Australian Bush Tucker at Ti Tree
Herman and Stephen Digging for a Goanna I learned a lot about Australian bush tucker from the aboriginal boys on the Ti tree school bus They had come to trust me a bit more and began showing me more about their country and the way they lived. One afternoon on the way home they asked if they could climb Mt Esther which was right beside the bus route. We pulled up under an enormous bean tree covered in the bright red beans used to make necklaces. The balsa like bark is also used extensively by aborigines. I was keen to see as much of the bush as I could so we climbed the small mountain until we got to an enormous rounded outcrop of rock. The boys looked around until they found a flat stone lying on the surface. They pushed it aside to reveal a small rockhole of fresh clean water. They told me this was an important place for travellers and they would be severely punished if they didn’t put the stone cover back in its place. As we climbed down the mountain the kids spotted a beautiful yellow grevillia in flower. They excitedly dragged me over to it and began ripping the flowers from it. They gave me some to taste. The flowers were dripping with delicious sweet nectar. My first taste of Australian Bush tucker! We were engrossed in our feast and were surprised to see a police Toyota pull up. Mike, Ti Tree’s policeman, and Jimmy, the aboriginal police tracker, had seen the school bus stopped and came to check if we were OK. Jimmy then convinced Mike to try the grevillia flowers. Mike asked, “What about the ants, I can’t scrape them all off?” Jimmy said, “You eat them, boss, they taste the same as the flowers.” By the time we moved on we had pretty well eaten every flower on the tree. 
Sometimes I would pull up at the Aningie home of the kids and find the whole family ready for a shopping trip into town. It would not have been very legal to take them but I couldn’t knock them back. I would drop the family on the edge of town near some shrubby trees so no one from town would notice. In the afternoon, after I had picked up the boys from school I would pull up at the same trees and the family would clamber aboard loaded with their shopping.
One night on the way home with the family on board, the women spotted a bean tree loaded with pods. I stopped and was worried when they ripped the tree apart as they harvested the pods, some as long as my arm. Reading about bush tucker later, I found that even though it looked as if they were destroying the tree it was a necessary part of nature’s plan. The beans would only grow on the fresh shoots which sprouted after this savage “pruning”. The kid’s grandmother cooked some beans in ashes for me the next morning. I ate them for breakfast as I drove the kids into Ti Tree. They tasted like roasted wheat flakes. On the way home from another “shopping” trip the kids spotted another goanna. This one escaped down its burrow and the whole family took turns at digging it out. The boys explained that the goanna would be broken up into various parts for the family to eat. Grandpa got the best meat from the tail, grandma got most of the fatty tail section and the boys only got the legs. These bus trips were never boring!
Goanna, favourite Australian Bush Tucker
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