Mike Dixon

Huge termite mounds stuck up all around. Tim had told
David about them. He said the individual nests were so
massive the weight of their occupants equaled a fully-grown
cow or bull. The moral to this story was that the North Australian
bush might seem barren but it contained a huge
amount of protein in the form of termite larvae. If the worst
came to the worst, you could always break into a nest and
get a good feed. David hoped it would never come to that –
but was prepared to give it a try.
They left the termite mounds and drove onto the beach.
The sand was firm and the Volvo kept up a steady pace.
Daryl pointed to some spots where turtles had made their
nests. „I had a go at farming them once,‟ he said.
„How do you do that?‟
„Same as with the crocs. You raid the nests and rear the
hatchlings in tanks. Most would get taken by the gulls if you
didn‟t so you‟re doing the little buggers a favor.‟
„What happened?‟
„They all died.‟ Daryl scratched his arse. „Got some sort of
disease. They‟re not like the baby crocs. They swim around
in their own poo. They don‟t mind being crowded up. Turtles
go to sea and swim around in clean water. They‟re not
tough like what the crocs are.‟
It occurred to David that they‟d have to be tough to survive
Daryl. He let him do the talking. Most of what he said
was pure nonsense but that didn‟t matter … there were
gems of information amongst it.
„I‟m multi-skilled,‟ Daryl crapped on. „You have to be if
you live out here. You can‟t just call in a tradesman every
time something goes wrong. You have to fix it yourself. I do
all the work on the electronics and on the aircraft. I was an
aircraft maintenance engineer down south but we prefer to
live up here.‟
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