Waanyarra – Where The Bull Ants Bite

A bloke in the pub last night, another one, told me about this spot near Waanyarra, which is the other side of the legendary gold town Dunolly.

I had breakfast and motored up there. A warm day today. I turned off the main road to follow a track to Waanyarra Camping site. On the way I had to stop at the historic graveyard.

It was moving, as these places usually are. These poor buggers came here for the gold rush and died. We’re miles from anywhere and they died here. No houses, just old, decaying skeletons.

And a few better off folk.

And a few who are marked by unadorned stones.

Well I’m not a Christian, or in any way religious, however I feel spirituality on occasions. Maybe it’s just emotion, because I have some of that in me, and maybe it’s just self-pity because I’m more concerned about my end than theirs. Who knows? But I shouted ‘May God bless you all’ because I wanted any lingering vestige of this forgotten clump of humanity to feel that somebody cared.

Then I stumbled back to the car and went down to the fairly remote camping site. There were two groups of people resident down there and I wanted to make sure that if I parked the car there they wouldn’t try to break into it. I parked up and walked over to the bigger of the two groups. Two campervans with trailers, but two men and two women. Less likely to be Mad Max than four blokes!

They watched me walk over and I said ‘Good morning, will my car be ok if I park here whilst I do some prospecting’? They responded positively and one of the men said, ‘bring it over next to ours and people will think you’re part of our group’.

Star folk.

They asked me how long I would be so they would start a search if I didn’t show. Salt of the earth. I set off and walked over the first creek bed.

I detected whilst walking over a distance of a mile or so, finding the ubiquitous shotgun pellets and the occasional bullet. It was hot. Sorry to harp on but we’d had a couple of days respite from the heat and now it had come back.

I have to wear heavy boots for protection, and thick long trousers to protect my legs from spiky bushes, aggressive insects and snakes. The snakes aren’t out and about at this time of year because 30c is too cold for them to wander around. But if you disturb one at rest the thickness of your trousers could save your life. The teeth on the brown snake are relatively short. And they don’t always inject. But this sensible heavy protection makes your bottom, feet, legs and genitalia very hot and sweaty. And stinky. (Ok thanks Dave that’s enough).

Very stinky. Running in sweat, dripping off anything that dangles. (Ok mate, there could be kids watching). And the pong at night when you take…(ENOUGH)!

I’d been going for a couple of hours when I crossed another creek bed. I detected along it for a way but I wanted to get further away from any roads, so I walked up the far bank and carried on detecting, through some old gold workings, and across to a gentle slope.

It looked good land and I felt positive detecting at the bottom of the slope.

I disturbed an ants’ nest, only a small one, and carried on detecting. The next minute a few Bull Ants turned up to defend their tiny cousins.

And all of a sudden they were all over me. Dirty, evil, Bull Ant bastaaards. I flicked off a load before they bit or stung me, but one of them sneaked up my right trousers leg and bit, then stung me. The pain is ridiculous. Wasp sting x10. Christ!

I hit my trousers until I knew it was dead. Then I legged it away from his mates and flicked off two or three persistent buggers who were crawling over my arms and chest. My temperature rose quickly, my lower leg swelled and I felt weak. I worked my way back to the campsite, slowly but steadily.

One of the women looking after my car had some anti-bull ant ointment and offered it to me, as I was looking a bit fatigued. It worked a treat. The swelling went down and the pain eased substantially. Brilliant!

I felt that I didn’t want to go back in the bush, so I got in the car and drove back towards base. After half an hour I felt better and I thought I should at least try an hour or so detecting on the way back. So I pulled into the eastern part of the Redbank Reserve.

The usual stuff and no gold. The fourth day on the trot. Bugger!

However the swelling of my leg due to the bite and the sting, the bastaaards can do both at the same time, was still subdued by the magic anti-venom. Hooraaay!

Back to Moonambel and an early night. A disappointing day, but I am still up for the challenge.

Then I saw a BBC report that night.

If I’d caught the ant and jettisoned all my gold, I would have been better off. Bugger!!!

Night night.