Australia Crocodile Safaris

Carmor Plains and Australia Wide Safaris are one of the few safari operators offering Crocodile harvesting.
Australia Wide Safaris own and manage Carmor Plains Wildlife Reserve. The 100,000 acre privately owned game reserve is a pristine area for native flora and fauna and game animals.

 They also offer Water Buffalo, Wild Boar, Water Fowl, Wild Goat, Banteng and Wild Cattle hunting

The Crocodile harvesting season is year round but best times are from late April to the end of November.
Transport to the game reserve can be by road or private air charter. They will pick you up at the airport upon your arrival or from your Hotel. Travelling time by road from Darwin to Carmor Plains is 2 and 1/2 hours. If you prefer they can charter a light aircraft for you from Darwin, direct to the hunting camp, flying time 25 minutes!

Population of Australia

A real size comparison of Australia and the United States and the U.K. in red

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.7% of Australia's population.

During the period between 1788 and 1868, about 160,000 convicts were sent to Australia. What happened to them when they got to Australia depended on their skills or education, how they behaved themselves and some luck. The First Fleet carried 780 British convicts who landed in Botany Bay, New South Wales. Two more convict fleets arrived in 1790 and 1791, and the first free settlers didn' arrived until 1793. During this period, the colony of New South Wales was officially a penal colony comprising mainly of convicts, marines and the wives of the marines.


The majority of the 165,000 convicts transported to Australia were poor and illiterate, victims of the Poor Laws and social conditions in Georgian England. Eight out of ten prisoners were convicted for larceny of some description.

In the 2006 Australian Census residents were asked to describe their ancestry, in which up to two could be nominated. Proportionate to the Australian resident population, the most commonly nominated ancestries were.


Australian (37.13%)

English (31.65%)

Irish (9.08%)

Scottish (7.56%)

Italian (4.29%)

German (4.09%)

Chinese (3.37%)

Greek (1.84%)

Dutch (1.56%)

Indian (1.18%)

Lebanese (0.92%)

Vietnamese (0.87%)

Armenian (0.82%)

New Zealander (0.81%)

Filipino (0.81%)

Maltese (0.77%)

Croatian (0.59%)
Welsh (0.57%)

French (0.5%)

Serbian (0.48%)

Maori (0.47%)

Spanish (0.42%)

Macedonian (0.42%)

South African (0.4%)

Sinhalese (0.37%)

Hungarian (0.3%)

Russian (0.3%)

Turkish (0.3%)

American (0.28%)





Australia is a religiously diverse country and has no official religion.

The most commonly spoken languages other than English in Australia are Italian, Greek, German, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Chinese languages, Indian languages, Arabic, Macedonian and Croatian, as well as numerous Australian Aboriginal languages

Witchetty Grub

The witchetty grub also spelled witchety grub or witjuti grub is a term used in Australia for the large, white, wood-eating larvae of several moths. Particularly it applies to the larva of the cossid moth Endoxyla leucomochla, which feeds on the roots of the Witchetty bush.

The grub is the most important insect food of the desert and was a staple in the diets of Aboriginal women and children.
I’ve tried one raw, they are very gooey and eggy and quite disgusting, but they can bite your tongue if you forget to bite their heads off. When cooked some say the flavour is variously described as almond-like or similar to peanut butter. Some popular recipes include Singed Witchetty Grubs and Witchetty Grub Soup.


Barbecued  Grubs

Barbecued, witchetties are often eaten as an appetizer. They are cooked over a fire on pieces of wire, rather like shasliks or satays. It takes about two minutes each side for the meat to become white and chewy and the skin crusty. Barbecued witchetties taste quite like chicken or prawns, serve with a peanut sauce.

Platypus

According to Aboriginal legend, the first platypus were born after a young female duck mated with a lonely and persuasive water-rat. The duck's offspring had their mother's bill and webbed feet and their father's four legs and handsome brown fur.

Early British colonists in Australia called the platypus a "water mole". Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Aboriginal people had many different names for the animal, including "boondaburra", "mallingong" and "tambreet".





