The Outback Wrangler

by Matt Wright

  I met this sheila in a pub up in the Gulf Country. She was sprawled out on a stool, sinking rum, smoking darts and stuffing her face with chips. She had a mouth on her like a truck driver and constantly talked herself up. She was onto me the moment I stepped into the pub.

  ‘I saw your fucking show,’ she spat. ‘You have no idea how to rope a bull or catch a croc.’

  I looked her up and down. I don’t want to sound impolite, but she was one big girl.

  ‘You know a bit about that stuff do you?’ I asked.

  ‘Fucking oath,’ she said. ‘I could teach you a thing or two about how to chase down a bull.’

  I felt like saying that you’d be stuffed getting off that chair let alone chasing down a bull. But I didn’t. I just did my best to ignore her. She spent the next hour levelling every possible criticism at me while tipping a litre of rum down her gullet. All you can do in that situation is laugh.

  The show has definitely changed my social habits. I still go out with mates but it’s hard to relax when I’m out in public. I have the most fun if I’m just having a BBQ and downing a few beers at a mate’s place. Those big messy nights in pubs are no longer an option. The last thing I want is to be that person to get ragged in the media. I get enough heat from authorities just trying to do my job.

  Having a public profile is not all bad, though. The time I’ve spent drumming up interest in the show has had a very positive impact on other businesses that I run. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some pretty interesting people, including politicians, prominent businesspeople, professional athletes and Hollywood stars. It seems to be the higher the profile of a celeb the higher the hazard. I learnt that the hard way. Nothing seems to stir up the media quite like an exaggerated story about a well-known Hollywood actor.

  The stars of Outback Wrangler: Willow, myself, Naish and my childhood mate Jono. (National Geographic Australia)

  Relocating a problem croc from a lagoon for an episode of Outback Wrangler. (Martin Vivian Pearse)

  This is early morning after a night of catching crocs with a harpoon pole. (National Geographic Australia)

  23

  Gerard Butler

  I woke to the sound of my phone beeping. It was a Saturday morning and I was enjoying a sleep-in for once. I stretched across the bedside table, and glanced at the screen. It’s never a good sign when you wake up to 35 missed calls and twice as many text messages. Most of the calls were from unknown numbers, so I decided not to look at the others for the time. I turned on the TV to see what was happening in the world, and there it was on every channel around the country. The headlines read ‘Gerard Butler injured by cowboy pilot’, accompanied by me doing a split-arse turn landing backwards on a sand bar. Oh shit, I thought. This is bad.

  With mounting concern, I scrolled through my text messages, eventually arriving at one sent by my agent. He had texted a YouTube clip of Hollywood star Gerard Butler conducting an interview with American TV host Jimmy Kimmel. I let out a massive groan before I had even watched the clip. This is not what I needed.

  I started doing custom tours in 2010. It was an excellent way to supplement my income and they’re good fun. They’re designed for individuals or small groups who are seeking a proper Territory outback adventure. The custom tours are about taking people out of the humdrum of normal day-to-day living and giving them a glimpse of what I do on a daily basis. We hunt feral animals, go fishing in picturesque inlets, watch crocs and camp in some of the most scenic landscape in the country. They are two- or three-day outback adventure safaris and they have really caught on.

  The custom tours are particularly appealing to people who live in a high-stress environment and want to escape and get back to mother nature. A lot of the time these are corporate businesspeople or high-profile individuals. For celebrities in particular, they relish heading to places inaccessible by road and unreachable by phone. How else do they escape the prying eyes of the media?

  Some of the more memorable individuals I’ve taken out include Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. Both men had me in stitches, and gave new meaning to being a fish out of water. But I’d say the most fun I’ve ever had on one of my trips was with Gerard Butler.

  Gerard was out in Australia filming the blockbuster fantasy epic Gods of Egypt. He was taking a break from filming and had a few days up his sleeve before he had to get back to Sydney. He was hoping for an off-the-map experience up north, some­thing different from the standard tourist stuff. He made a few phone calls and eventually got onto a mate of mine, who brought him up.

