by Matt Wright
About the Book
'I never knew I could do this as a job'
National Geographic conservationist and chopper pilot Matt Wright was born for a life of action and adventure. Raised in the wilds of Far North Queensland, Papua New Guinea and outback Australia, as a child he would catch deadly snakes for fun or lizards and turtles for show and tell at school.
From his early years working in the outback to a short stint in the army, Matt’s life reads like a boy’s own adventure story, but he was always one to go his own way – sometimes making up the rules as he went along.
Today he is the star of his own international television show on National Geographic, a renowned outback adventurer and a wrangler of deadly animals. Giant saltwater crocodiles are a big part of Matt’s story but jumping in his chopper and rounding up wild buffalo, brumbies and Brahman cattle keeps him pretty busy too!
The Outback Wrangler takes you on a wild ride, where that special outback flavour of danger, adrenaline and adventure comes together in the personal stories of a unique Australian.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Escape from PNG
2. Second Valley Kids
3. My Mum, the Bow Hunter
4. Raising Hell
5. Pull Your Bloody Head In!
6. Kings Canyon
7. A Digger and a Drill Rigger
8. Kapooka
9. Choppers
10. Not a Job for the Faint-Hearted
11. The Big Cull
12. Murder in the Outback
13. The Big Round-Up
14. Canada
15. Croc Bait
16. The Sling
17. The Ring
18. Flying on the Edge
19. Getting Down to Business
20. Monster Croc
21. Wildfire
22. Wrangler Kicks Off
23. Gerard Butler
24. Animals are the Best Teachers
25. Little Legend
26. How I Like to Live
About the Author
About the Co-Author
INTRODUCTION
People often ask me how I ended up doing what I do today. It’s a reasonable question, given I don’t exactly have a normal job. In addition to relocating problem crocodiles, collecting croc eggs and flying choppers, I have an interest in eight businesses, manage a tourist operation west of Darwin and have a show on National Geographic called Outback Wrangler.
When I look back on my life, it’s easy enough to make sense of it all. I can join the dots and form a picture of how I got here. Not that I had a clue how things would turn out when I was in the middle of it all. There was no path conveniently laid out before me. I had to find my own way.
I’m not saying I didn’t have mentors. When I think about some of the people who have come into my life, I count myself lucky. Without their guidance, there is no doubt that things would have turned out differently for me. But I believe the direction our lives take ultimately boils down to individual choices. Nobody else can carry you to the place you want to go. You have to get there yourself.
The choices I’ve made have not always been good ones. Before the days of Outback Wrangler, I was barrelling along a path of reckless stupidity and self-destruction. One more bad decision would have left my future very uncertain. It’s no exaggeration to say that I nearly ended up in jail. But I pulled my head in, pursued my passions, learnt from my mistakes and developed an appetite for hard work.
This book begins with my earliest memories as a four-year-old child stranded in Papua New Guinea and finishes up with the first season of Outback Wrangler. But it’s not a biography. I haven’t included every boring detail of my life or named every person I’ve ever met. Instead, I’ve made a selection of stories that have shaped my life.
There are memorable encounters with saltwater crocodiles, wild boars, feral cattle and water buffalo. There are also tales from my misspent youth and some of my misadventures on drill rigs and on road trains during the time I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve also included some of the weirder and more wonderful characters I have met along the way, from eccentric cattlemen to high-profile personalities.
So if you want to know what makes me tick, then turn the page and keep on reading.
1
Escape from PNG
Bloody Errol. He’d done it again.
There we were – my mum Marie, my sister Holly and our British governess Dawn – sitting in the waiting room of the Australian consulate in Port Moresby, in all sorts of trouble. Errol was nowhere to be seen and Mum had her tits in a tangle. Not that you could blame her. She had two kids under the age of six in her care, Dawn was in serious need of medical treatment and we had no way of getting back to Australia. Outside on the streets, gangs of violent youths were up to no good. Errol had got us into the mess and, as usual, he wasn’t there to get us out of it.
It wasn’t that my stepfather was a bad bloke or meant us harm. In my opinion, he was just off with the fairies, always dreaming up some crazy adventure. Don’t get me wrong, Errol’s adventures were some of the best. It’s just that they were adventures that took us into dangerous places. His latest harebrained idea – the one that got us into this particular predicament – was a desert-island fantasy that only he could dream up. Errol wanted to live off the land in Rabaul, a small township on the northeastern tip of New Britain, an island in Papua New Guinea. Now, I’m all for kids getting outside and getting their knees dirty. I reckon parents are too cautious with their kids these days. But there is a limit. I think that taking a couple of preschoolers into a remote and dangerous part of PNG for an indefinite period is beyond the limit.
Rabaul is a port town that was all but destroyed when a nearby volcano erupted in 1994. We lived there for six months, about a decade before the eruption. Back then it was a minor tourist destination for scuba divers and snorkellers. Tourists were advised to be alert at all times. Not that I was concerned. In fact, I remember it being a great time.
