For the first time, after four visits to Australia, I was physically assaulted by a wildlife denizen. At our first camp (Third Pine Creek on Owiendana station), we were warned of the presence of mice. Sure enough, that night, we observed little food searchers, scurrying around our cook table, looking for dinner. Precautions were taken -- food boxes sealed, dishes well cleaned, the offending rodents run off, the truck shut for the night. But our truck is old; there are many points of ingress and egress for a little mouse.
Sure enough, when we moved camp, there were not two passengers, but at least four. Evidence of their nightly feasts were diurnally found -- nibbled pastas, sampled nuts, brown sugar grazed upon, an abundance of mouse crap at the base of our food boxes. We sympathized with the feelings of satisfied hunger our unwanted guests must have felt, but these raids represented an existential threat. Thinking we faced only one foe, we named him/her Marvolo. We raised the threat level from yellow to red, and bought plastic boxes the first time we passed through Leigh Creek, our resupply town. The nighttime food raids ended, with our vulnerable edible sundries ensconced in plastic forts. The mice appeared frustrated. One behind in the arms race, they vented their rage by shitting all over our canned goods, which were left out in the open to weather the storm. They decided to take it to the next level.
