whats your funniest camping animal experience

[phan_TOM]

I had to laugh at that one Phil as I've experienced the terror inspiring call of a barking owl a few times too. It's a blood curdling sound and I agree, it does sound like a woman being tortured. Gives me a shiver just thinking about it.

I found myself up in the jungle on the nightcap track after dark once, due to a later than expected start & short winter days, and one started up not far from me. Even though I knew it was a barking owl it scared the bejeezus out of me and it took a fair bit of self control and 'just breathe, it's only an owl' not too run for my life hahaha

[wayno]

DOC rangers play sounds of kiwi's at some of the great walk huts...
first the male calls a few times in a long whistling sound that slowly rises in pitch
then the female responds.... with a croaky rasping sound not dissimilar to running your fingernails down a black board
someone commented once, "no wonder theres so few of them"

[awildland]

Sounded like a female being tortured, it was a Barking Owl.

I had to laugh at that one Phil as I've experienced the terror inspiring call of a barking owl a few times too. It's a blood curdling sound and I agree, it does sound like a woman being tortured. Gives me a shiver just thinking about it.

…we had a similar experience with the 'screaming woman' just a few weekends ago and posted a story about it on our blog page only yesterday….despite the Barking Owl's reputation for being 'the screaming woman' bird, the recorded calls we found while searching the internet weren't blood curdling enough so I wasn't sure it was a barking owl we heard. It seems though that this is consensus because tom & phil's descriptions match exactly what we heard. We couldn't see the bird as it was pitch black and high in the trees, and while memorable it is only a "funniest animal experience" in hindsight - at the time it gave me palpitations.

[north-north-west]

Meh, nothing beats a Devil for blood-curdling screams.

Or for appetite. Way back when, one of our Rangers spent the better part of a day digging up and clearing out a blocked sewerage pipe. His clothing - and particularly his almost brand new Blunnies - was not fit for the house when he'd finished so it was all left in a steaming pile outside the back door.
Next morning, all that was left of the boots was two small scraps of heel with toothmarks identified by the experts as Sarcophilus harrisii. I've always wondered if the . . . errrrrr . . . traces of the day's work had made the boots more, or less, palatable . . .

[walkon]

Meh, nothing beats a Devil for blood-curdling screams. . .

Pffft tassie devils have nothing on a girl the other day who left her tent open for the day in amongst the tea tree. Whilst she was getting changed there was an ear piercing blood curdling scream coming from her tent and continued as she ran across the camp ground in just her knickers. When I ran over to see that she was alright, I was sheepishly told that there was a 'huntsman' in her tent this big (arms outstretched).

Funny thing was she didn't want my towel to cover herself up with, she wanted my shirt. That way she could hide her face on the walk back to the tent. Oh and could you please check for spiders. As you might have guessed the huntsman was a tad smaller than her estimation, actually about 4 inches accross.

[Don R]

Years ago the future wife, my climbing partners and I spent a night in an old shelter near Wollomombi Falls preparatory to going down the Inaccessible Gulf. There was a large cross beam across the roof of the shelter, under which we placed a tarp on the ground. There was a very inquisitive possum in the shelter who kept coming up to us to sniff us and check us out. He or she wasn't shy about trying to cadge a meal. My mate Jim, whose early years of living on a macrobiotic diet including cooked seaweed provided by his somewhat counter culture mum had induced him into covering his food with chilli powder, decided to give the possum a piece of his scroggin - a fresh red chilli. The possum accepted the offering with alacrity and munched on it, only to fling it aside with horror once the flavour hit ! The next morning when we woke up we discovered the possum's revenge. There was possum poo on Jim's sleeping bag, and no one else's. The possum had scampered up the cross beam and "unloaded" above Jim, missing the rest of us who were sleeping alongside Jim.

[awildland]

funny story Don but what I really want to know about is the trip down the Inaccessible Gulf!

[puredingo]

If it was inaccessible then there is no story....I think???

[wayno]

best way to fid the maximum running speed of a weka..... bread soaked in vodka.... they are quite fast...

[skibug]

OK, two experiences of many ...

Many years ago camping in a public National Park campsite in Border Ranges National Park with the wife. In the afternoon heard the slightly stomach-turning snorting sounds of a crazed pig, which was, of course, the local male Koala high in a tree. Didn't think too much of it, until later in the afternoon he descended a big gum, urine waterfalling everywhere. To our surprise, reaching the ground, he turned towards our picnic table where we were sitting, and trundled slowly but purposefully towards us. What was pleasingly interesting became more and more disturbing as he continued his advance, until we literally had to stand up and back off in fear of him having a go at our legs! To our great surprise, he continued to "chase" us, slowly but inexorably following us as we did 1, 2 then 3 laps of the table. Getting sick of that game, we started walking away from our site down the road, watched by several other families in slight amazement and good humour, as the koala continued to follow us as if we were somehow his worst enemies. Finally, after several minutes, he gave up and headed up the next tree. I will never forget how determined he was to pursue us, and wonder what he would have done if he'd caught us. Anyone have a similar experience with a koala - I never imagined they'd be so aggressive toward a much larger animal.