I’ll admit I’m pretty hazy on that period. After all, I was only four. When I call up memories of that time, I sometimes wonder if I’m remembering actual events or reimagining what Mum has told me. But some things do remain vivid in my memory. For instance, I recall playing on a beach with local kids outside the hut where we lived with Dawn. One time on that beach, I found a hole with some local kids. The kids backed away, obviously warned off from going near. What I did next shows just how little I knew about the dangers lurking in that part of the world.
I plunged my hands into the hole and started digging out sand. The kids were all looking on in awe. It didn’t take me long to work out why. A snake had burrowed out this hole. Instead of running off when I saw the snake’s tail, I grabbed hold of it. The other kids scattered as I pulled out a four-foot-long sea snake. I released the snake and it took off across the beach for the safety of the sea. All the kids laughed in amazement. I guess they’d never seen anyone do something like that before. Looking back, I was lucky I wasn’t killed. Sea snakes are among the most venomous snakes on the planet.
Mum was in a constant state of worry. Dangerous animals were the least of her concerns. The real danger existed within the community. Now I’m not going to badmouth the people of PNG. They are friendly and warm with a great zest for life. But as with any community, there are some bad eggs. In Rabaul’s case, the bad eggs seemed to come from the copra plantations. Young blokes, bored out of their brains after a long day of work and juiced up on betel nut and grog, would stagger into town and terrorise the community. Violent youths weren’t the only danger. There was poor sanitation and tropica
l diseases like malaria, dengue fever and dysentery. If you got sick out there, there was practically nowhere to get medical treatment.
Errol assured Mum that everything would be fine. He had a knack of putting people at ease. But then, practically without warning, he was gone. On a whim he had decided to travel to Taipei and buy a 50-foot Gardner clipper yacht. His plan was to sail the yacht to Rabaul, pick us up and then head off around the world. It was his latest spur-of-the-moment plan. Errol didn’t know too much about yachting and now he was proposing to sail us across the seven seas.
Mum protested, of course. But Errol’s mind was made up. He said he’d return in a couple of weeks. A month passed and Errol was yet to return. Sure enough, while he was gone, the shit hit the fan.
Dawn cut herself on a coral reef while swimming. If left untreated, the cut would become infected in the tropical conditions. It’s a good thing that Mum was always pretty onto things. In her day, she was a brilliant athlete and an excellent bow hunter, and she has always been passionate about the outdoors. She could handle herself in a crisis. Unlike Errol, I thought she was blessed with common sense. The moment Dawn got sick, Mum made her decision. It was time to head back to Australia.
We took a flight from Rabaul to Port Moresby where our passports were being held. We took a cab to the Port Moresby Travelodge where we could buy our tickets. Then things started to unravel. When Mum tried to buy our one-way tickets to Cairns, the person across the counter told us that Dawn’s British passport didn’t have the re-entry visa she needed to get back into Australia. They wouldn’t sell her a plane ticket until she had the appropriate documentation. Mum was told she’d have to sort the problem out with the Australian consulate.
She was fuming. Heading out onto the streets of Port Moresby was the last thing she wanted to do. PNG’s capital was on the brink. Gangs of youths were on the rampage. There was widespread looting and violence, with women reportedly being raped. The government had mobilised its military to quell the violence. But the situation was unpredictable. People were advised to stay at home. Mum and Dawn were fit, attractive women in their late 20s. Walking the streets with two young kids and a bunch of violent rapists on the loose is not anyone’s idea of a good time.
A cash bribe can sort out most problems in PNG. For the right amount, we probably would have been able to buy Dawn a ticket and sort out the visa issue in Australia. The problem was that Mum only had enough cash for our flights and a couple of days’ worth of food and accommodation.
She got on the phone to Australia and rang my grandmother on reverse charges to explain the situation. Grandma said she would arrange for money to be wired into Mum’s account. These days you can transfer money in a blink. All you need are your bank details and a phone. It was a different story back in the early 1980s. Transferring money between accounts took days. The only option was to try and sort out the problem at the Australian consulate.
Mum kept Holly and me close as we jogged there. We made it without hassle, but the consulate staff told us that the visa would take over a week to process. Sitting around in Moresby for an extended period wasn’t an option but the staff wouldn’t budge.
Mum was doing a good job keeping it together. There she was, sitting in the waiting room of the Australian consulate with her two littlies, a young woman with a nasty injury, no money and facing at least a week in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. She needed Errol. She got John Wayne instead.
‘John Wayne’ was the name Mum gave to the man who helped us. She never actually learnt his real name. Somehow Mum found out that John Wayne originally hailed from the Central Coast of New South Wales. He had brought his family out to PNG to set up a prawn-fishing business. Although he’d had some success, he decided to send his family home because life in PNG was getting too dangerous. Maybe having kids of his own made him especially concerned for our wellbeing.
My memories of him are vague. I remember this huge bloke with a booming voice swaggering into the consulate. After unsuccessfully trying to sell his catch to consulate staff, he turned towards the four of us. This is how Mum remembers the conversation:
‘Excuse me,’ he boomed. ‘You look like you need help.’
