My Tribute to the Fauna of the Kimberley

Recently I traveled central Queensland, where the cattle, cane toads, cats, dogs and pigs have stamped their authority on the ecology of our most remote outback locations. Where once life was proliferated en mass by high temperatures, insane humidity and abundant rainfall now there is an eerie silence.

There is stillness among the pandanus-lined creek where historically the grass and leaf litter spoke incessantly of life as it rustled, crackled and crunched under foot of varanids beating a hasty retreat.

There is a solemn loneliness you feel as you drive along the very same roads that you onced shared with basking snakes, dragons and, at night, geckos.

People of this land say that some of the great reptilian fauna, long since decimated by the cane toad, are starting to return. I hope so, because I miss the massive King Brown (below) and Yellow-spotted Monitors like the desert misses the rain.

Value the vibrancy of this footage as reality has most certainly faded to grey.Kimberley Water Python