Switching Sails for Saddles

By Meredith Stephens

“Let’s go for a camel ride when we are in Broome!” Alex suggested.

The voyage from Darwin to Broome along the remote Kimberley Coast had felt interminable. Twenty-one days with no other sailing boats in sight until we neared Broome. Even shore visits had been tense, with the prospect of meeting a crocodile or stepping on toxic jellyfish in the shallows. Unlike Alex, I was not a natural sailor, although I assisted where I could. I was adept at operating the winch when he was adjusting the sails, throwing out the fenders before arrival at a dock, and hooking the mooring with the boat hook. However, I was really there because I liked his company, and this overruled my aversion to risky adventure. Alex knew this, and he also knew how much I would love to ride a camel.

The camels loped towards us at the meeting point at the far end of the beach. The earlier ride departed soon after we arrived, so we had to wait. We found refuge in the shade of the official camel tour vehicle. I removed my shoes, sat down, and ploughed my bare feet into the sand. Forty minutes later the earlier ride was finished, and the camels lined up again. Alex and I were to share a camel. The lighter person had to hop on the front and the heavier on the back. All of the personnel were young European working holidaymakers, and invariably cheerful, like all of the other working holidaymakers we had met in Western Australia working in hospitality. Their job included caring for the camels. They would arrive at the farm late morning, groom the camels, and walk them for an hour to get to the beach. Apparently one of the camels had been rescued and so we were instructed not to pat her, but others enjoyed being patted. We mounted our female camel, Silky. Her long neck stretched in front of me. She had curly hair on her neck and long eyelashes.

Because our tour was late, we could enjoy it just before sunset. We had wanted to take the sunset tour, but it had been booked out.

“Are you enjoying it?” Alex asked me.

“This is absolutely worth it!” I confirmed, allowing myself to be gently rocked in the saddle in a motion which mimicked the ocean swell.

After the hardships of violent seas, a torn sail, and extreme isolation, I could relax on this gentle creature with Alex sitting behind me, gazing at the changing colours over the horizon. At the end of the tour, the tourists spontaneously erupted in applause. If this had been horses, they would have been startled, but the camels remained calm.

Camels are not native to Australia, having been introduced from the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent in the nineteenth century. In fact, the railroad that runs south to north across the Australian continent was named the “Ghan” in honour of the Afghan cameleers that the railway replaced. Camels were released into the wild in the early twentieth century when modern forms of transport were introduced. Their descendants compete with native marsupials for resources, and so they are considered invasive. But it is not their fault that they are invasive.

They are the descendants of camels that were brought here well over a hundred years ago. It so happens that they are well-adapted to the harsh conditions of the Australian outback. Sometimes wild invasive animals are culled because of the havoc they wreak on native fauna and flora. But I have a soft spot for these magnificent desert creatures and hope that they can be treated with dignity and kindness.

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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