The world’s longest river starts in the highlands of Central Africa and flows down hill all the way to the Mediterranean.

Answer:
So the Nile River flows north. And its in the north – near the Giza plateau on the west bank of the Nile – that tourism should be booming. But in the 10 months since Egypt’s revolution tourism has slowed to a trickle as Jake Warga reports.

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• Australian Broadcasting Corporation story on Glenda Sutton
• More of Tim Bonham’s photos
• Drought drives camels to overrun Australian town

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MARCO WERMAN: While you chew on the answer to today’s Geo Quiz I brought The World’s web editor in, Clark Boyd. Clark I understand we’ve got a narrated slide show up at The World dot org right now that’s got some pretty incredible stuff in it. Whatcha got?

CLARK BOYD: Camels in Australia.

WERMAN: Does that have anything to do with this glut story we reported on of camels in Western Australia in the outback?

BOYD: No. Although it does deal with camels in the Outback, racing camels, photojournalist Tim Bonham went deep into the Australian Outback to profile a female camel jockey by the name of Glenda Sutton. Interesting story with Glenda. She actually started racing camels in 1998 and she went to the United Arab Emirates to train and she now races them in Australia.

WERMAN: Now my impression of camels Clark is that they’re nasty and stubborn. They spit. They often refuse to move. How do actually train and raise a camel?

BOYD: Well that’s actually what’s compelling about this slideshow is that I think a lot of us have that impression of camels and Glenda Sutton, who narrates this slideshow – I mean she’s all of five foot three right? And pictures of her next to these camels which are just huge. Is she explains just how responsive they are. Just how almost human they are. And here’s a little clip from the slideshow that we’ll play now.

GLENDA SUTTON: They explore. They have their herd just like a family of people and they are [INDISCERNIBLE]. They’re inquisitive. They’re friendly. They don’t want confrontation and it’s only when they’re pushed into a corner a lot of them will do anything. They’re not going to go giving you kisses on the face after you’ve ridden them if they’ve felt that what you’ve done is cruel.

WERMAN: Alright no kisses on the face. Clark I’ve got to see this. Where do I go?

BOYD: All you have to do is go to our homepage at The World dot org or even better you can every slideshow and video that we’ve produce delivered directly to your computer or portable device and you can check that out at The World dot org slash podcasts.

WERMAN: The World’s Clark Boyd. Thanks for stopping by.

BOYD: You’re welcome Marco.

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MARCO WERMAN:  Picture the scene.  There you are, minding your own business in a tiny town in northern Australia and suddenly you find yourself under siege from thousands of marauding camels.  Welcome to the real life situation that confronts the people of Docker River in Australia’s Northern Territory.  Docker River is home to about three hundred fifty humans and now about six thousand camels.  Civic leader Graham Taylor says the result has been chaos.

GRAHAM TAYLOR:  All of the supplies have been broke and damaged.  Sewers underneath the ground are getting trampled and crushed.  The airport is actually virtually unusable.

WERMAN:  And even beyond Docker River, the camel problem is getting worse, so says Adrienne Francis of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS:  At the moment, the population’s doubling every seven years and we’ve got an estimated population of 1.5 million of these feral camels across northern Australia.

WERMAN:  All those camels are looking for something to drink.  The drought has made water scarce so the thirsty camels head into populated areas, such as Docker River.  But hold on, all this raises kind of an obvious question, what are camels doing in Australia in the first place?  Journalist Adrienne Francis has the answer.

FRANCIS:  They arrived here actually with the pioneering explorers’ broken wheels in the 1860’s and then the pioneering Afghan cameleers, about 3,000 of them, brought the camels to provide transport through this remote, harsh, arid landscape.  They helped lug the overland telegraph polls and also some of the slathers for the railways and since that time, their numbers have just continued to grow and grow.  It is extremely remote country so it’s a little bit out of sight, out of mind.

WERMAN:  Well, in Docker River at least, camels are neither out of sight, nor out of mind and state government’s spokesman Rob Knight says authorities have authorized a cull of the animals.

ROB KNIGHT:  We’ll be pushing them out 15 kilometers and shooting them and letting them decay into the desert.

WERMAN:  Animal rights campaigners say using helicopters to round up the camels and shooting them by the thousands is barbaric.  Still, Docker River’s human residents say they are determined to get their town back.