, trek leader Phil Gee looked the part...
...encounters with Australian camels involve one-pot dinners cooked on campfires, going unwashed for four days or sleeping under the stars. At the town of Alice Springs the ships of the desert bunk down in the suburbs, where Frontier Camels runs its Take a Camel to Dinner tour, which includes an hour-long ramble to a rustic restaurant and camel museum; click on cameltours.com.au for more info. The menu features excellent kangaroo sausage and bush tomato pesto, along with a selection of camel cuts. Despite my growing affection for the ungainly beasts, I must admit that smoked camel goes down...
Koski-Karell joins Morange at the table, and they pour their seasonal ale, “Coq ’n’ Camel.” It has pumpkin and a variety of other flavors, they explain. From the start, however, what the judges notice is not the spices but the potency. “It’s strong!” DeBisschop exclaims, and laughs...