At first, Mum thought he was trying to pick her up. She tried to shake him off, telling him that everything was fine. But he kept pressing.
‘Who are you travelling with?’
‘Look,’ Mum said, sternly. ‘We’re really not interested in any liaison at all. We’re trying to leave this country and we’re having a little trouble.’
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘We’ve got a medical problem here,’ Mum said, pointing to Dawn’s injury. She then explained the issue with the visa.
‘Why don’t I take you in to see my doctor?’ he said.
‘And why would you want to do that?’ Mum asked, more suspicious of his intentions than ever.
‘He can give you a medical emergency certificate and we’ll be able to get you all on board.’
Mum was skeptical. But she was also out of options. The consulate would be closing its doors soon and we’d be back on the streets. So she accepted the offer.
We all bundled into John Wayne’s car and he drove us to his doctor. After Dawn was given a medical emergency certificate, John Wayne took us back to the Travelodge. Mum bought four one-way tickets on the earliest flight, which was at 8 p.m. that night. We had a few hours to kill, so John Wayne stuck around and bought us food and drinks. To cap it all off, he drove us to the airport.
Mum was full of gratitude. With everything that had gone wrong, it seemed amazing that someone was prepared to stick their neck out for a group of strangers. Thankfully, he stuck around to the very end. We needed his help to hurdle one final obstacle.
When we got to the terminal gate, we were told that there were only two spots left on the plane. Mum was beside herself. John Wayne took us all aside.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘You’re on!’
‘No, they’re saying we’re not,’ Mum said. ‘There’s only enough space for two.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘Just run! Don’t look back. Just get on board that plane!’
We waited for the man at the gate to turn his back and then all four of us sprinted past him. It was only a short run to the aircraft, probably 200 metres. Mum handed over our tickets to the hostess waiting at the bottom of the ramp. She was expecting the lady to knock us back. Instead, she smiled and welcomed us aboard.
We scampered up the ramp before security worked out what had happened. But there were no further problems. The plane was almost empty. The guy at the gate was trying to coax a bribe out of us. John Wayne probably knew all along. If we got past that guy, we were home free.
We never met John Wayne again but whenever Mum brings him up, she does so with a big smile. He was a shining light in what was otherwise a pretty horrific ordeal. Despite the massive relief that swept over my mum when we got airborne, internally she was fuming. Errol was about to cop it.
* * *
I don’t remember how long it was after we’d returned from PNG that Mum separated from Errol. It can’t have been straight away because Errol was stuck in Taipei for a couple more weeks, organising payment for the yacht. When it was finally his, Errol paid for a crew to sail it to Hong Kong. He flew to Cairns via Sydney where he fronted up to Mum.
Mum is a kind and gentle person, but she is also tough. I should know. I was on the receiving end of more than a few hidings growing up. Most of the time, she had good reason for going off. The time she lost it with Errol was no different. She believed he had put our lives at risk. The fact that he was still persisting with this idea of sailing round the world was probably the tipping point for Mum.
In the end, Errol never got to live his dream of sailing the world. The blokes he hired to sail the boat to Cairns ran into a typhoon off the Philippines. A Thai fishing boat had to tow them into a nearby port after the rudder was destroyed. From there, it was freighted
to Hong Kong where Errol sold it off at a loss.
Mum decided to keep us in Cairns. We’d been living there for four months before Errol took us off to Rabaul. Returning to Cairns was supposed to be a new beginning. We originally hailed from Second Valley, a sleepy little coastal town on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, 100 kilometres south of Adelaide. My guess is that, for Mum, Cairns had the advantage of being in Australia but away from her previous life in Second Valley.
* * *
With Errol out of the picture, we were now a party of three. We moved into a small two-bedroom unit. My memories of that period are of fun and adventure. I was a five-year-old kid with no worries. I even enjoyed school.
The weather was too warm to enforce a dress code so the kids rocked up to class wearing no shirt and no shoes. The teachers placed an emphasis on being outside and getting to know the native wildlife. That made me king of the kids, particularly during show and tell. While all the other kids brought junk from home, I was dragging any animal I could find into class. I’d go out the back of our place and catch massive spiders, put them in jars and hand them around the classroom. I’d catch non-venomous snakes and walk into the school with them curled around my neck. Some mornings I’d swim in the local lake, catch a big turtle and lug it to school in my bag. The teachers loved it. Having a live specimen in the class was a sure way to keep everyone’s attention and a great way for them to teach. We’d learn everything about the animal, from habitat and diet to the animal’s predators and prey.
But there was one occasion where I overstepped the mark. By now, spiders, snakes, lizards, turtles and insects were old hat. I needed to step up my game. So I climbed into a tree and bagged myself a fruit bat. I strutted into school, barely able to contain my excitement. Wait until my mates see this!
‘So,’ began the teacher, ‘what have you got for us today, Matt?’
The animal had been quiet in my bag. It was a different story when I pulled him out. The bat squawked and carried on, managing to break free from my grasp. My teacher screamed, and with good reason. She was probably terrified of the bat spreading disease.