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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. |
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 coming
home
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Music
 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'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
and the northwest of Balie, walked in Amazonian
rainforest and ridden on horseback in the Pantanal
in Brazil, stood above the thundering Devil's
Throat and watched coatis in the forest at Iguassu
in Argentina, and spent two weeks driving with
Ronda through Kruger National Park in South
Africa, stopping for everything from dung beetles
to herds of elephants crossing
the road.
.
Darren has studied linguistics and some Spanish
and Mandarin (and continuing to self-teach), and
also learnt a little Portuguese ad Indonesian
before travelling to Brazil and Bali
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