The mysterious clopping noise

The events portrayed in this post occurred on June 18 and 19.
 

The superstitious have always said that strange things happen during the full moon, but I have only just recently considered that perhaps there is a seed of truth to this belief.

The moon was full on our last night in Owiendana, and it was under its blessing that I endeavored to capture the most beautiful night sky I have ever seen.  Jon had turned in early for the night, leaving me to my own devices—quite literally.  With a bed of hot coals crackling at my feet, I stood in the cold waiting for the faint click of my Canon G11 to tell me it had finished shooting.

I was happy with most of the photographs shot; the sky was so clear that even the bright moon could not wash out the dimmest of stars. I was actually thankful for the subtle moonlight, the way it cast a silvery glow on an otherwise dark landscape.  In retrospect however, I should have been more wary of it; little did I know that the moon was a harbinger of the mysterious and unusual happenings about to begin, as superstition would have it.

It was while I was flicking through the photos on my camera when I first heard it.

clop clop, clop clop. clop clop.  clop.

I looked up from the dim LCD screen and glanced around. The extent of my headlamp beam revealed nothing, which wasn't surprising since it seemed like the sound had come from far away. 

Straining my ears, I waited a few moments in the silence.  It wasn't long before I heard it again.

clop clop, clop clop.  clop clop, clop clop   clop clop, clop clop   clop clop

This time I put my camera down. That sounded distinctly louder than before...

clop clop clop clop   clop clop clop clop  clop

... and faster, too.

clop clop clop CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP

Hmmm.

I'll have to admit, I was a bit slow on the uptake.  I'm sure that I would have been scared at this point normally, had my brain not been numbed by the cold and thus wholly incompetent at carrying out a basic fight-or-flight response. Way to go life support.

The noise, or rather the purveyor of the noise, was clearly coming closer to camp, and coming closer fast.  I decided after a few moments of dumbfoundedness that it would be a good idea to take shelter by the truck. By now, the sound was almost deafening:

CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP

The first semi-coherent thoughts that registered in my head as I stood on the back bumper of the Beast went something like shitshitshit followed by ohemGEE MEGANORMOUS KANGAROOO?!  Note that I emphasize the 'semi' part of coherent—obviously, no kangaroo could make this kind of a noise.  This creature couldn't be anything other than a large-bodied, carnivorous quadruped barreling towards me at full speed with nothing but nomnomnom on the brain.

I struggled to determine exactly where the sound was coming from, unsure of whether an echo effect was involved.  I turned my headlamp off, afraid that it would see me, and clung to the Beast, hoping that the inexplicable creature would mistake me as a hefty animal larger than itself. 

CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP

What is this thing? There are no natural predators in Australia anymore. This rapid clopping noise sounds like... a gallop. Is this a horse?

CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP clop clop clop clop clop

I squinted towards my right and thought I saw a shadow of something running across the field a hundred meters away from the tents, but it could have been my imagination. Whatever the case, the sound was definitely fading. It seemed like whatever it was had passed us and crossed into the field over the next hill. I relaxed. As quickly as it had started, the sound became but a faint murmur, and vanished.

A minute later, I heard rustling from within Jon's tent. I had almost forgotten that he was there amidst my wave of panick. He poked his head out from under the rain shield, his headlamp light pointing directly at me, where I was still awkwardly perched on the Beast.

"Did you just hear... a galloping sound go by?"

I answered in the affirmative, describing the ordeal that I had just been through. I asked if he had heard anything like it before, and if there were wild horses in the outback.

Jon shook his head. "I don't know about horses, but I've heard of free-range camels.  But they're supposedly way more north than where we are now."

For some reason, I didn't think it was camels terrorizing field assistants in the dead of night in the Flinders Ranges. After a few more minutes of hypothesizing, Jon crawled back into his tent and went to sleep.  I remained outside, straining my eyes and ears towards the place where I thought I saw the creature run off—I thought I could hear the clopping still, just barely though.  There was also a snort that sounded much like a horse, but I couldn't be sure that the noise hadn't come from Jon. Resigned and cold, I retreated to my tent and snuggled into my relatively warmer sleeping bag, listening for a few more minutes before succumbing to sleep.

The next morning at dawn, before we left for our next site, curiosity got the best of us and we investigated the spot where I thought I had seen the passing shadow. Shockingly, there was evidence!

After looking at the footprints, we were more convinced that horses had visited us—more than one perhaps, because there were at least two different sets of tracks. But Jon had never seen a horse in his four years here, let alone heard of wild horses in Australia.

I pondered the mystery some more on our drive to Hellard's Well.  And as if the setting moon was smiling at us mischievously from behind hills, it hadn't been an hour yet when we saw this:

Apparently, they're rescued ponies—horses that have been retired from a life of harsh breeding, now roaming and living a care-free life.  So they do exist. Mystery solved.

Oh, the weird and wonderful moon. I find myself strangely wanting to believe in superstition.