Wild Australia with Ray Mears (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Wetlands - full transcript
Ray comes face to face with a giant saltwater crocodile in Arnhem.
[Ray Mears] I love Australia.
It's one of my favorite places.
In this series, I'll be exploring six
of Australia's unique landscapes.
Join me as I travel through
spectacular tracts of wilderness,
from the red sands of the desert...
This is a landscape that is
truly scarlet. It's really beautiful.
...to the tropical waters
of the Great Barrier Reef.
From the wetland flood plains...
He's big. Dangerous.
...to the dark heart of the rainforest...
It makes you feel very small
and insignificant
when you're standing
next to a buttress root like this.
...on the trail of the weird
and wonderful animals...
...found here and nowhere else...
That's a great breach.
Wasn't that beautiful?
For a naturalist,
this is one of the most
inspirational places
to visit on our entire planet.
...as I set out on an epic adventure
into wild Australia.
Whoo-hoo!
[laughs]
[birds chirping]
I'm flying 9,000 miles
to the other side of the world
to explore one of the most remote
wilderness landscapes of Australia...
The wetlands.
[birds squawking]
Listen. Listen to that.
It's the sound
of the very essence of nature,
the energy of the land itself.
There's a wildness here that really sings
in the landscape. It's beautiful.
These wetlands
are in the Northern Territory
at the Top End of Australia.
I'm heading out to Arnhem Land...
One of the most remote
and inaccessible regions in the country.
My destination is Mount Borradaile
on the edge of the sandstone plateau
overlooking Cooper Creek flood plains.
It's an area that's home
to Australia's most deadly predator...
The saltwater crocodile...
And a vast array of native birds.
The first light of dawn
is the very best time to travel.
Do you know,
sometimes it just feels amazing
to be alive in a wild place like this.
Just love this time of day,
it's cool.
In a couple of hours,
it will be 40 degrees.
This mist coming across
the flood plain here is amazing.
This wetland area
has a monsoon climate
with a huge variation
between dry and wet,
and I'm here right at the end
of the dry season
after seven months without rain.
Believe it or not,
in a few weeks' time
when the rains come,
this could be under three meters of water.
It's hard to imagine that now
and the only way
you could get through here then
is in a boat.
Astonishing landscape.
Now, it might seem that this
is a very strange time of year
to come to a wetland,
the dry season,
but actually this is one
of the very best times to come here.
With the water so dried out, the wildlife
is concentrated at the billabongs.
That makes it much easier to find.
And that's where I'm heading...
The Cooper Creek billabong.
Oh, here we are.
From now on,
I'll be travelling by boat.
[motor starts]
This beautiful billabong
is a stretch of deeper water
that's been left isolated
as the flood waters have retreated.
[birds squawking]
As one of the few
permanent waterways in the area,
all wildlife is gathered here
waiting for the rains,
including huge flocks of magpie geese,
whistling ducks and pygmy geese.
Just a few of the nearly 900 species
of birds to be found in Australia.
Glossy Ibis being very glossy
in the morning light.
And that extraordinary curving bill.
But although this may look like paradise,
there's a good reason
I'm in a tin boat and not a canoe.
There's a hidden danger
lurking in the mist.
These wetlands are the main
breeding grounds for saltwater crocodiles.
As the flood waters have retreated,
all the crocs in the area
are concentrated here,
competing for this limited territory.
All the way along this billabong
every 50 or so meters,
there's a crocodile
that's got just its eyes
and its nostrils
out of the water, watching.
Doing the 'I'm a log' trick.
Croc city this is.
Risky business being a bird around here.
♪ Tiptoe through the crocodiles ♪
[chuckles]
And down he goes.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
So sinister when they go down like that.
This giant saltwater croc
warming up in the sun
looks like the dominant male
of the billabong.
Salties are the largest
living crocodiles in the world.
I'd say he was four meters long.
A croc that big will see me as prey.
This isn't a creature to play with
if you come to Australia.
That is the top predator
in this landscape,
and it's an animal
you have to pay a respect to.
He's keeping an eye on me.
I think I'm going to go
a bit further down.
I push on down the billabong
past magpie geese and jabirus...
Both uniquely Australian birds...
Enjoying the early morning sunshine.
You can see here these little chicks.
They're the chicks
of the comb-crested jacana
which are these beautiful birds
with this red crest
which looks just lovely
in this morning light.