The wife and I take groups of teenage students hiking, and on one occasion in Glenbrook NP, were camping in a fairly isolated clearing surrounded by thick bush. In the afternoon, the students had set up tents and were busying themselves with their chores, when one girl started screaming and carrying on next to her tent. Running over expecting some high drama, discovered that there was a small, harmless spider on the outside of the inner, so left her and the others too it. A while later, around dusk, I saw and heard a similar carry on, the girl in question positively bursting out of her tent, obviously in fear of some imagined threat - which she declared was "something" inside the tent. Wearily but patiently, I suggested to put her mind at ease she pull everything out and check inside sleeping bags and under mats for any intruders, thinking she would shake out a bull ant or something. Pulling out some clothes, then her sleeping bag, she shook it out - and out fell THE BIGGEST CENTIPEDE I, or ANYONE I HAVE EVER MET, or ANY AUTHOR OF HORROR STORIES has ever seen or imagined - it was the size of a small snake, as thick as a man's finger, with its dozens of legs wriggling frantically, the body thrashing wildly as it tried to make an escape. It was a centipede on an epic scale, and I remember thinking "geez, I'm fairly thankful that thing wasn't in my tent!" Needless to say, the students kept their tents zipped up very well the rest of that night - and so did I.

Wonderful memories, the fear tempered by time - thankfully no animals - or students - were harmed during these adventures.

Skibug.

[walkerchris77]

Had a bull ant bite my left nut. The other campers thought it was funny as I stripped of my pants and was butt naked looking for the little black fella

[walkon]

Yeah another bloke here knows all about itchy by nuts, he can tell you all about it lol

[Don R]

I don't post very often here but since members asked about the Inaccessible Gulf I will supply my recollection of it.The Gulf is one of the two major routes down Wollomombi falls in new England. The location is very spectacular , and is described as a very long day so naturally we started at noon. Firstly, the abseils were free falls of fifty or so metres. The fun part of which was that the anchors were secured, haha, in greywacke. the rock was as solid as rice bubbles so we used tape knots crammed into small slots with one of the blokes standing on it for further tension. The first bloke had some good reason to be apprehensive but if you were last you were denied the comfort of knowing the tape knot was at least held down by a climber. The water was reasonably dirty and fetid, but powering through anyhow. You got very wet. At the end the water disappeared into a long vertical tube shaped funnel.Since the consensus was that descending that funnel was a preliminary to drowning we decided to free climb out the canyon walls. At the time we were doing a shed load of climbing at Frog, Roo point, etc so it transpired not to be too bad although the first few pitches were interesting... On the way up my climbing partner dislodged a football sized chunk of probably the only solid rock on the face which broke three of my ribs. We exited in the dark, and wombled back to the shelter. We did a week of New England canyoning after that which was terrific fun, albeit getting in and out of the wetsuit with cracked ribs was a bit difficult.

[awildland]

Don, thanks for the story! It sounds as epic as I expected. That is a wild place.

[north-north-west]

I feel really guilty laughing at this, but . . .

Going down the lovely wide stone steps on a track yesterday, came around a corner and there was an echidna trying to climb up the side of the steps to get back into the bush. Don't know if I startled it or it had bitten off more than it could chew (not hard for an echidna), but the poor thing lost its grip, tumbled off the rock, rolled down half a dozen steps and ended up on its back. Took half a minute to roll over right way up and amble off over the now much lower edge, doing the tachyglossian equivalent of a nonchalant whistle.

You have no idea how funny an echidna looks when it's upside down. I'm still sniggering when I think of it.

[Mark F]

Camped at Gill Creek on the AAWT under a MDL Grace Duo tarp supported by trekking poles, the tarp collapsed in the middle of the night. Initially thinking it was a guy line pulled loose, I checked the guys and all were still in position. It was only then in my daze that I realised that the front pole was missing. I searched around and couldn't find it eventually finding a stick to replace it with. In the morning I eventually found the missing pole in thick scrub about 10 - 15 metres away from the back of the tarp. I am surmising the rest. Judging by the bites on the foam handle a possum had been enjoying a salty treat. When it pulled a little too hard the pole slipped and the tarp started to come down. Spooked, the possum dragged the pole through the tarp, past me asleep, and out the back into the scrub a split second before the tarp descended onto my face and woke me.