  Gerard is a good lad. We got along well – he has a cracking sense of humour, didn’t take himself too seriously and there was no ego on show. He was also a keen adventurer. Things did, however, get off to a bit of a shaky start. We flew out to ‘the shack’ in my R44 for a bit of sightseeing trip. The shack is near Sweets Lagoon and serves as the base for my tourism operation Outback Floatplane Adventures. After lunch, I suggested we go out for a bit of pig hunting. I got out my guns and took the lads through the ropes. I handed Gerard a lever-action .30-30 rifle. I didn’t want to patronise him given his alpha male roles in numerous action films, which would have involved extensive handling of firearms. Or so I thought . . .

  I handed him the unloaded gun and, as he went to cock it, let’s just just say he really cocked it up. He ended up with one of his fingers caught in the action and it began pissing out blood. I had a bit of a laugh and asked if he was okay. I sensed he was a little embarrassed, especially when we had to stick a Band-Aid on to stem the bleeding. Gerard laughed it off well, though, and it became the running joke of the trip. As we were loading the chopper to go hunting, Gerard said he wasn’t interested in shooting anything. I wasn’t sure if it was for humanitarian reasons or because he was worried he was going to hurt himself again. Either way, he was still eager to get up in the chopper.

  We had no problems finding a mob of wild pigs. This part of the country is full of them. If Gerard didn’t want to shoot one, it didn’t mean he couldn’t run one down. I lapped a few around, landed and told the boys to jump out for the chase. They all bolted from the chopper falling straight into the mud, there were limbs flying everywhere as they scurried to their feet to hunt the pigs down. One moment it was Gerard chasing the pig and then it was the pig chasing Gerard. The other fellas were slip-sliding all over the place, falling over their own feet as the pigs escaped. They all came back emptyhanded and puffing but were grinning from ear to ear, and it certainly made for good entertainment for me.

  I still needed a pig to feed my pet crocodile Tripod, a big 17-foot fella with only three legs that I keep in a pen out the back of the shack. I ended up shooting a couple of pigs, one for Tripod and one for dinner. We had a great night. We sat outside around a campfire, drinking beers, eating rib bones and trading stories.

  The next day I took the lads heli-fishing. I flew us to one of my favourite spots in the Beagle Gulf off Gunn Point. The blue holes there are magic, with pristine coral reef, bright blue water, abundant fish life and turtles everywhere. You can expect to catch big golden trevally, massive cod, snapper and coral trout when you hit a good hole.

  It was perfect weather for blue-hole fishing. A gentle breeze that kept us cool was barely strong enough to raise a ripple on the water. Still, you always have to be on your toes as the tides change quick. Gerard cast out for the first time and hooked onto a big trevally right away. He was pulling hard to get it in when out of nowhere a shark sideswiped it, swallowing the fish whole. The force pulled Gerard into the water. The fishing rod was history and Gerard was scrambling up the coral not wanting to meet the same fate as the fish.

  Climbing coral at speed is not a forgiving exercise. Gerard was left with some more battle wounds. Poor bloke was starting to look like my 10-year-old nephew after a bike stack. Once we’d bagged a few jack and snapper, we jumped back in the chopper and headed home for lunch. After some fresh fish I dropped the boys on a remote sand isla
nd in the middle of the ocean. I flew back to hook up a raft and slung it in the water next to the sand bar. Once I punched it off into the water I proceeded to do a split-arse turn, which is the infamous move that got me in strife.

  The move is something I’ve done time and time again mustering, but I guess it’s not something Americans see much of. It’s a quick manoeuvre kicking in a heap of pedal while lowering the collective, pointing the tail rotor towards the sky and landing the chopper backwards on the front of the skids. YouTube ‘Jimmy Kimmel, Gerard Butler, 2014’ to see the clip. Gerard tries to be discreet about the finer details of the trip but something like that is always going to get pumped up in the media.