Jacanas are sometimes called Jesus birds
because they appear to walk on water.
It's astonishing you get these incredibly
close encounters with the birds.
You don't need a spotting scope here,
just your binoculars.
These jacana are so beautiful.
I think it's one of my favorite birds
of the wetlands.
They've got these very strange-looking
legs and very widespread feet.
When you see them fly
they're so long
they trail out behind them
like a big plume.
Beautiful.
♪♪
The huge croc
that was watching me earlier
is patrolling his patch.
In the world of the crocodiles,
size matters.
As the dominant animal,
he'll have the best territory,
pushing his weaker rivals
out to the edges of the billabong.
At the widest stretch of the billabong,
there's a surprising sight...
Animals I'd expect to see
on an English farm...
A group of pigs.
Pigs were introduced
by the first European settlers,
and there are now estimated to be
over 23 million pigs
living wild in Australia.
Funny to see those pigs here.
Of course, they're an introduced species.
They're totally alien to this environment,
but they do very well here
and the crocodiles
like to eat them, of course.
I think that must be a dead pig
by the side of the billabong.
That pied heron is having a poke at it.
That's a huge pig.
The carcass must weigh over 200 kilos.
But the heron isn't the only opportunist
scoping it out.
That crocodile's
definitely got his eye on that pig.
It's the dominant male
who's been following me.
Crocodiles are specialist predators
of the water's edge.
From the safety of the water,
they remain in a sit-and-wait position
choosing their moment to strike.
The patience that they have is amazing.
The head of a crocodile
is around 20 percent of its body weight.
The jaws are designed to lock together
with enormous power.
This croc
is definitely over four meters long.
It seems like pork's on today's menu.
Look at the way
they can just take that pig.
Is that power or what?
Just like a dog
with a small bone in its mouth.
It's amazing.
Crocodiles sometimes take
large prey items
and store them in caches
beneath the water.
Crocs have relatively small stomachs,
so this pig
would be too much for one sitting.
The crocodile's trying to take
the pig underwater.
The power... look at that.
Well, it's not every day that you get
this close to a saltwater crocodile.
Now, they've been here
from the age of the dinosaurs.
Some people estimate 250 million years
there've been crocodile-like creatures.
That, if you ask me, is the most dangerous
predator to be found on the planet earth.
I think he's going to hide that pig
where the other crocs can't find it.
[hissing]
You hear it hissing. It's not happy
with me 'cause I've got in the way.
Ooh.
[laughs]
When he slaps his head like that,
it's a sign of aggression.
He's warning me away.
Hmm.
I don't want him coming back
and chasing me off.
I think I'll leave him to it.
[motor starts]
I'm heading down the billabong in search
of evidence of human habitation.
The rocky outcrops that lie above
the flood plains are called stone country.
This remote and sparsely populated
territory holds a lot of secrets.
It's baking hot today
and when the sun is high up like this,
the one thing you need is shade.
But in the stone country,
you never have to look very far for shade.
There are always good overhangs
to be found like this one here.
But it's not just shade to be found here.
These rocks house a gallery
of ancient Aboriginal art work.
Look at that... fascinating.
Of course, these overhangs were frequently
important places for the local people.
The rock country as it is looking out
over the flood meadows...
Basically looking out over a supermarket.
There's loads more to see in here too.
Aboriginal people have been in Australia
50 or maybe even 60 thousand years.
And some of this rock art could be
tens of thousands of years old,
particularly the dark red ochre figures.
And perhaps you could imagine
grasses laid down to lie on or mats
and either groups of men
or groups of women or families
lying here in the shade
looking up at the cave roof
telling the stories
associated with the art.
Aboriginal people
are very good story tellers,
have amazing stories
that are very important to their culture,
much of which is represented on the roof.
This is an X-ray painting
of a barramundi.
You can tell by the pointed head.
And they're abundant in the billabong
so I'm joining some local friends
to see if I can catch one.
♪♪
Connie Nayinggul and her grandson Moses
and friend Edith
have lived in Arnhem Land
all their lives
and generations of their families
before them.
Connie likes to bring Moses 'out bush'
so that he can learn the traditional ways
of living from the land.
We're using a time-honored
Aboriginal method of line fishing
that we've adapted to work
with modern fishing lines and lures.
