Late November 1984

Stalking through the sun-dried brush, we came upon an open plain where we saw a small band of great red kangaroos feeding.   There were six adult females, three or four joeys and one solitary Old Man roo, standing nearly two metres tall upon his haunches.

Marbungga and Gunbuk began covering themselves from head to foot in brown dirt, “To keep in the man-spells.”   As they told me later, “Kangaroos have weak eyesight and can’t easily distinguish between stationary objects, but they have a very powerful sense of smell.”

I remained behind as instructed and watched as my fellow tribesmen slowly began to circle around the small herd.   Crawling along on their bellies upon the brown earth, Marbungga and Gunbuk inched forward, dragging their hunting spears behind them.   Every few metres they paused and waited a few seconds, or even minutes, before moving on again.   In this way it took them almost an hour to crawl from over a hundred metres away, to less than ten metres away from where the kangaroo herd grazed.

On the other hand it had taken Nanguru little more than ten minutes to circle around the back of the herd, moving stealthily, head down, through the brush outside the clearing.   He was able to move more confidently than the other two, being outside the range of vision of the herd, behind the tall grass and shrubs.   When at last the other two were in place, Nanguru began to close in upon the herd until he was only twenty metres away.   Then he deliberately trod on a small twig to make it snap.

The adult kangaroos instantly stiffened to attention, their dog-like heads held high in the air, listening; the head of the Old Man roo went quickly round to Nanguru’s direction.   Leaning backward slightly, balancing upon his powerful tail, the roo surveyed the terrain, sniffing lightly at the air, while his harem continued to listen and their joeys continued nipping unconcernedly at tender sprouts of grass.

Catching Nanguru’s scent the roo shrieked a warning to his harem.   Quickly the joeys dived headfirst into their mothers’ pouches and the herd leapt into flight, heading straight toward where Marbungga and Gunbuk lay in wait.