A Dr Shaw, in his scientific description of 1799, gave the name Platypus anatinus, from Greek and Latin words meaning "flat-footed, duck-like".

While both male and female Platypuses are born with ankle spurs, only the male has spurs which produce a cocktail of venom. Platypus spurrings of people are rare, but the select group who have survived the trauma (often fishermen trying to free them) report pain strong enough to induce vomiting which can persist for days, weeks or even months.

Kangaroo inside a emu recipe

Roasted Emu stuffed with Kangaroo 

KANGAMU

Dont go cooking lamb or beef on Australia day use Kangaroo or Emu our Aussie Coat of Arms.

Chuck some Roo or Emu on the Barbie its lean its tasty and goes great with Beer and Bundy Rum not just Beer or Rum both together remember its Australia Day you have to get smashed.

Aussie Meat Pie (Roo Pie)

1kg Kangaroo mince 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium brown onion, finely chopped

2 rashers fatty bacon, rind trimmed chopped small

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 tablespoons plain flour

2 cups salt-reduced beef stock

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

4 sheets frozen ready-rolled shortcrust pastry, partially thawed, halved diagonally

2 sheets frozen ready-rolled puff pastry, partially thawed, quartered

1 egg, lightly beaten

Tomato sauce,

 Cook Roo mince, bacon and onion in a frying pan for 8 to 10 minutes or till brown.

Add tomato paste and flour. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until combined. Add stock and thyme. Stir to combine.

Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce has thickened and meat is tender. Season with pepper. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced. Line eight 7.5cm round pie moulds with shortcrust pastry. Trim excess.

Fill cases with kangaroo mixture. Top with puff pastry. Trim excess. Press edges together with a fork to seal.

Using a small sharp knife, cut a small cross in pie tops. Brush with egg. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. Serve with tomatoe sauce

Enjoy with a shit load of Beer and a bottle of Bundy 

Emu Burgers

3 kg minced Emu

2 bacon rashers 

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

6 large onion slices

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

3 hamburger buns

Bbq Sauce

Beetroot

Tomatoe

Lettuce

Pineapple

8 Bundy and cokes

Combine Emu, worcestershire sauce, dry mustard and salt and pepper, mixing well. Shape into six patties and chuck on barbie with the onion and bacon. melt some cheese on the burgers when nearly cooked.

Toast buns on barbie, chuck on the emu burger, bacon, bbq sauce beetroot, tomatoe, lettuce, pineapple,(leave off what you dont like) and serve with heaps of nice cold cans of Bundie and coke

Makes 6 servings.

Welcome to country ceremony

Ceremonies and protocols are an important part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Incorporating ceremonies into Australia Day activities allows the wider community to share in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and promote a stronger sense of shared nationhood. Such ceremonies include Welcome to Country to welcome visitors into a community and Smoking Ceremonies to clear impurities from the land or sea.

how to make a damper

Dampers and various types of bread were baked in the ashes. Care was taken to only use the correct type of wood from which the ashes were obtained. Some woods imparted an unpleasant taste or even caused irritation or discomfort to the users. most wattles seemed to have been successfully used for baking in the ashes, yielding a fine ash that did not cause irritation.
 
 

 
 
Wattle seed Damper
 
4 cups of self raising flour
2  teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon sugar ( If you want)
90g of butter
3 tablespoons of roasted ground wattle seed
3/4  cup of milk ( if your camping and dont have milk just use water)
3/4  cup of water

Combine all ingrediants together, then kneed the dough for a bit, then roll into a ball ,and then flatten it a bit, so it looks like a thick flying saucer.

Throw onto hot ashes and cover with ashes, damper will take about 20-30 minutes.

Spread with whatever you like when cooked.( i like heaps of butter and vegemite).


Herb and Cheese Damper ( Sheila`s Damper)

1 cup (160g) wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup (150g) white self-raising flour
60g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (40g) grated tasty cheese
1/4 cup chopped oregano leaves
3/4 cup (185ml) milk, plus extra to glaze
1 tbs grated parmesan


You can do this one like the one above and chuck it in the fire.