[Ray]
Had a nibble?
There's one there somewhere,
just down there.
Come on, Moses, get us a fish.
[chuckles]
He'll try.
After a morning's fishing,
I'm ready for lunch.
Well, Connie, I think it's time
we go and cook the catch of the day.
What do you think?
Not much biting at the moment.
Yeah.
What do you think, Ray?
A good size for dinner?
Yeah, I think it'll be all right,
won't it? Not bad.
We're going to cook the barramundi
in a traditional ground oven.
The hardest part of the job
is digging a deep hole.
Getting fire going is easy
with all this dry wood around.
We need to get the stones very hot
so that the fish cooks on top of them.
[Connie]
Because rock's like an oven.
[Ray]
Nice and hot.
I'm after one more important addition
to our oven.
This is a paperbark tree.
For the Aboriginal people,
it was incredibly useful.
You can take off big sheets of this bark
and use it to make bedding,
to make the roofs of shelters,
for making ground ovens,
which is what we're going to use some
paper bark for, and for making fires.
♪♪
Are we going to use
anything for flavoring?
- What shall we use?
- Yeah, leaves, paper bark.
We got two kind.
[sniffs]
Oh, yeah, I can smell
the strong smell of tea tree oil.
[Connie]
Start putting some leaves.
[Ray]
Okay.
♪♪
[Ray]
Soil.
Yep. Soil on top.
By covering the paper bark with soil,
we trap the heat
and flavor inside the oven.
[Connie]
Don't want to waste this smoke.
That's where the flavor is coming from.
That looks good.
It's a very good way of cooking
because of course
there's no aluminum foil
that will just stick here forever.
It's all natural.
It all goes back to the forest.
One hour later
and the paper bark's hot to touch.
That's a sign that our fish
should be ready to eat.
That looks all right, doesn't it?
Oh, what a smell.
[Connie]
The smell.
[Ray] A very good smell.
Mmm. It smells great, doesn't it?
[Connie]
Once when you peel the skin off.
Oh, look at that. It looks amazing.
Can I try some?
Of course.
Barramundi meat always be tasty.
That's beautiful. That's so delicate.
Cooked to perfection.
Barramundi is a prime delicacy
in Australia's top restaurants.
But in my opinion, it's best like this...
Cooked and eaten in the wild.
That's very good.
♪♪
But my day is not over yet.
I've left the stone country and headed
out across the dried-up flood plain
with former cattle rancher Greg Towns.
Greg manages this environment
to protect the native wildlife.
Today we're on our way
to remove an invasive grass
that's destroying the wetlands.
On the far side of the water meadow,
I spot some of Australia's
most elegant birds.
I see two lovely brolga there.
They're beautiful.
In the dry months, brolgas gather at the
water's edge to dig in the mud for tubers.
Just majestic birds, aren't they?
[engine starts]
As we continue across the plains,
we disturb thousands
of grazing magpie geese.
[geese honking]
These vast honking flocks
feed on the seeds of wild rice
and other native grasses.
But these wonderful birds
are under threat
because the grass they eat
is being overtaken
by an imported species
called para grass...
Introduced to feed cattle.
As we push further
into the central flood plain,
the land gets even drier.
It's like being on Mars.
It's hard to believe
that anything can survive here.
But I spot animal tracks.
Greg and I follow the tracks
back to some nearby rocks
where until very recently
there'd been a pool of water.
[Ray] You've got some big crocs here,
haven't you?
[Greg]
Yeah.
[Ray] Amazing how easy they disappear
in the shadows, isn't it?
[Greg] Yeah, you wouldn't know he
was there unless you were looking for him.
Don't go too close.
One in that mud hole.
Yeah, there's one in the middle there.
Look at that. Yeah.
[Ray]
I don't intend to go within reach of him.
[Greg] There's another one.
Back in under that crack.
- Yep, up there. Whoa.
- See?
[Greg]
That guy's just come out of the mud.
[Ray]
What size do you reckon he is, then?
[Greg] Oh. Three and a half meters?
Maybe a bit bigger.
[Ray] I think he may be
a little bit more than that.
He's big. Dangerous.
[Greg] Yeah. And I don't think he's going
to waste his energy chasing us.
[Ray] No, they've got to save everything,
haven't they?
- They've already had their feed.
- Yeah.
