Nurturing Nature: The Col of the Wild

October in Sydney, Australia. Ninety-degree heat and windows full of Christmas paraphernalia. Things are a little off kilter down there. They drive on the left, pedestrians pass on the left, escalators are backwards, even toilets flush clockwise. Everything just seems a little off. But no one seems to notice. If they do notice, they certainly don’t mind.

That “live and let live” attitude was a big reason Sydney was hosting the Sixth Gay Games and Cultural Festival. 13,000 athletes, a choir of 570 singers including 37 Salt Lakers from the Salt Lake Men’s Choir. I was one of them. 

After a week of singing for 20 people in a train station and a stadium of 60,000, we had just concluded a concert in the Sydney Opera House. Each event was amazing, and had its own share of goosebumps, but the crowds began to get to me. I wanted to get away. 

I had booked a wildlife tour for myself and some of my choir pals, knowing that a trip down under wouldn’t be complete without it. What I didn’t know was that the ensuing nature lesson would be nothing like Mr. Herrmann’s 8th grade biology class. 

We gathered at the front of the hotel at the crack of dawn for our tour of the Blue Mountains. The two buses, looking like SUVs on steroids were already waiting for us. The two tour guides stood on the sidewalk waiting for our group to assemble. One was just as you’d expect—burly, with a beer gut and a hearty laugh. The other was a woman, a bit thick, with thin blonde hair and a fake purple flower tucked into the headband of her black outback hat. 

I eyed my group and presumed that a woman would probably be a bit more tolerant of a bunch of gay men than her Crocodile Dundee counterpart would have been. As we boarded her bus, I introduced myself. She said her name was “Colin, but everybody calls me Col.” Her handshake was gentle, but her face with penciled eyebrows and heavy mascara had seen some wear. She looked to be in her mid-fifties. I detected a faint five o’clock shadow.

As the others boarded, we looked at each other with furled brows. Was Col a man or a woman?

She asked us to buckle up, since Sydney laws were strict and a driver is fined for any unbuckled passenger. She went on to explain that she had the best track record of any guide in New South Wales, and that every tour company wanted to sweep her away. Not only because of her impeccable record, but because she was known as “The Encyclopedia.” She had a great thirst for knowledge, and as the next eight hours would prove, she was right.

As we headed across the Anzac Bridge out of the city, she apologized that the air conditioner “took a dump” the day before, and that we had a very hot day ahead of us. She told us of some of the things we’d see on our tour and that she hoped to educate us about whatever we asked. She said she’d talk as much as we wanted her to, but would draw the line at sex and politics, “although I did have my fair share with both the boys and the girls in my day,” she went on, followed by a riff on Richard Nixon. Our furled brows returned along with grins. We had boarded the right bus indeed.

Our first stop took us to an open picnic area where Col threw out a blue and white gingham table cloth and spread it with coffee, tea, cookies and cakes. Fred, the other guide, showed some of the guys how to throw a boomerang. I stuck with Col, who told me how the store-bought coconut cakes were nothing like the homemade ones. She led us to a clearing where four kangaroos joined us for high tea. Two sulphur-crested cockatoos shrieked from the branches above, probably aghast that our coconut cakes were storebought.

We headed for the Blue Mountains —losing the other group somewhere along the way. They had apparently left two passengers in the loo and had to go back and retrieve them. 

Our next stop took us to a path where Col led the way telling us about the vegetation of the area. “This is an Australian Fly Swatter,” she said, plucking a branch from something resembling a Ponderosa. “It can also be boiled and used as a medicinal tea.” She also described its cholesterol content, caloric content, the birds who eat it, the soil its grown in and the air that it breathes. She spoke of how the Blue Mountains get their color (the large amount of eucalyptus oil in the air). She told us the story of a rock formation called the Three Sisters and how they were turned to stone by an Aboriginal boogie man. 

That was all fine and good, but we all wanted to know the answer to just one question. “Does Col have an Adam’s Apple?”

We got a glimpse of the black lacy bra under her khaki safari shirt, and her voice did seem pretty low. She had told us everything you’d want to know about Australian flora and fauna, but all we wanted to know was if she was a man or woman. It didn’t make any difference one way or the other, it more like Reality Television meets “What’s My Line.” And who were we to judge anyway—a dozen gay men from Utah?

Col told us how nice it was that we sang with the choir, and that the Gay Games had come to Sydney. She said how good it was that people were so accepting of us, but that the acceptance wasn’t always there toward some other types of people. She stopped for a moment, thinking perhaps she’d said too much. “Come on, I’ll show a nice spot to sing.” She led us to a rock alcove at the end of a trail. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Sing something.”

We sang a little love ballad in four-part harmony. Tears welled up in her eyes. She dabbed them with her pinky, slightly smearing her mascara.  “Beautiful. Let’s get out of here,” she said and tromped back down the path before we could see her face wash away.

The tour continued with a couple of lookouts and lunch at an old hotel. We went to a wildlife preserve where we petted a koala, and looked at the rest of the animals we’d only ever seen in cartoons. Col continued the day’s lesson on kangaroos can disembowel you with one kick, an asteroid that was headed straight for earth, and that in 2026 we’ll all learn that JFK was done in by his own countrymen. 

As we headed back to the city, Col said “I’m assuming you are all out of the cupboard,” and proceeded to tell us of us of her three children. One son lived a hundred miles to the north, another lived a hundred miles to the south, and a daughter was taken away from her fifteen years ago. For the rest of the ride home no one—not even Col—uttered a word.

As we pulled up to the hotel, Col returned to corporate mode. She thanked us for being such a good group and wished us well on the rest of our time in Sydney. As she helped us out of the bus, she reached out to shake our hands. We hugged her instead.

Looking back, Col was fascinated with every morsel the earth has to offer, from the tiniest insect to the grandest vista. She embraced her world with a passion few people would understand, but did her best to explain. Looking back, I could kick myself. While she spoke of the ozone layer and el Niño, we squinted to find a mustache. 

Our nature trip ended up being more of a “human nature trip—” an example of the strange tricks that nature plays. Like a toilet that flushes clockwise. 

How often, we get bogged down with conspiracy theories, asteroid paranoia, and five o’clock shadows, when it all really all comes down to three little things: Love your planet. Love one another. Love Yourself. 

The rest is just Revlon.