Outback by camel, Central Australia

You can see once again we've come right out from the ranges. We've got the ranges just over there on the south side. Nice clean open country in the margar again. These are the beautiful ghostgum trees out here in Central Australia. Got a nice powdery trunk on them. They're a beautiful tree. See here, these are the big desert oak trees. The real signature tree of the desert country. Love the sandhills. There are some pretty harsh areas. Got a fairly rough bark on it. One thing I love about the desert oaks, have a listen to the sound in the wind. Now we've just come into like, it's like a clay pan area, this one. It's fairly dry and it's hard and cracked. Now in rain times, this will fill up. It's like a bowl amongst the sand dunes. So at the moment, makes for easy travelling, easy walking, nice open clear country. We've just come out of that clay pan area. Now we're heading up to the sand dunes. Now when you think of sand dunes, most people look at them like the Sahara, you know, nice and plain. No growth, just perfect sand. So here in Central Australia, it's carpeted quite thick in a few different trees like the spinifex, desert oaks. Look up, mate. Look up. Camels are real good for the sand dunes. Got those big flat feet going again. We're going to cut down now and head up into the next ridge. Sometimes it's easy to walk on top of the sand dunes. Get a pretty nice clear track, like just here. We can cut down around the bush and follow this ridge right along. Not much is going to get in our path. Look up, boys. We're getting a nice cool change now. Cloud cover's coming over. We've got a nice breeze, so it's a bit of a welcome treat out here. So we've just come out of the sand hills. Still fairly sandy and open. Good little spot here. That's actually the edge of a top stone. Yeah, it's an old Aboriginal tool they used for grinding seeds. You can see the nice smooth edge there. But anyway, we'll leave that back over there. So we're just coming into the ranges. We're in a fairly nice, open, flat country here. And this is our best chance of getting close to the hills. Little spike. A little bit different, this rocky gully. Bit of smashed up rocks. The main range over here, the rocky outcrop. There's a few of these on the south side of the ranges. Still worth having a look at. It's been nice to cruise the year. We've got this pad. It's actually the pad from the original camel safaris down here at Stewart's Well. Over 30 years of camels walking along this range. And the pad's still fairly distinct. So the aim of today, getting this fella out, young Nulla. Getting him out for a good run. Testing him for a few environments. We're training him to become a lead camel. He hasn't been going that long, but he's going good. So, it's time to get Diamond going now. Got to put a saddle together for him. Get the two of them out there. Then it's time for a good walk. Now, you can see it's fairly stony here. Camels have got a soft foot. It's like a big pad. Almost like a ball of tyre. Now, they can walk on rocks, so they don't have any trouble with it. In fact, they're quite good in the hills. If you do them too much, you've got big loads on their back. And you're continually on the stones, they can bruise their pad. Now, if that happens, it can take up to eight months for them to reshed that soil and grow it back again. So in the early days, the old Afghan camel driver, he'd go right around the hills with his big pack loads. Even if it was an extra 200 miles on his journey, it wouldn't matter. He did that for the camel. Now, we're coming into the hot part of the day again. Now, summer's a really good time to train camels, especially bulls. Because bull camels, they're not in rut during summer. Even though they still can be heady. When I say heady, I mean, brrrr, like, got a lot of testosterone. So during the summer time, he's a little bit calmer than he is in winter time. In winter time is their breeding time. That's when their testosterone's at full peak. So I find in the hot time of year, the best time to train camels rather than winter, especially with the bulls. So it's okay to be out here in the heat with them. Easy to get the job done. See young Nala there, pretty proud of himself. Take him over now. Give him a shout for the girls. Show them how good he's been going.