At the height of the dry season
before the rains come,
crocs have the ability
to bury themselves in mud
and shut down
into a comatose state.
They haven't got long to wait now.
No, it could rain any day now.
So how long have they been like this?
Dried up, as it were.
Uh, about three weeks now since
there was some nice clear water here.
Yep.
Probably four to five weeks
since there was any food here
like geese and stuff.
Wow, this is the great mystery
about crocodiles,
is how did they survive
from the times of the dinosaurs.
This may be the answer to that mystery,
this ability to weather
long periods of discomfort.
[Ray]
It's impressive, though, isn't it?
We carry on over the mudflats
until we come to huge meadows
of the invasive para grass.
So what should be here?
Wild rice.
Wild rice and spike rush...
Which are both great grasses
for the birds.
And this stuff
has eventually choked that out.
Which is a shame because
we are losing our birds because of it.
Amazing, isn't it?
Something as simple as the grass
can have such a big impact.
[Ray]
So what can you do to control it?
The easiest option for us
is to burn it at the end of the season.
Right.
[Greg] Hopefully you will burn it
right down to the ground.
Your rains come,
flood the country and that will drown it.
And that's exactly
what Greg's going to do...
Burn away this destructive grass.
Controlled fire burning is a traditional
Australian form of land management
requiring skill and experience.
The heat and wind conditions
need to be exactly right.
This is a unique opportunity to watch
the process of farming with fire.
Wow, that's a salutary lesson
on the power of fire, isn't it?
The front of that fire
is moving like a racehorse.
You wouldn't want
to get caught in front of it.
Interesting, though.
This is a landscape of water and of fire.
For tens of thousands of years,
the aboriginal people
burned this landscape.
They still do.
What I think is interesting though
is to see fire being used today
to look after the land
in a different sense.
To remove an invasive species of grass
that chokes up the waterways
and impacts the welfare of the birds
and other animals
that have evolved
to depend on this landscape.
The fire will run until it meets
a natural firebreak where it'll burn out.
I love Arnhem Land. It's one
of my favorite places on our planet.
There's a wildness here
that is really profound.
It touches you deep inside.
To see all this wildlife
at this season as well,
that's incredible and it really justifies
the existence of wild areas
to remind us
of how our planet really should be.
♪♪
It's one of my favorite places.
In this series, I'll be exploring six
of Australia's unique landscapes.
Join me as I travel through
spectacular tracts of wilderness,
from the red sands of the desert...
This is a landscape that is
truly scarlet. It's really beautiful.
...to the tropical waters
of the Great Barrier Reef.
From the wetland flood plains...
He's big. Dangerous.
...to the dark heart of the rainforest...
It makes you feel very small
and insignificant
when you're standing
next to a buttress root like this.
...on the trail of the weird
and wonderful animals...
...found here and nowhere else...
That's a great breach.
Wasn't that beautiful?
For a naturalist,
this is one of the most
inspirational places
to visit on our entire planet.
...as I set out on an epic adventure
into wild Australia.
Whoo-hoo!
[laughs]
[birds chirping]
I'm flying 9,000 miles
to the other side of the world
to explore one of the most remote
wilderness landscapes of Australia...
The wetlands.
[birds squawking]
Listen. Listen to that.
It's the sound
of the very essence of nature,
the energy of the land itself.
There's a wildness here that really sings
in the landscape. It's beautiful.
These wetlands
are in the Northern Territory
at the Top End of Australia.
I'm heading out to Arnhem Land...
One of the most remote
and inaccessible regions in the country.
My destination is Mount Borradaile
on the edge of the sandstone plateau
overlooking Cooper Creek flood plains.
It's an area that's home
to Australia's most deadly predator...
The saltwater crocodile...
And a vast array of native birds.
The first light of dawn
is the very best time to travel.
Do you know,
sometimes it just feels amazing
to be alive in a wild place like this.
Just love this time of day,
it's cool.
In a couple of hours,
it will be 40 degrees.
This mist coming across
the flood plain here is amazing.
This wetland area
has a monsoon climate
with a huge variation
between dry and wet,
and I'm here right at the end
of the dry season
after seven months without rain.
Believe it or not,
in a few weeks' time
when the rains come,
this could be under three meters of water.
It's hard to imagine that now
and the only way
you could get through here then
is in a boat.
Astonishing landscape.