But for you sheila`s  Shape into a round loaf and place on a greased baking tray. Brush top with milk and sprinkle with parmesan. Bake for 30 minutes in oven or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Serve warm
with a glass of champagne or a cup of tea.

How to cook a Dugong

 Dugongs are one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees.

The dugong is the only sirenian in its range, which spans the waters of some 40 countries and territories throughout the Indo-West Pacific. The dugong is largely dependent on seagrass communities for subsistence and is thus restricted to the coastal habitats which support seagrass meadows, with the largest dugong concentrations typically occurring in wide, shallow, protected areas such as bays, mangrove channels, the waters of large inshore islands and inter-reefal waters. The northern waters of Australia between Shark Bay and Moreton Bay are believed to be the dugong's contemporary stronghold.

Most Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are legally allowed to hunt dugongs in Australian waters. To them the dugong is often more than just an important food source; it is central to their culture, economy and even religion. Hunting it is an expression of their Aboriginality - tangible evidence of their skill, knowledge and oneness with the elements of their environment.

Legend has it Dugongs were often mistaken for mermaids or mermen by the first European sailors to arrive in Australia's coastal waters. 

Hunting the dugong is still done the traditional way by the Yanyuwa people of the Borroloola region in the Gulf of Carpentaria; always two harpoons have to be thrown.

The majority of dugongs live in the northern waters of Australia between Shark Bay Western Australia and Moreton Bay in Queensland. The dugong is the only strictly-marine herbivorous mammal, as all species of manatee utilize fresh water to some degree.

The dugong has been hunted for thousands of years for its meat and oil, although dugong hunting also has great cultural significance throughout its range. The dugong's current distribution is reduced and disjunct, and many populations are close to extinction.

Cooking:

When a dugong is brought back to the land for butchering, its head


must be faced back in the direction of the sea. This is so the

spirit of the dugong can return to the sea.

The only internal organ of the dugong which is eaten is the small

intestines all other organs are removed.

Dugong meat is cooked in a ground oven. 'The ground oven


is approximately 1 metre deep, 1 to 2 metres in width and 2

metres in length. The ground oven is filled with wood which is

set alight. While the‘wood is burning, the stones are thrown into the

fire to get hot.

When the wood has burnt down to hot coals the heated stones are

removed . Green mangrove branches are laid on the bed of leaves

and the hot stones placed on top of the meat., The oven is then

covered with dirt to seal in the heat. The meat is left to cook

for approx 8 hours.



After the meat has been eaten, all the scraps and bones are


thrown back into the ground oven and burnt. The belief is that

failure to dispose of the bones correctly will result in a

cessation of successful hunting. The rib-cage sections, head,

and flippers of the dugong, are considered sacred. These are the sections

which are placed into the ground oven.

Marn Grook Australian Football

Marn Grook (also spelt marngrook), literally meaning "Game ball", is the collective name given to a number of traditional Indigenous Australian recreational pastime believed to have been played at gatherings and celebrations of up to 50 players.


Generally speaking observers commented that Marn Grook was a football game which featured Punt kicking and catching a stuffed "ball". It involved large numbers of players, and games were played over an extremely large area. Totemic teams may have been formed, however to observers the game appeared to lack a team objective, having no real rules, scoring or winner. Individual players who consistently exhibited outstanding skills, such as leaping high over others to catch the ball, were often commented on..

Robert Brough-Smyth, in an 1878 book The Aborigines of Victoria, quoted William Thomas, a Protector of Aborigines in Victoria, who stated that in about 1841 he had witnessed Wurundjeri Aborigines playing the game.

The men and boys joyfully assemble when this game is to be played. One makes a ball of possum skin, somewhat elastic, but firm and strong. ...The players of this game do not throw the ball as a white man might do, but drop it and at the same time kicks it with his foot, using the instep for that purpose. ...The tallest men have the best chances in this game. ...Some of them will leap as high as five feet from the ground to catch the ball. The person who secures the ball kicks it. ...This continues for hours and the natives never seem to tire of the exercise.