  After one more day sightseeing in the airboat, I took Gerard back to Darwin airport.

  ‘The next time you’re in the States,’ he said, ‘make sure you swing by.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said.

  We shook hands and he boarded his flight. The next time I heard the name Gerard Butler was in the voice messages from the 35 missed calls I woke up to that morning. With my heart in my mouth, I hit the YouTube link my agent had sent. This is an abridged version of Jimmy Kimmel’s conversation with Gerard. We pick it up the moment Gerard announces that he was taken on an outback adventure involving crocodiles and boars.

  JK: Why were there crocodiles and boars?

  GB: This guy is quite a famous adventurer in Australia.

  JK: What’s his name?

  GB: I don’t want to say his name.

  JK: Oh, okay. Now I really want to hear this story.

  GB: There’s a lot of stuff I couldn’t even put on this video.

  JK: Oh, is that right?

  GB: This is the tame stuff.

  Before the video was shown, Gerard gave a bit more context about the trip. He kicked off with a description of the safety brief I gave him with the low-calibre .30-30 rifle.

  GB: So he gives me this lever-action shotgun, before he even tells me what it’s for. I’m thinking, ‘I’ve never used one of these before.’ He says, ‘Have a hold of that.’ So I pull it in and immediately the trigger goes right into my hand . . . I pull it out and the blood is pouring from my hands.

  This is what he had to say about the blue hole fishing:

  GB: We did this blue hole fishing. You go in the chopper and you land at the edge of the coral just as the tide has gone out and there are sharks swimming about. And if you catch a fish, you gotta pull it in, in like 10 seconds or the shark is going to take it. We go straight to this blue hole and I end up falling . . . and cut all my leg and blood is pouring out.

  JK: You’re bait, at this point.

  GB: I’m bait.

  I don’t blame Gerard for talking up the trip. In fact, I was honoured he spoke about it in the way he did. His enthusiasm in retelling the story got me excited. I was happy our adventure had left such an impression on him. At this point in the interview, Jimmy Kimmel throws to the clip of me pivoting around the sand bank.

  GB: [Over the video clip] Look at him!

  JK: Oh yeah!

  GB: I mean, this guy is insane!

  JK: This is not a guy you should be hanging around with in general.

  GB: This is how we were flying about.

  Even though the manoeuvre was nothing I hadn’t done before, out of context it did look somewhat reckless. At the end of the video, my mind cast back to a conversation I had with Gerard and the guys in his entourage. I remember telling them that I had no problem with them recording video on their iPhones. If they wanted to show family, friends or colleagues what they got up to, then that was fine by me. It might even generate a bit more work. But I asked that they don’t hand over video to the media. Broadcasting unedited clips of outback adventures was a recipe for disaster. Case in point.

  I was frustrated because I genuinely take safety very seriously. I run businesses that expose people to potentially dangerous scenarios. There are choppers flying around, floatplanes taking off and airboats whizzing every which way. A lot of the time, I’m taking people up close to crocs. Putting aside the unbearable tragedy of somebody losing their life on one of my tours, the professional and personal consequences for me would be dire. If I was found to have been negligent then I could forget about hanging onto the business, let alone my freedom. I could end up in jail. The outcome would be even bleaker if the accident involved a high-profile celebrity like Gerard Butler.

  For all these reasons, safety is always at the front of my mind. When I’m flying in a chopper at 1000 feet, I’m constantly scanning the land beneath me and thinking of the best place to put the chopper down in case of mechanical failure. If I’m flying over water, I’m considering worst-case scenarios and putting together a plan in my head in case of an emergency.

  CASA were not impressed, even though the manoeuvre that I performed over that sand bar was nothing I hadn’t done as a mustering pilot. It’s a standard way of rounding up cattle into a tight group so that they can be herded into the yard. At no point was I in danger of crashing the chopper or endangering the lives of the people on the sand bar.