Now, it might seem that this
is a very strange time of year
to come to a wetland,
the dry season,
but actually this is one
of the very best times to come here.
With the water so dried out, the wildlife
is concentrated at the billabongs.
That makes it much easier to find.
And that's where I'm heading...
The Cooper Creek billabong.
Oh, here we are.
From now on,
I'll be travelling by boat.
[motor starts]
This beautiful billabong
is a stretch of deeper water
that's been left isolated
as the flood waters have retreated.
[birds squawking]
As one of the few
permanent waterways in the area,
all wildlife is gathered here
waiting for the rains,
including huge flocks of magpie geese,
whistling ducks and pygmy geese.
Just a few of the nearly 900 species
of birds to be found in Australia.
Glossy Ibis being very glossy
in the morning light.
And that extraordinary curving bill.
But although this may look like paradise,
there's a good reason
I'm in a tin boat and not a canoe.
There's a hidden danger
lurking in the mist.
These wetlands are the main
breeding grounds for saltwater crocodiles.
As the flood waters have retreated,
all the crocs in the area
are concentrated here,
competing for this limited territory.
All the way along this billabong
every 50 or so meters,
there's a crocodile
that's got just its eyes
and its nostrils
out of the water, watching.
Doing the 'I'm a log' trick.
Croc city this is.
Risky business being a bird around here.
♪ Tiptoe through the crocodiles ♪
[chuckles]
And down he goes.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
So sinister when they go down like that.
This giant saltwater croc
warming up in the sun
looks like the dominant male
of the billabong.
Salties are the largest
living crocodiles in the world.
I'd say he was four meters long.
A croc that big will see me as prey.
This isn't a creature to play with
if you come to Australia.
That is the top predator
in this landscape,
and it's an animal
you have to pay a respect to.
He's keeping an eye on me.
I think I'm going to go
a bit further down.
I push on down the billabong
past magpie geese and jabirus...
Both uniquely Australian birds...
Enjoying the early morning sunshine.
You can see here these little chicks.
They're the chicks
of the comb-crested jacana
which are these beautiful birds
with this red crest
which looks just lovely
in this morning light.
Jacanas are sometimes called Jesus birds
because they appear to walk on water.
It's astonishing you get these incredibly
close encounters with the birds.
You don't need a spotting scope here,
just your binoculars.
These jacana are so beautiful.
I think it's one of my favorite birds
of the wetlands.
They've got these very strange-looking
legs and very widespread feet.
When you see them fly
they're so long
they trail out behind them
like a big plume.
Beautiful.
♪♪
The huge croc
that was watching me earlier
is patrolling his patch.
In the world of the crocodiles,
size matters.
As the dominant animal,
he'll have the best territory,
pushing his weaker rivals
out to the edges of the billabong.
At the widest stretch of the billabong,
there's a surprising sight...
Animals I'd expect to see
on an English farm...
A group of pigs.
Pigs were introduced
by the first European settlers,
and there are now estimated to be
over 23 million pigs
living wild in Australia.
Funny to see those pigs here.
Of course, they're an introduced species.
They're totally alien to this environment,
but they do very well here
and the crocodiles
like to eat them, of course.
I think that must be a dead pig
by the side of the billabong.
That pied heron is having a poke at it.
That's a huge pig.
The carcass must weigh over 200 kilos.
But the heron isn't the only opportunist
scoping it out.
That crocodile's
definitely got his eye on that pig.
It's the dominant male
who's been following me.
Crocodiles are specialist predators
of the water's edge.
From the safety of the water,
they remain in a sit-and-wait position
choosing their moment to strike.
The patience that they have is amazing.
The head of a crocodile
is around 20 percent of its body weight.
The jaws are designed to lock together
with enormous power.
This croc
is definitely over four meters long.
It seems like pork's on today's menu.
Look at the way
they can just take that pig.
Is that power or what?
Just like a dog
with a small bone in its mouth.
It's amazing.
Crocodiles sometimes take
large prey items
and store them in caches
beneath the water.
Crocs have relatively small stomachs,
so this pig
would be too much for one sitting.
The crocodile's trying to take
the pig underwater.
The power... look at that.
Well, it's not every day that you get
this close to a saltwater crocodile.
Now, they've been here
from the age of the dinosaurs.
Some people estimate 250 million years
there've been crocodile-like creatures.
