David Cameron

This is David with the painting he did for his exhibit in the NT Arts office. It is a beautiful painting and it depicts the following story which is a recurring theme in many Aboriginal paintings:

Kokok Bibayeng Modjarrkki (Big Brother Killed By A Freshwater Crocodile).

This is the story of two brothers, big brother and little brother and big brother's wife.

One morning little brother went hunting by himself, he got hot and thirsty
and went to the river for a drink.

When he got there he saw the tracks of a crocodile and got excited and ran back to tell big brother. Big brother and little brother and big brothers wife went back to the river and little brother showed them the crocodile tracks.

Big brother told his wife to go and get a string bag, a big one. Big brother dived into the water and went
down to where the crocodile lay sleeping on the bottom.

Big brother wrapped the string bag around the crocodile's mouth but forgot to get paperbark to put over the crocodiles eyes.

Big brother started to lift the crocodile up towards the surface but the crocodile opened his eyes and saw the sun and broke the string bag and tore big brother apart.

Little brother and big brothers wife saw this and started to cry.

Straight away when little brother saw that big brother had been killed he asked big brothers wife to marry him.

Vet Visit

The Ark vet, Jan, was here last week. The dogs are looking so much better thanks to their monthly does of ivermec, administered on a piece of bread and disguised under the taste and smell of a blob of anchovy paste. I thought you might like to see how veterinary medicine is practiced in the bush where the conditions are a little less than ideal, but ingenuity prevails and the job gets done. If you would like to see some surgery in action, visit this Youtube site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-S-3lCYx0c

And below are some still shots of the action and the local dogs and their owners.

How Big Was the One That Got Him???

A mate of mine was driving out to East Alligator when she came upon this scene! The croc doesn't look that big in the first picture, it is not until you see it in relation to the front end loader that you realize how big it really is.



The carcass was stuck on the rocks at Cahill's Crossing and the rangers had to fish it out. The rangers keep a pretty close eye on the croc population in specific areas and they were very surprised to find a carcass this size, they were not aware that any crocs of this size inhabited the area. Even more surprising to them was the way this carcass was mauled. They measured this croc at about 4.5 meters and figure the one that killed must have been even bigger! It makes me think twice about hopping into a boat of 3.4 meters long to go out fishing!!!