07 May 2011

Day 20 - Drumming grasslands


On one camping trip in the arid far west of New South Wales, we went for a walk on a very hot day. The dishes had been washed after a long, slow breakfast and my parents decided that it would do us all good to stretch our legs.

We had walked for about half an hour through scrub and hummock grasses and were now approaching a stand of mallee trees. Suddenly we heard a strange drumming sound that was so powerful that the earth seemed to vibrate. With no clue what it was, we were all a bit tense but curiosity got the better of us. Very silently and very carefully we continued on towards the trees.

All at once, the noise stopped and the silence was almost as eery as the drumming sound. Still we walked on toward the trees. What we saw in the grasslands beyond mallee trees, just a bit over a hundred metres away, took my breath away.

The drumming sound had been a mob of more than a hundred kangaroos bounding across the grasslands. And now the silence was the kangaroos at rest. Camouflaged in the shade of the trees, we stood and watched this rare sight for a while before we began our walk back to camp.

I have never seen anything like that again. And I don't think I will ever hear anything like that again.

3 comments:

fifi said...

WOW

I have never experienced that. Never. Small mobs at a distnace, but never have I heard that noise.
I love kangaroos.

silvia said...

What a privilege to see and hear something great like that! It is a beautiful picture, I love it.

Ulrike said...

Thank you fifi and silvia.
It was an experience I will never forget in my whole life. Breathtaking doesn't begin to describe how powerful it was....
x