That, if you ask me, is the most dangerous
predator to be found on the planet earth.
I think he's going to hide that pig
where the other crocs can't find it.
[hissing]
You hear it hissing. It's not happy
with me 'cause I've got in the way.
Ooh.
[laughs]
When he slaps his head like that,
it's a sign of aggression.
He's warning me away.
Hmm.
I don't want him coming back
and chasing me off.
I think I'll leave him to it.
[motor starts]
I'm heading down the billabong in search
of evidence of human habitation.
The rocky outcrops that lie above
the flood plains are called stone country.
This remote and sparsely populated
territory holds a lot of secrets.
It's baking hot today
and when the sun is high up like this,
the one thing you need is shade.
But in the stone country,
you never have to look very far for shade.
There are always good overhangs
to be found like this one here.
But it's not just shade to be found here.
These rocks house a gallery
of ancient Aboriginal art work.
Look at that... fascinating.
Of course, these overhangs were frequently
important places for the local people.
The rock country as it is looking out
over the flood meadows...
Basically looking out over a supermarket.
There's loads more to see in here too.
Aboriginal people have been in Australia
50 or maybe even 60 thousand years.
And some of this rock art could be
tens of thousands of years old,
particularly the dark red ochre figures.
And perhaps you could imagine
grasses laid down to lie on or mats
and either groups of men
or groups of women or families
lying here in the shade
looking up at the cave roof
telling the stories
associated with the art.
Aboriginal people
are very good story tellers,
have amazing stories
that are very important to their culture,
much of which is represented on the roof.
This is an X-ray painting
of a barramundi.
You can tell by the pointed head.
And they're abundant in the billabong
so I'm joining some local friends
to see if I can catch one.
♪♪
Connie Nayinggul and her grandson Moses
and friend Edith
have lived in Arnhem Land
all their lives
and generations of their families
before them.
Connie likes to bring Moses 'out bush'
so that he can learn the traditional ways
of living from the land.
We're using a time-honored
Aboriginal method of line fishing
that we've adapted to work
with modern fishing lines and lures.
[Ray]
Had a nibble?
There's one there somewhere,
just down there.
Come on, Moses, get us a fish.
[chuckles]
He'll try.
After a morning's fishing,
I'm ready for lunch.
Well, Connie, I think it's time
we go and cook the catch of the day.
What do you think?
Not much biting at the moment.
Yeah.
What do you think, Ray?
A good size for dinner?
Yeah, I think it'll be all right,
won't it? Not bad.
We're going to cook the barramundi
in a traditional ground oven.
The hardest part of the job
is digging a deep hole.
Getting fire going is easy
with all this dry wood around.
We need to get the stones very hot
so that the fish cooks on top of them.
[Connie]
Because rock's like an oven.
[Ray]
Nice and hot.
I'm after one more important addition
to our oven.
This is a paperbark tree.
For the Aboriginal people,
it was incredibly useful.
You can take off big sheets of this bark
and use it to make bedding,
to make the roofs of shelters,
for making ground ovens,
which is what we're going to use some
paper bark for, and for making fires.
♪♪
Are we going to use
anything for flavoring?
- What shall we use?
- Yeah, leaves, paper bark.
We got two kind.
[sniffs]
Oh, yeah, I can smell
the strong smell of tea tree oil.
[Connie]
Start putting some leaves.
[Ray]
Okay.
♪♪
[Ray]
Soil.
Yep. Soil on top.
By covering the paper bark with soil,
we trap the heat
and flavor inside the oven.
[Connie]
Don't want to waste this smoke.
That's where the flavor is coming from.
That looks good.
It's a very good way of cooking
because of course
there's no aluminum foil
that will just stick here forever.
It's all natural.
It all goes back to the forest.
One hour later
and the paper bark's hot to touch.
That's a sign that our fish
should be ready to eat.
That looks all right, doesn't it?
Oh, what a smell.
[Connie]
The smell.
[Ray] A very good smell.
Mmm. It smells great, doesn't it?
[Connie]
Once when you peel the skin off.
Oh, look at that. It looks amazing.
Can I try some?
Of course.
Barramundi meat always be tasty.
That's beautiful. That's so delicate.
Cooked to perfection.
Barramundi is a prime delicacy
in Australia's top restaurants.
But in my opinion, it's best like this...
