It’s fair to say that I enjoy a good walk. Whether I’m out scrub with my husband Scott on hunting trips, exploring the local reserves with our dog, or hoofing it to the pub for a Sunday sesh, I’ll take a walking option whenever it’s available.
Then there are organised walking tours. I’ve done a few of them in my time. My honeymoon trek over the Inca Trail remains a defining life event, not least because I was midway between chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the time. Being under treatment for an aggressive lymphoma that had threatened to knock me off the perch, the irony of being toasted on my birthday by my husband and fellow walkers – at the highest point on the trail known as ‘Dead Woman’s Pass’ – was not lost on me. I, for one, was not dead yet. And that was 17 years ago.
As I recently approached the 55-year-old milestone, I got to thinking. It had been quite some time since I’d been on an organised walking tour. A combination of COVID and having a young child had meant that life had taken on other priorities. But I couldn’t help thinking this was a good time to revive an activity that I know I’ve enjoyed.
With a daily schedule full of home and work commitments – and my tendency to be the self-appointed organiser – I reckoned it was time to let go of the reins and let someone else plan the schedule, the meals and the activities. And given the need for someone to be at home with our teenager, I’d be doing this solo while Scott kept the home fires burning. Time for a bit of ‘me’ time. But where to go?
It’s not surprising that my social media feed showers me with walking tour options. I’ve obviously paused long enough over relevant adverts for the AI algorithm to know that I’m interested. Among these, there are evidently plenty of walking tours overseas – and they look great. But Australia is a destination that most people on the planet probably envy; a great brown land that holds a wealth of natural attractions. With so many options on my doorstep, there was no need to expand my travel horizons beyond our shores.
But here’s the thing. I’m an introvert. If I’m not with my family, I generally prefer my own company. So I can’t deny that the prospect of close and continual social interaction with a group of humans that I don’t know was a little concerning. Indeed, addressing this aversion was one of the reasons I knew this trip would be ‘good for me’.
The solution? A camel trek.
As soon as this option popped up on my search engine, I knew I’d found the right walking tour. For one, the camels would provide a focal point for my trip: daily life would inevitably be ordered around their needs, providing a focus for discussion and activity among a group of strangers.
Beyond this, I wanted to know more about these beasts of burden. Having a long-term interest in colonial history, I know that camels played a crucial role in opening up Australia to exploration, transport and commerce. But I also realise that the decline in their use following the advent of rail transport, and restraints placed on Afghan cameleers at the turn of the 20th century – including taxation, licencing and immigration restrictions – led to the release of thousands of camels into the wild.
Ideally adapted to our desert country, Australia is now considered to have the largest wild population of camels in the world. Known to degrade sensitive environments, damage fences, drain waterpoints and to be aggressive toward livestock, feral camels are a renowned pest. So I wondered how I’d respond to a team of domesticated camels fulfilling the role for which they were first introduced to this country. It was time to find out.
I chose to walk with Australian Walking Holidays who offer a small-group, seven-day Remote Northern Flinders Camel Trek. The schedule involves five days walking, five nights in a swag, a hotel on the final night, most meals and road transfer from Adelaide if you need it.
The trek is supported by two cameleers led by Ryan McMillan who (with his wife Natalie) owns Flinders and Beyond Camel Treks. While I chose the seven-day tour, there are other options that extend to a fortnight or longer. These are either organised by Ryan and Natalie themselves or are facilitated through various third-party agents. I found Australian Walking Holidays to be efficient in their handling of my arrangements and would use them again.
Flinders and Beyond Camel Treks is located just outside Blinman, around 500km from Adelaide. Arriving mid-afternoon on day one, I was surprised to see that the group of walkers was predominantly women. After all, there’s plenty about this walking tour that appeals to both genders.
It involves walking through some iconic South Australian landscape, sleeping in swags over five nights, enjoying meals and evenings in front of a campfire, and the opportunity to wrestle ropes and help hitch-up the camel train. Given that the rate of daily progress is dictated by the camels themselves, who manage around 3-3.5km per hour, there’s time to enjoy the scenery and take photos, while still covering around 10-12km of rugged terrain each day.
Further, Ryan proved himself to be a highly knowledgeable guide whose understanding of the local history, geography, wildlife, astronomy, and – of course – camels, provided rich insights and varied topics of conversation. Offering a blend of physical and social activity, as well as time for independence, this walking tour has something for everyone.
