There are mosquitoes that have Murray Valley Encephalitis and the Ross River Virus with the latter having no cure and a matter of luck if you survive it. There are furry caterpillars with toxic poisonous bits that might knock you out or do worse. Oh and killer ants. Oh and large killer pigs/boars that can hunt and eat dogs. The traditional owners or T.O's as we call them, pat us on the shoulder and say 'she'll be right!' which in Australian means 'it'll be okay, you won't die.' Another said 'stay away from the tall grass and don't step into spinifex (Spinifex is a tough pointy bush that can grow from you ankles up to your shoulders. Its points at times have a resin that sticks to your shoes and clothes staining them black or brown, they barb you every time you brush your leg across them and you end up coming back to camp and spending hours taking them out of your legs or various body parts.) as death adders hide inside them, and if stepped on, they won't stop striking until you're dead. Of course that afternoon we had to walk spinifex and tall grass. I tell you, each step into a dark hole in between large spinifex bushes and in tall grass where you couldn't see your feet and we nearly pooped ourselves.
If we were going to die, it'd be from the extreme heat. The Pilbara is a desert and we walk out here for kilometres on end, averaging 7-10 kms per day, from the crack of dawn to late Afternoon. Scrambling through thick bushes and thickets, and deep canyons looking for caves to climbing large hill tops and through vast valleys, we kept at it, day by day. Water and hydrolytes are precious and drinking 20 litres a day in the height of summer is common. While we walk through spinifex bushes that prick our legs, and swat away flies that suck on our blood and avoid snakes that might kill us in a blink of an eye and goannas that may mistake us as a tree and dig their claws in to us and mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases with no known cure, we concentrate on the ground and look for artefacts.