Cooked and eaten in the wild.
That's very good.
♪♪
But my day is not over yet.
I've left the stone country and headed
out across the dried-up flood plain
with former cattle rancher Greg Towns.
Greg manages this environment
to protect the native wildlife.
Today we're on our way
to remove an invasive grass
that's destroying the wetlands.
On the far side of the water meadow,
I spot some of Australia's
most elegant birds.
I see two lovely brolga there.
They're beautiful.
In the dry months, brolgas gather at the
water's edge to dig in the mud for tubers.
Just majestic birds, aren't they?
[engine starts]
As we continue across the plains,
we disturb thousands
of grazing magpie geese.
[geese honking]
These vast honking flocks
feed on the seeds of wild rice
and other native grasses.
But these wonderful birds
are under threat
because the grass they eat
is being overtaken
by an imported species
called para grass...
Introduced to feed cattle.
As we push further
into the central flood plain,
the land gets even drier.
It's like being on Mars.
It's hard to believe
that anything can survive here.
But I spot animal tracks.
Greg and I follow the tracks
back to some nearby rocks
where until very recently
there'd been a pool of water.
[Ray] You've got some big crocs here,
haven't you?
[Greg]
Yeah.
[Ray] Amazing how easy they disappear
in the shadows, isn't it?
[Greg] Yeah, you wouldn't know he
was there unless you were looking for him.
Don't go too close.
One in that mud hole.
Yeah, there's one in the middle there.
Look at that. Yeah.
[Ray]
I don't intend to go within reach of him.
[Greg] There's another one.
Back in under that crack.
- Yep, up there. Whoa.
- See?
[Greg]
That guy's just come out of the mud.
[Ray]
What size do you reckon he is, then?
[Greg] Oh. Three and a half meters?
Maybe a bit bigger.
[Ray] I think he may be
a little bit more than that.
He's big. Dangerous.
[Greg] Yeah. And I don't think he's going
to waste his energy chasing us.
[Ray] No, they've got to save everything,
haven't they?
- They've already had their feed.
- Yeah.
At the height of the dry season
before the rains come,
crocs have the ability
to bury themselves in mud
and shut down
into a comatose state.
They haven't got long to wait now.
No, it could rain any day now.
So how long have they been like this?
Dried up, as it were.
Uh, about three weeks now since
there was some nice clear water here.
Yep.
Probably four to five weeks
since there was any food here
like geese and stuff.
Wow, this is the great mystery
about crocodiles,
is how did they survive
from the times of the dinosaurs.
This may be the answer to that mystery,
this ability to weather
long periods of discomfort.
[Ray]
It's impressive, though, isn't it?
We carry on over the mudflats
until we come to huge meadows
of the invasive para grass.
So what should be here?
Wild rice.
Wild rice and spike rush...
Which are both great grasses
for the birds.
And this stuff
has eventually choked that out.
Which is a shame because
we are losing our birds because of it.
Amazing, isn't it?
Something as simple as the grass
can have such a big impact.
[Ray]
So what can you do to control it?
The easiest option for us
is to burn it at the end of the season.
Right.
[Greg] Hopefully you will burn it
right down to the ground.
Your rains come,
flood the country and that will drown it.
And that's exactly
what Greg's going to do...
Burn away this destructive grass.
Controlled fire burning is a traditional
Australian form of land management
requiring skill and experience.
The heat and wind conditions
need to be exactly right.
This is a unique opportunity to watch
the process of farming with fire.
Wow, that's a salutary lesson
on the power of fire, isn't it?
The front of that fire
is moving like a racehorse.
You wouldn't want
to get caught in front of it.
Interesting, though.
This is a landscape of water and of fire.
For tens of thousands of years,
the aboriginal people
burned this landscape.
They still do.
What I think is interesting though
is to see fire being used today
to look after the land
in a different sense.
To remove an invasive species of grass
that chokes up the waterways
and impacts the welfare of the birds
and other animals
that have evolved
to depend on this landscape.
The fire will run until it meets
a natural firebreak where it'll burn out.
I love Arnhem Land. It's one
of my favorite places on our planet.
There's a wildness here
that is really profound.
It touches you deep inside.
To see all this wildlife
at this season as well,
that's incredible and it really justifies
the existence of wild areas
to remind us
of how our planet really should be.
♪♪