Camels

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September 14 - After a sleepless night (When will I learn that I can’t drink coffee!!) we rose at 5 o’clock and caught a shuttle to a camel farm – what else would one do at five in the morning! The sunrise ride on camel back through the desert was truly spectacular! The young cameleers, as they are known, were exceptionally knowledgeable regaling us with facts and tales the whole way. My lovely camel, Jill, was also affectionately known as “Jilly Bean”. David’s mount’s name was “Trigger” and the one behind me was “Diesel.” In total there were about 10 camels in our “train.”



All of the camels on the farm except a couple of babies were once wild. There are over 700,000 wild camels in Australia. They were brought over in the early days to help settle the land, and when they were no longer useful, they were released. It amazed me to find it takes a relatively short period of time (about 7 months) to train a wild camel to become tame enough to take tourists like me on rides through the desert.







After we dismounted from our camels, we were given a light breakfast and followed another cameleer to watch her feed two young camels. She asked if anyone would like to feed the baby its bottle. No one spoke up, so I eagerly took the opportunity! It was a wonderful experience – I am now quite a fan of these affectionate and highly intelligent animals.

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Photos

"Alice the Camel has one hump"
You have had to be a parent of small children to get this :)

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Camels
Nice one

[Donna V]

Camel
Camel rocks. Best ride ever. Beats a purple convertible hands down.

[Two of Us]

A purple camel would be even better!
Maybe we could paint the camel purple -- I think Jilly-Bean would love that! Hope all is well at your end of the planet, Michele