Darren Green of Araucaria Ectours

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Darren Albert Sidney Green

Darren has lived at the Araucaria property, Running Creek via Rathdowney since he was 4 days old. He has grown up with the 'best of both worlds' - close enough to Brisbane to enjoy live performances, museums, ethnic restaurants and everything else the city has to offer, but living on 87 acres of rural and forested property that allowed romping with dogs, riding his horse Rosie, swimming in a creek shared with platypus, and turtles, riding horses, climbing trees and indulging in plenty of other outdoor activities as well as having access to computers, musical instruments and thousands of books.

Music Animals and Fieldwork Tour guiding Photography Travel

coming home

Music

Darren playing at
Beaudesert Arts Dinner

Darren, at age three, barely able to peep above the keyboard, was captivated by our new piano. Already singing many songs in perfect tune, he now started tapping melodies on the keys - simple ones at first such as 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' but within weeks complex pieces such as the 'MASH' theme and parts of the Mikado' overture. By age 12, he was enjoying playing his own compositions as well as music from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera' and other such pieces, and finally decided to take piano lessons for a couple of years.

As a teenager he joined the Queensland Music Theatre, where he was told he was a 'strong tenor with a great vocal range,' and later trained for half a year in light opera singing and did part time courses in music composition for the film industry, drama and the technology of stage production. A local novelist asked him asked to compose the score for a televised version of his latest book but succumbed to terminal cancer before the project had progressed very far.

He plays keyboard and has played guitar, violin, recorder and piano accordion, but the piano is still his favourite instrument, and he has played his own compositions at a number of local functions, including the inaugural Arts Dinner at the Centre in Beaudesert, the 2009 Scenic Rim Tourism Awards evening, the International Frugivores and Seed Dispersal Symposium 2005, a historic Drumley walk dinner, a wedding at Songbirds and various other events

Animals and Fieldwork

Darren has been surrounded by animals all his life, and never lived without at least one dog and one horse on the home property. He has handled cows, roosters, snakes, echidnas, fruitbats, possums, various birds and many other creatures over the years, and is generally quick to make friends with almost anything or at least calm it if it is afraid or belligerent. He is a member of BatCare Brisbane and WildCare, and has helped foster orphaned birds and flying foxes youngsters and rescued a number of injured animals.

He had his first taste of camping when six months old, and has been helping zoologist mother Ronda with fieldwork (digging pitfalls, helping to set and check cage traps and mist nets etc.) since the age of eight

Tour guiding

When Darren was applying for his driver authorisation (enabling him to drive tours) after the mandatory three years of holding a regular driver's license, he had to answer the usual questions on the form about traffic offences, etc. The clerk, seeing yet another young man standing in front of her, looked at his long line of "No" answers, and said disbelievingly 'hmm, squeaky clean are ya?" After about 20 minutes on her computer she came back and said "umm, yes, you are!' " He still has never had so much as a parking ticket. Winding mountain roads, dusty outback tracks, steep trackless hillsides, flooded streets and city traffic are all part of his background experience, and he feels very much at home with country driving.
Darren guiding tour

Darren's love of wildlife and nature generally is obvious when he is guiding tours.
He also enjoys meeting new people of all ages, especially if they share his delight in the natural world.

Growing up surrounded by nature and travelling to his mother's research sites which included zoos and wildlife parks as well as wilderness areas, Darren is familiar with many of the animals of the local area and other parts of Australia.

He has also attended an Aussie Host class on providing quality tourism service

Photography

Darren has been a keen nature photographer for years - everything from beetles and flowers to eagles, kangaroos and (while travelling) wild leopards and elephants. and enjoys putting together compilations of his photos and videos with his own musical compositions as background.

One of his frog photos from the Border Ranges is pictured to the right

Travel and languages

In addition to travel with Araucaria Ecotours, Darren has cuddled a Tasmanian Devil and explored the mountain forests of Tasmania, ridden a camel along the Todd River near Alice Springs and been introduced to bush tucker offered by Aboriginal rangers at Uluru, patted monkeys and interacted with open-air stage performers in Bali, snorkelled amongst coral on the Great Barrier Reef, walked in Amazonian rainforest and ridden on horseback in the Pantanal in Brazil, stood above the thundering Devil's Throat and watched coaties in the forest at Iguassu in Argentina, and spent two weeks driving with his mother through Kruger National Park in South Africa, stopping for everything from dung beetles to herds of elephants crossing the road.
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Darren has studied linguistics and some Spanish and Mandarin, and also learnt a little Portuguese before travelling to Brazil