G’day all, Uncle Furry here.
It's Friday afternoon in
Those who want a drink, glasses in the cupboard, coffee mugs next to ‘em, kettle on the bench, white wine & the milk are in the fridge, red in the pantry, bourbon in the cupboard, ice in the freezer. While you’re up, some one grab Uncle Furry a big glass, chuck in ½ a dozen ice cubes, fill it up with bourbon, grab me an ashtray & my smokes. Pull up a bit of floor & relax.
Listen, important announcement before we start, any pissing & griping about passive smoking, I’m there with you, these fuckers cost me a fortune, so if you’re passively smoking, stop winging & chuck some money on the table, it’s about time you paid your way.
I was going to write a whole story about how PG & I met, our first coffee, first date, and when I crashed, (not fell) in love with her. I’d better get that flight plan approved before I try & float that one.
Today’s story is about when I was the tender age of 16. Some one at work today said, “Bob’s your uncle”. It’s an Aussie saying, it means everything is OK or going according to plan. Well, that invoked some memories.
Furry had an Uncle Bob & he live in
I remember the first couple of days there, we’d go around checking his blokes were working & giving them new jobs to go on to. People would yell, “Bob, when are ya gunna fix me dunny, fuck ya, there’s shit everywhere!” (translation “Excuse me Bob old chap, when do you think you’d be available for repair my toilet? It is in quiet a state of disrepair”).
Well Bob really didn’t have the right to speak ill of the activities (or lack there off) of our indigenous people, because his answer was always, “Aw for fucks sake Bill, I’m under the pump, I’m as busy as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition. Even flown me apprentice nephew up from
Anyway, after a couple of days Uncle Bob said, “Look fuck ‘em, I’m sick of being busy, I’m always fucken busy, run off me legs all the time, let’s relax & go camping”. This scared me, any more relaxed & Bob would need a respirator!
Anyway we (read ME), load up the Ute with swags , food, fishing rods & dog. Uncle Bob then recommends I choose a gun from the “storage room”, (which was basically a complete room converted into a gun safe. There were more weapons than the Australian Army has access to!)
Anyway I chose a .375 H&H magnum (something not to dissimilar to a howitzer in calibre) because it was basically the biggest gun I could carry.
Off we go to Kakadu, & I’m assuming just about everyone knows where I’m talking. We set up camp on the first night there, on the fork where two rivers converge.
I’m a little concerned because on the other bank is a “large” croc, (read about 24 foot long & he’d lost about the last 3 feet of tail in a blue) so yes, he’s a little large!
Uncle Bob is quiet cool about it all, “They’re territorial, and so if he’s there, there’s no more about to worry us”.
Well we’d wade down to the water, slop through nearly waist deep in mud, throw in the prawn net, catch the prawns & use them as bait for Barramundi (a great eating & fighting fish), all the time making sure the croc was in eyeshot.
On the third day, the dog “disappeared”, and I can only assume he became a “munchies” for the croc.
On about the fifth night, we are sleeping under the stars, as per normal, and about 4 – 5 foot apart, when suddenly; Uncle Bob smacks me in the ear. I’m assuming its because I’m snoring, I sit up, ready to return the “favour” when I notice something moving between the two of us.
Frozen by absolute fear I realise it’s the croc, he’d come into the campsite to eat our food scraps.
I spent the rest of the night sitting bolt upright in my swag, flinching at every single noise. Come daylight I drag out the gun/howitzer & put a round into the head of the croc on the opposite bank.
Uncle Bob runs up, “What the fuck are ya doin’, their protected!’ “Nowhere as much a me” is my reply. So we decide its time to pack up & skip off before a ranger turns up & charges us with shooting a protected animal.
On the way home, Uncle Bob declares, “I know this place where we can go Buff hunting”, now I was a little skeptical because in Aussie slang Buff means naked! As fond of Uncle Bob as I was, hunting naked was a “getting a little to close for my liking”
It turned out he meant
We are hiding along the back of a billabong when this old male buff comes down the bank for a drink. He is many, many years old & had a great rack, (again according to Uncle Bob, which confused me further because in Aussie slang I knew that rack meant tits, and wasn’t he a bull?) In this case, it turned out, Uncle Bob meant horns.
So, there is the poor creature. Bent down having a drink, me sighting him up through the scope on the rifle, the cross hairs resting just below the ear, slowly increasing the pressure on the trigger, expecting any second the gun to explode & the recoil of this cannon to land me back in
All of a sudden the water “boils” around his head, and scares the shit out of me. A croc had leapt out of the water & had grabbed him around the head. Now normally the croc would roll, twisting the animal off balance, causing him to fall, then drag the poor creature into the water & drown him.
Well the poor croc confused ambition with ability on that fateful day; instead, the Buff dropped his head down & charged, trampling the croc on the bottom of the riverbed. The buff continued to trample the croc until it either died or got the fuck outta there.
Either way, the Buff walked out of the Billabong, looking back over his shoulder as much to say, “You, me, carpark, NOW”, (Aussie slang for “let’s fight”).
Uncle Bob was nudging me going “go on, go on take a shot”. All I could see in my minds eye was, me, after all the excitement, misplacing the shot, the Buffalo looking down where the bullet had struck him, dusting the area off with his hoof, looking back up to me with absolute hatred in his eyes & saying, “Right! Fuck it! That’s it! This was me good suit & you’ve put a fucken great big bloody hole in it! I’m gonna cane your arse ‘til your nose bleeds!”
So I did what any self respecting, unafraid, virile, strapping young Furry would do when faced with what was probably the equivalent of a runaway, totally out of control, pissed off Mack truck with PMS.
I hid! I made me really, REALLY small. Furry might be smart like rock, strong like tractor, (really big tractor but), and Furry might be able to lift heavy rocks over his head & chuck ‘em really far, but he’s not fucken stupid!
Sometimes it’s smarter to get real small & keep real quiet.
The drive home was pleasantly uneventful, well apart from the 3 ‘roos we hit, and crashing the Ute into a lamppost, (after only being on the sealed road for 50 yards).
See what happens is ‘roos move around at night & are hard to see as the come in from the side as you drive along.
The lamppost situation is common because you’d drive some 700 miles on dirt & dust roads, where there is no speed limit. You turn well before the corner & drift through the corners like a Rally driver.
Yep, Uncle Bob definitely supplied me with a “quiet” time camping & for this I was very thankful. Who knows, if it was “eventful” the excitement might have killed me!
Have a fun weekend all; I’m off to protect PG’s roses from the marauding possum
No comments:
Post a Comment