Origins of the word ‘caravan’
Did you know that caravan came to English in the late 16th century from the Italian caravana, which itself came from the Persian kārvān/karwan. It was used as the term to describe a group of people travelling with or on camels on the Silk Road.
Travelling with camels differed from my expectations in several respects. For one, the camels were remarkably docile. Travelling south of the Dog Fence, there were no wild camels in the area, meaning that the whole experience was entirely relaxed.
The camels would be left to roam free overnight, with one or two tethered loosely nearby to keep the herd within close proximity to camp. Mustering them in the morning was straightforward – Ryan or our other cameleer, Dillon, would simply locate a dominant camel and the rest would generally follow.
Having brought them back to camp, the camels were happy to sit and wait for our group to finish breakfast, break camp, and start packing and mounting the loads; a process that generally took around two hours.
Another thing I learned was that ‘not all camels are the same’. Spending time with our 12 one-humped dromedaries, I could readily discern several different head structures. While some individuals exhibited the ridged nose and droopy lower lips commonly seen in cartoons, others’ heads more closely resembled sheep, horses and even llamas.
The reason is the high level of genetic variation among camels that correlates to the different geographical regions in which they originally evolved, whether desert, coastal or mountainous. Australia’s camels were imported from many parts of the world.
The first camel, ‘Harry’, arrived in Australia in 1840 from the Canary Islands, and the first (Hindu) cameleers arrived in Melbourne with 24 camels in 1860 ahead of the Burke and Wills expedition. Mass importation didn’t begin until 1864, when Sir Thomas Elder imported around 10,000 camels, predominantly from Karachi and India. Subsequently, camels were imported from other regions to including southern Iran (Persia) and Afghanistan. Today’s Australian camel population evidently maintains genetic variation despite inter-breeding.
Thankfully, I was enlightened to find that camels are not all crotchety and unfriendly creatures with a tendency to spit. Sure, they grumble a bit when the pack-saddle harness is tightened under their belly. But who’d blame them?
Given the amount of kit we were strapping to them – bags of swags, clothing, pots and pans, food, first aid, boxes of wine and nibbles – I was amazed at how readily they were able to handle their loads. They were, in short, amazing. They simply go, and go, and go – relentlessly.
Think of The Tortoise and the Hare story and you’ll envisage what I mean. Stop for a photo and the camels would rapidly vanish, out of sight, beyond the next ridge or bend in the creek-line. Scurry forward of the camel train to deal with a ‘call of nature’ and the whole cavalcade would catch up, sometimes far quicker than walkers anticipated
And they are so quiet. Their footfall is almost silent and they don’t chatter among themselves, as you can expect among horses. Instead, the inquisitive camel takes the lead, the dominant camel brings up the rear, and every other animal simply falls into line.
So, did I enjoy the walk? Yes. I did. It was challenging without being demanding. Walking in September, the weather was remarkably kind and there were (surprisingly) no mozzies, few flies, and very little evidence of snakes or other potential hazards.
The sleeping conditions were basic but by no means austere. The meals were all fresh and tasty, with some excellent use of camp ovens and coals. I enjoyed my time alone just as I enjoyed talking with the other walkers.
Among our group of 34- to 73-year-olds was a woman whose grandfather was an Afghan cameleer, and another whose family lore traces indigenous origins to Annie King, fathered by the sole survivor of the Burke and Wills Expedition. I found professional similarities with some people, while learning from others about lifestyles and occupations about which I knew little.
Beyond these connections, walkers bonded over the shared experience of the trek – what we saw and what we learnt.
My seven-day camel trek has piqued my interest in taking other organised walks in the future. It may be hard to find something that offers the uniqueness of getting ‘up close and personal’ with a camel train. But I’m up for the task. Indeed, my socials tell me that there’s a walk in the Kozzies that combines trekking with water-colour painting. Now, that sounds interesting.
Dinky-di Australians, Kath and Scott Heiman are the founders of Heiman Habitat, where bushcraft, conservation and a love of the land underpin everything they do.
Did you know?
Australia has a significant population of camels, with estimates indicating there are approximately 3,000,000 wild camels in total. That’s a camel for every nine citizens of Australia. Some predictions show that this number could double every nine years without proactive measures. But with about 1.2 million feral camels living in the remote deserts of Central Australia, they’re hard to get to.
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If Kath’s seven days on the camel trail has stirred something in you, there’s a whole country waiting beyond the next ridge.
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