The Camel Whispererer..

While picking grapes in Southern Queensland, I met a native Christmas Islander named Willy (He's the guy with the white and black beard). No last name.

Willy joined our crew late. He had just returned to Queensland after spending the previous 6 months traveling across the interior of Australia, a journey most people would never dream of taking, even in a Landrover or Hummer. Willy did it with eight camels, in a homemade, over-sized buggy filled with all the basic anemities of life.

His dream was to build a small touring company selling the adventure of crossing the interior of Australia. He had come from Christmas Island as a young man, a nomad without a job. He worked in farming for many years, as temporary workers from the islands - Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa - often do, picking all sorts of fruit and vegetables.


One day he was walking in the bush, and saw a wild camel....

There are 500 thousand feral camels roaming free in the Outback. They were imported to Australia from India for transport during the 19th century.

....This gave Willy an idea, a crazy idea, an idea none of us moderns, or at least this modern, would ever have. Willy decided to tame a wild camel.

Over the next two years Willy tamed eight wild camels without the use of physical force. He said that he had a unique relationship with each animal, and that each one of them followed him because he had gained their trust.

A soft spoken man, and a man with a very thin frame, I could not imagine Willy training his camels any other way than gaining their trust with the soft tone of his voice.