posted 05-03-2005 14:08
I arrived in Australia,from England in 1970 with my family.In 1972 my father took a job,as hospital administrater,in Meningie,South Australia....we rented a farm called the Needles that bordered the Coorong.....It was an amazing place to live for a 13 year old....I was able to drive a ute and would shoot rabbits to sell to a local butcher for pocket money.I had found out from other kids at school that there was real money to be made in fox hunting.....Looking back now I feel lucky that I never harmed one. One weekend I went hunting in some scrub,in a clearing I saw what I thought was a fox dash across the clearing and into a bush.....in those couple of seconds I raised the rifle to fire but realised it wasn't a fox.....it was larger,had a strange back end and stripes.I had never seen anything like it before.On returning home I told my family about it and got out a book on Australian animals to show everyone what I had just seen...We were amazed when under the picture it said extinct. Thirty years passed,I would occasionally tell people about that day....and the reaction was usually the same.... A couple of years ago at a local flea market I came across Col Baileys Tiger Tales book.....imagine how amazed I was to read on page 137 about sightings of the tiger along the Coorong in the late 60's. To this day I feel privilaged to have seen a Tiger....and I have no doubt about what I saw.Having been an excellent shot with a rifle I feel thankful that I didn't shoot it.