Aboriginal Hunting Weapons

The weapons that Aboriginal people have used since the Dreamtime are Spears, Stone Knives, Shields, Boomerangs, and Fighting Stick . There are more Weapons but these are the main ones used for hunting .

HUNTING
Large animals are hunted (by men) small animals are gathered [by women] . The chance of success in obtaining animals is related to size. Large animals are hard to obtain, but provide a lot of meat (and prestige for the successful hunter) small animals individually provide little meat but can be obtained readily enough to provide much meat in total.

Hunting is a great experience when you first go out to hunt. Sometimes it's very exciting when the Elders take you out.
When I first went out Pig hunting I was 8 years old I felt very nervous when my older brother take me hunting to a very special place. Only men are allowed to go in but women are not allowed. If any women or girl go in they would go missing for a couple of years, that's the Law, it's very strong to us men. We have to use a four wheel drive. When we got there we left the four wheel drive near the main road. We had to walk, it took a couple of hours of walking to get there. As you look around you could see all the pigs just standing there looking at you so my brother just got into it and there went my brother chasing the pigs, while me and the other boys tried to get the smaller pigs, we call them suckers that's what we call them in our Language. Me and the boys caught 2 suckers, I helped my brother to catch 6 we shot 3 of them and left one alive and the two sucker. It was getting late so we started walking back to the car. Because we had to cook dinner that night we invited some of our relatives over to have dinner with us and offered some pig to our neighbours.
Edwin Butcher, Herberton, Australia

Wallaby Recipes

Eat more wallaby its good for you!

Wallabies are widely distributed across Australia, particularly in more remote, heavily timbered, or rugged areas, less so on the great semi-arid plains that are better suited to the larger, leaner, and more fleet-footed kangaroos.

Wallaby meat has a rich burgundy colour, is very tender, with subtle flavour lending itself to diverse styles of preparation. It is very low in cholesterol and very low in fat, perfect for the health conscious.

Portioned and ready to cook

Wallaby has a mild game flavour and can be used as an alternative to veal or chicken. The tenderness and flavour of wallaby meat is best enhanced when lightly cooked.

Provided the following simple steps are followed, cuts of Wallaby meat can be prepared in a similar fashion as all other red meats:

Brush the meat with oil (e.g. olive , peanut or seasame) prior to cooking either by pan frying, barbecue or roasting.

Place in a hot pan and quickly turn to ensure both sides are seared (browned) , seal and turn only once to retain moisture.

Roasting is an ideal cooking method for Wallaby meat. For the best results cook at controlled temperatures. It is not recommended to overcook kangaroo and Wallaby meat as the absence of fat makes the meat dry out.

Source: Yarra valley Game Meats,www.LifeStyleFOOD.com.au





Mark Olive’s Wallaby Stack

Recipe by World Famous Chef Mark Olive from The Outback Café

Mark Olive (aka the “Black Olive”) has been a chef for over twenty years - he became interested in cooking as a child, watching his mother and aunts.

He was born in Woollongong in New South Wales, but his people are the Bundjalung nation from the state's northern rivers region.

Mark was chef at Melbourne's indigenous restaurant, the Flaming Bull, and ran his own restaurant in Sydney for a time where he specialised in creating recipes using outback ingredients.

Today he cooks regularly for gatherings of hundreds of people at big corporate and public functions in Australia, bringing his signature blend of contemporary outback tastes to every occasion.




500 g Wallaby butterfly cut steaks

1 Sweet potato thinly sliced lengthways

1 Capsicum cut into 4 equal pieces

Native Mountain Pepper

3 Dessert Spoons Seeded Mustard

1 Dessert Spoon Honey

¼ cup crushed Macadamia

1.Pre-heat oven to 200°C.

