2 On the Road: Camel Ride to Uluru Sunset

A shuttle bus picked us up at our lodging and transported us to the camel farm where two strings of camels awaited us. Each camel's reins had been tied to the camel in front of it and there was a rope that ran along the side of the saddle that linked the whole line together because camels had been known to break their reins. There was also a belt that held one of their knees in the bent position so they didn't try to stand while people were boarding.

One man who knew the camels very well was in charge of assigning people to the individual groups. He would tell them the name of the camel as he did so. Well he introduced our camel as Psycho... I think he did that just to see what we would do. Then he said, no the camel's real name was Jed. I was disappointed. Anyway Jed is the heaviest camel they had. Later on, we were told that another was the tallest camel they had and yet another was the fattest. Jed weighed in at 1.2 ton. As you can see, each camel had a two-person saddle.

We had to board with the heaviest person on the back. Once I was on Jed, Sonny, the camel behind us, came and introduced himself.

There are three tours a day. The camels not on this tour had probably been out earlier in the day.

Once the cameleers got all the camels to their feet, starting from the front, we headed out on our tour. As we rode along, we learned about camels in Australia and, in particular, the camels we were riding. Like the ones we were riding, most of the camels in Australia are one-humped Dromedary camels. Camels are not native to Australia. In the 1840s, British settlers used camels to help them explore the vast and arid areas of the Australian Outback.

During most of our tour we could see Uluru and we watched how the colors and shadows changed as the sun set. Once motor vehicles came to Australia, the camels were no longer necessary, so they were released into the wild. Camels in Australia have no natural predators and they thrived in the Australian desert, so Australia is now home to the world’s largest population of wild camels.

We could even see Kata Tjuta off in the distance. Nowadays camels are an ‘Established Pest of National Significance’. There are around 300,000 camels in Australia but, before culling began in 2009, they were thought to number as high as one million!

We could see the second string of camels as they followed the trail. Camel meat is a growing industry in Australia. Camels are exported live to Saudi Arabia, where the wild, disease-free camels are a prized delicacy. There are even camel dairies producing camel milk and camel rides are a tourism and recreation favorite all over the country.

They even race camels! The Alice Springs Cup is awarded to the fastest camel. Then there's the camel endurance races. The ‘Sheikh Zayed International Camel Endurance Race’ offers $50,000 in prize money and ‘The Boulia Desert Sands’ offers $25,000.

I even have proof I rode a camel. Notice that the only part of us touching the camel is our feet.

Camel saddles are individually made as each camel's hump is shaped differently.

The Aboriginal name for a camel is “Murtitikilpa”, which translates to “Knees knock together”. At first, those indigenous people thought that the camel was just a “white man’s emu”.

Termite mounds

The feral camels inhabit areas of Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory. Most live in Australian desert parts like the Great Sandy, Gibson, Great Victoria, and Simpson deserts, and in some parts of the semi-desert lands.

The shadows deepening on Uluru. Feral camels will eat 80% of the plants available in the habitat, according to research done in Alice Springs. Feral camels are declared pests because of the huge damage they cause to pastoral infrastructure in Western Australia. They are known to destroy fences, foul and damage water points, affect soil quality, and much of the available vegetation (especially the curly pod wattle, bean tree, quandong, plumbush, and supplejack).

Camel feet have thick padding that secures their feet from rocky and hot sands. What looks like hooves are actually toenails. Camel’s feet are divided in half and the halves are then joined underneath by webbing. The pads of camel's foot are covered with protective soles and inside each foot, there is a thick ball of fat. The feet spread out when walking so it travels over sand very easily.

Sonny kept making noises like he was going to vomit so I was concerned I was going to get that all over my leg. Turns out that this is just their way to digest their food. They initially chew and swallow food as they eat, but cellulose is hard to digest so what they eat is held in their rumen where microbes work on it. The contents are repeatedly churned by waves of muscle contractions, and every now and then, some of the green sludge is belched back into the mouth, ground between the teeth, soaked in saliva and gulped back down again. That is what Sonny was doing and the cameleer said that was a sign of a happy camel.

We stopped at the top of a hill to watch the sun set.

There's no breeding program for camels in Australia. Most of the camels in the country are born in the wild.

When we got back to the farm, each camel was made to kneel, starting at the front of the line. We were warned that Jed might kneel as soon as the camel in front of him kneeled and that is exactly what happened.