Cat's Claw Fever - Night 5

As usual I was up at dawn. Along my morning walk, I kicked up numerous wallabies and two large grey kangaroos who had come near the homestead in order to drink from the retaining pond located near the creek. Attempts to accurate photograph these creatures were futile.

The Reedy Creek Ranch is an interesting place. First settled in the late 1800s by an Irish family, the place has seen numerous owners in the past forty years. Back in the 1970s it was a thriving Jackaroo ranch (basically a training ranch for wannabe cowboys). After that it spent some time as a bed and breakfast. Shortly thereafter most of the land was sold to the state. Currently it is being run as a viable cattle ranch, with most of the pasture land leased back from the state. This abbreviated history of the ranch was told to us by Adrian, the current owner. A portly, balding man in his early 60s, Adrian looks more like a retired insurance agent that the operator of a massive ranch in the middle of the Queensland bush. Later in the day we met Stan, the man who runs the day to day operations. Stan looks, acts, and speaks the part of a rancher, ten gallon hat and all. The ranch buildings are aging and in desperate need of paint job. The actual homestead is a conglomeration of buildings added to each other as the principle use of the ranch changed over the years. The crowning achievement of this piecemeal construction project is the wide veranda that surrounds the entire place. This glorified porch would be our home for five days.

The date was April 14, 1871 and Eliza Presho,

The Cause of All Our Problems

fresh returned from a week in the newly thriving port of Brisbane, decided to plant a small creeping vine (the seeds of which were shipped in from London) at the base of her wooden entrance arch at the Reedy Creek Ranch. Fast forward 136 years. This seemingly harmless plant, named Cat’s Claw, jumped to the creek bottom and has spread 4 kilometers downstream. Cat’s Claw, when properly maintained, remains small and produces lovely yellow flowers, however, when released unchecked into a fragile environment it turns into a monster. The vine engulfs entire trees choking off their roots and leaves and ultimately killing them. As the trees falls into the creek, the vine spreads downstream to the next victim. Our job would be to cut the vines and spray the ends of them with Roundup. These bastards grow up to an inch thick and a single tree can have fifty or so vines surrounding it’s trunk. Added to this, once you cut the Cat’s Claw, you have 15 seconds to spray the live end until the plant secrets a clotting serum that protects it until it can regenerate. Oh the joys of invasive species.

The Brits Hard at Work

Armed with pruners and spray bottles, this proved to be very tough work. The creek bed is very steep, though vacant at the time of water, and temperatures hovered near 90 with nary a breath a wind. Around noon, two rangers from the Taroom Station, Tasha and Nathanial, showed up. This was quite the pair. Tasha was a wildly friendly woman who was never at a loss for words. Nathanial, on the other hand, was a behemoth of a man who barely uttered a sound. Having experience with Cat’s Claw, they showed up with serrated, folding saws, which were an absolute godsend, especially on the thicker, more entrenched vines.

We returned to the veranda around 3pm after a long day in the creek bed. Any sort of progress was difficult to notice, as we had started our Sisyphusian task at the absolute epicenter of the outbreak. Morale was waning, but a delicious chili dinner helped to bring spirits up. Post dinner, we played some cards; Jana teaching us a German version of President/Asshole and Daniel introducing a British game him and his mates called Shithead (a cross between Uno and Texas Hold ‘Em) The sun sets at 6:30. By the time the generator went out, we were all properly knickered out and sleep was very welcome.

What I Learned Today: Exporting culture can be like exporting invasive species, it may serve the exporter in the short term (and in some aesthetic sense) but in the end, it usually kills the entirety of the native culture (species) and needs to be removed. I feel we are grossly in danger of infecting the entire world with our vacuous materialistic culture. Through advertising and socio-political indoctrination man’s desire for possession is overtaking all other concerns; spiritual, environmental, and cultural alike. Gazing over a Cat’s Claw infected forest is like peering deep into the soul of our society...on the surface a pretty, green monoculture, but in reality, a sick, destructive way of life.

written by

exumenius on October 15, 2007 from Taroom, Australia

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

Send a Compliment

comment on this...