2.Prepare the steaks in a butterfly cut, and coat with native mountain pepper, set aside.

3.Coat the zucchini, sweet potato, and capsicum with olive oil and cook on a hot griddle plate until tender (do not over cook).

4.During cooking sprinkle with native mountain pepper. Remove from griddle and set aside.

5.Sear both sides of the wallaby steak quickly on a very hot griddle (should be medium rare).

6.Remove from griddle and set aside to rest.

7.On a baking tray, layer the sweet potato, zucchini, capsicum and wallaby, repeat.

8.Top with crushed macadamia nuts and place in oven until nuts are golden brown.
9.To make the sauce, mix the seeded mustard and honey in a small bowl.

10.To serve, place the stack on a plate and drizzle with the honey mustard sauced. Sprinkle native mountain pepper around the plate and add some whole roasted macadamia nuts for presentation.

Aboriginal Cooking Methods

Aborigines lived as Hunter-gatherers. They hunted and foraged for food from the land.
Australian Aboriginal cooking methods are unique, most of them originating in and around outdoor fires. Boiling and barbecuing are newer techniques that they have learned.
Aboriginals ate a balanced diet before the invasion of the British Crown, including seasonal fruits, nuts, roots vegetables, wattles, other plant food, many types of meats, and seafood.


Aboriginal Cooking Methods


 Roasting on hot coals:

· The basic technique for cooking flesh, including most meats, fish and small turtles.
A further slow roasting, involving covering with coals and ashes may have then
been employed to thoroughly cook the meat or to soften an otherwise tough meat.
After cooking, the meat would be quickly consumed.
· For game, such as a kangaroo, the fur would first be singed off in the flames. As
the carcase started to swell, it would be removed from the flames, gutted and the
remains of the fur scraped off with a sharp implement. By this time the fire would
be a bed of hot coals on which the carcase would be further cooked. It is unlikely
that cooking would be complete by this method, the meat would be rare but
probably relished by all, particularly the men of the group.
· Smaller game would be more thoroughly cooked by this method.
· Shellfish would be cooked briefly on the coals at the side of a fire so that, as soon as
the contents started to froth, they were removed from the heat. This method
avoided the shellfish being overcooked and tough.

Baking in the ashes

Dampers and various types of bread were baked in the ashes. Care was taken to only
use the correct type of wood from which the ashes were obtained. Some woods
imparted an unpleasant taste or even caused irritation or discomfort to the users. most
wattles seemed to have been successfully used for baking in the ashes, yielding a fine
ash that did not cause irritation. Witchetty grubs only required to be briefly rolled in
the hot ashes to cook them. Often damper or goanna would be placed on the hot
ground beneath the ashes and covered with more ash to cook. A scooped out hollow
was often made in which to cook yams and other small vegetables by then covering
them with a further layer of ash and coals.





Steaming in a ground oven

Aboriginal cooking methods using ancient ground ovens still exist, particularly in the Wiradjuri area, along the Darling,
Murrumbidgee and Lachlan Rivers. At Lake Urana in western NSW I have seen such
ovens and only recognised them after having them explained to me. The ovens were
prepared by digging out a pit about 90 cm long and 60 cm deep, taking care to collect
any clay from the digging. The clay, usually fashioned into smooth lumps, would be
placed aside until the pit had been filled with selected firewood and then placed on
top. As the wood burned, the clay would dry quickly and become very hot. These
clay lumps, nearly red hot, would be removed from the pit using sticks for tongs, the
pit swept out and quickly lined with green leaves or grass on which small game such
as possums would be lain, covered by more green grass and weighed down by the clay lumps. All this was covered with earth from the original excavation to prevent loss of
steam. This method of cooking produced excellent results. In areas such as Arnhem Land, wrapping in moist paperbark from the Melaleuca trees is still a popular method
of cooking vegetables and meat in a ground oven. Iron particles in ground ovens
became aligned according to the magnetic field of the earth at the time the ovens were
last used – from this the age of the ovens could be calculated, a bonus for
archaeologists.