  I got a call from Gerard Butler not long after his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel.

  ‘Hey man,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘No worries,’ I said.

  He suggested I fly over and stay at his California ranch until everything blew over.

  ‘Sounds good, mate,’ I said. ‘Only this time, no videos.’

  24

  Animals are the Best Teachers

  Most of the time I feel more comfortable and connected with animals than I do with people. I truly believe that animals show us what really matters in life. There are so many ways they protect, inform, comfort, and inspire us. By their very nature, animals live in the moment while us humans tend to worry too much about the future.

  Being on the shy side and far from a natural communicator, I’ve had to train myself to speak on camera and in public. Funnily enough, animals have taught me a lot about being a presenter. For one thing, relying solely on my words is not enough. The tone of a person’s voice, facial expression, posture and movements communicate our thoughts, emotions, and intentions, often more so than the words we choose.

  I’ve also learnt a lot about interacting with people. When working with animals, you have to respect their personal space, to never stand above them or intimidate them, and to always be gentle and calm in your approach. If more people interacted with each other in this way, I’m sure the world would be a happier place. I’m certainly still working on it. Animals have also shown me that it’s all about time and patience and creating trust and confidence in one another.

  But of all the lessons I’ve learnt from working with animals, following my instincts has been the most important. On this score, no animal has taught me more than crocodiles. Crocs are among the most instinctive creatures in the animal kingdom. They’re alert and attentive to each of their senses, responding to cues by trusting their instincts and acting on them. Being able to tap into your own instincts and knowing how to use them constructively is fundamental to working with crocs. The same goes for working with any dangerous animal.

  If I didn’t have the ability to read the warning signs of animals in the wild, I would probably be dead. Again, I reckon this lesson can be applied to everyday life. When humans rationalise situations, it often leads us to second-guess or ignore what our senses are saying. This puts us at risk of ignoring important signals about events, circumstances, and the people around us.

  I’ve never been very open with my emotions and have always felt uncomfortable discussing things like love or loss. It’s not that I haven’t felt things strongly. I’ve just been pretty average at showing and articulating them. Yet I have never struggled to be affectionate with animals; in fact, I’m probably overly affectionate with animals and pretty disengaged with most people. In the peaceful presence of animals, you can get a sense of their affection for your thoughts without having to say anything. No more so than with my best mate and
ever loyal dog, Naish.

  * * *

  My dog Naish is a vivid dreamer. I sometimes come across her barking wildly in her sleep or rolling on her back, eyes tightly shut and legs kicking away like mad. Considering the life Naish has lived, it’s not surprising that her dreams are full of adventure.

  Naish came into my life as a fiery nine-month-old not long after I returned home from my first year of living in Canada. I was in the middle of a three-month-long instructor’s course on the Sunshine Coast. My short-term plan was to become an instructor for my old mentor Graeme Gillies at his chopper school on the Sunshine Coast. Having ‘Grade One instructor’ on my CV would also help me to get work down the track.

  Out of the blue one morning, I got a call from my mate Kenny. Kenny was going through a bad patch. His beautiful American Bulldog, Ice, had recently been bitten by a snake while chasing pigs at Wrotham Park. For Kenny, it was a tragic turn in what had already been a shithouse year. He had recently separated from his wife and they were still divvying up the possessions, one of which was his new pup Maggy, who he’d bought right after Ice’s death. Kenny gave me a bell.

  ‘I’ve got this dog,’ he said. ‘She’s called Maggy and she’s an absolute ripper, just like Ice. I’m ringing to see if you want to take her.’

  Kenny had moved from Cairns to Townsville and was trying his best to get back on his feet and get his two boys through school. He had no time or place for this new dog, so he had temporarily placed Maggy in the care of an elderly couple who were family friends. The couple lived in a small house on the Sunshine Coast and the energetic dog was causing all sorts of trouble. They needed to get rid of her.