"They have been imported in 1850 along with their Afghani or North Indian owners, to open up the inaccessible areas, to transport food, and to help build the telegraph system and railways that would eventually cause their economic demise. When this happened, the heartbroken Afghans let their camels go, and tried to find other work. They were specialists and it wasn't easy. The camels, however, had found easy street - it was perfect country for them and they grew and prospered, so that now there are approximately ten thousand roaming the free country and making a nuisance of themselves on cattle properties, getting shot at, and, according to some ecologists, endangering some plant species for which they have a particular fancy. Their only natural enemy is man, they are virtually free of disease, and Australian camels are now rated as one of the best in the world." I'm not a camel expert so I borrowed these words from Ms Robyn Davidson. She is a woman who crossed the Australian dessert from Alice Springs to the western coast all on her own, accompanied only by a dog and four camels when she was younger than I am now. The Tracks was her first book. She writes for the National Geographic now. (I bought the book in Australia and read it in a Chinese hospital … but you need to read my China travel writings to find out how that happened :-))
When they grow up, the babies look somehow like this:
I took a picture of this "friendly Aussie bloke" in Stuart's Well, a camel farm a couple of hours from Alice Springs. The farmers say that camels are as smart as the average 7-year-old child (this boy was showing a great interest in my lens but couldn’t read the CANON sign on it - the spelling was too difficult apparently).
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