Have you ever met a Quoll?

Art by Ember

Winters in South Australia are a great time to head out on adventure. The air is cool, it’s sunny but not too hot, and plants and wildlife thrive with more rain to feed and water them.

So, the boy and his friend thought, what a great time to go and explore the Ikara mountain ranges. The Ikara are millions of years old, and Aboriginal people, the Adnyamathana, have lived there for more than 40,000 years!

The Ikara are also home to some of Australia’s most magical creatures, like Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies, Red Kangaroos, Wallaroos, Echidna’s, Emu’s, Bearded Dragon Lizards and…. The rare and remarkable Quoll.

When the boy and his friend arrived at the camp ground ready to hike out into the mountain ranges around them, they saw a sign explaining all about the rare and remarkable Quoll.

The sign told the boy and his friend that Quoll’s lived in these mountains but humans almost never met them. You see there aren’t very many of them, they are very shy, and only really venture out of their burrows at night.

The boy and his friend thought the Quoll, an animal that looked to them like a cross between a Mouse, a Kangaroo and a Tiger sounded magical, and they hoped they would meet one on their adventure.

The next day the boy and his friend went for a long walk. The first part of their journey took them through an ancient Eucalyptus Forest. Eucalypts, called ‘gum trees’ in Australia, grow well along the sides of rivers and creeks and some of the trees the boy and his friend saw were so wide, when they hugged them, their arms could only go a small way around their trunk!

One of the trees had a strange boat-like shape carved into its’ bark. The boys’ friend explained to him that a long time ago the Adnyamathana people had removed this piece of bark from the tree to make a canoe! In doing it this way, they didn’t need to cut down a whole tree, and this one could continue growing and wasn’t hurt.

Some of the gum trees were hollow too, and the boy and his friend had a lot of fun going inside the trees and wondering who else had been in there before them.

They didn’t meet a Quoll in the gum trees though.

Next, as their path climbed higher into the mountains, the boy and his friend walked through a beautiful pine forest, with trees so tall you couldn’t see the tops! The boy and his friend were just noticing the silence of this forest when they heard happy bird chatter and were joined by four bright green Lorikeets – a small Parrot like bird which seemed to be enjoying the pine cones, and the cool air of the forest.

They didn’t meet a Quoll in the pine forest though.

Finally, after climbing up some steep bright orange rocks and meeting a Bearded Dragon warming themselves on a rock in the sun, the boy and his friend reached the highest point of their walk. The nearby peak of the mountain called Ngarri Mudlanha was close, but it is a sacred place to Adnyamathana people, so this is as high as they could go today. The views out over the Ikara mountains and forests around them were beautiful, and there were huge Wedge-Tailed Eagles soaring in the sky around them.

They didn’t meet a Quoll at the top though.

On their way back to camp the boy and his friend passed through the place the mountains are named for – Ikara. Ikara means meeting place, and the Adnymathana people used to come together here, in a place surrounded on all sides by mountains, to talk, share stories, and swap tucker (food) with each other from their homes. When the boy and his friend passed through this place there was a meeting of Kangaroos, Wallaroos and Rock Wallabies on the go.

But even in this ancient gathering place, they didn’t meet a Quoll.

By the time the boy and his friend returned to camp they had been walking all day. They were tired, and after meeting so many magical creatures and learning so much about the land of the Adnyamathana people they had completely forgotten about meeting a Quoll.

The boy and his friend cooked up some tucker and lit a fire. When they had finished their dinner, they sat in the silence looking up at the huge sky of stars above them, looking, as the Adnymathana people do, at the shapes you can see between the stars. The dark shape they enjoyed tracing the most was the Emu – an important one for the Adnymathana people.

As they began to feel sleepy, the boy and his friend heard a gentle scuffling sound beside them. The boy and his friend turned slowly in their chairs and who should they meet?

Yep, you guessed it – A Quoll!

The Quoll sat still, just like in the picture that comes with this story, and let the boy and his friend look for a while, before hopping off into the night.

The boy and his friend went to bed with a smile, grateful to have met the rare and remarkable Quoll, and their many friends.