Camel-Riding in the Australian Outback

The cool twilight breeze that has been lurking in the long shadows of the rusty sand dunes all afternoon is a welcome relief to all twelve of us who have come out to try our hand at camel-riding, but the ground is still stubbornly hot to the touch.

Nick Smail, our guide and the best known professional cameleer of the Australian Outback, wanders around his prepared camel caravan, tightening the two-person saddles, gently talking to his nonchalant-looking 3-meter tall animals. He turns to us, huddled in the doorway of his barn, and announces: "It's another perfect Outback evening. Let's go for a cruise".

A cruise? If by 'cruise' he meant, like, cruise-sailing, he would have been more accurate than we realised. For thousands of years, nomads from Morocco to Mongolia have recognised camels as the perfect vehicles to traverse their harsh and inhospitable terrain.

At home in the arid world, camels can go for weeks without drinking. They eat almost anything, and their feet are wide, tough and padded - perfect for gliding over the soft sand. As a passenger, you are lulled into a great sense of relaxation by the lumbering, gently swaying beasts. Hence the apt description, "Ships of the Desert".

I had visited Nick earlier that day at his Frontier Camel Tours ranch, camel-spitting distance from Ayers Rock, smack in 'The Red Centre' of the Australian Outback. This quiet man took me on a tour of his camel farm and gave me some insight into his passion for cameleering.

"Visitors to the Outback are always in awe of its beauty, but they don't know the best way to explore it until they come riding with me. An a camel's back, you're high up and out in the open - you really feel the elements. Camels move slowly and carefully through parts of the desert that are simply inaccessible to normal vehicles - and they are noiseless, don't pollute and have a minimal impact on the environment!"

After that flash of excitement, he settles back to his slow, unpretentious Outback drawl. "I tell you, there's just no better way to see the plant and animal life around you. And as a backdrop, you've got Ayers Rock at sunset. So whaddaya reckon. Pretty good, ay?" Nick knows he's onto a good thing.

Camels have actually been part of the Australian landscape for more than 150 years. Originally imported as pack animals to supply the distant pioneering communities of the dry interior, dromedaries (the one-humped ones) soon showed themselves superior to horses. They could carry more than horses, drank less, ate whatever desert plants that were available, and moved comfortably over great distances (up to 40km a day).

It's fair to say that most of the pioneering successes of the last century would have been unachievable without the hardy camel. In fact, it was only in 1907, with the advent of the car that camels stopped being imported.

Out-of-work cameleers across the country reluctantly let their animals go wild. Since then, the original population of10,000 camels have prospered into 200,000 - the greatest camel population on earth. This is due to the absence of any natural predators and no diseases (because the originally imported animals were quarantined).

And lots of space. About 70% of Australia is considered arid - ideal for the camels. And yet their explosive population increase has become a strain on the struggling cattle ranchers. Scarce watering holes intended for the cattle are being dried up by the camel hordes, fences are broken, and cattle and camels share the same food source.

Recently, ranchers have argued convincingly that camels offer nothing in return, should be deemed 'noxious', and therefore should be culled.