A CAT’S EYE VIEW OF THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK

When Lou Myers brings out the lead and harness, Kartika the Bengal cat knows it means fun times ahead.

Kartika is not a regular cat.

The four-year-old Bengal has a social media following and an owner with a taste for adventure.

One of her regular activities — aside from chasing ping-pong balls around the house — is travelling through the outback with secondary school teacher Lou Myers, 34.

The 5-kilo feline has spent much of her life travelling vast distances across Australia, to places as different from each other as Alice Springs and the bustling Adelaide CBD.

Here she is visiting the monstrous spaceship from the 2000 film Pitch Black sitting ominously in Coober Pedy’s town centre, in regional South Australia.

While Kartika and Lou are housebound, in a remote community in South Australia, at present — adhering to restrictions on travel imposed as a result of COVID-19 — when they do travel, it is in a modified SUV.

“We’ve got the back seats taken out so there’s a double bed in the back,” Lou says.

“She likes to camp in the back with me.”

Kartika is secured by her lead and harness to an interior handle and has access to food and water when they’re moving.

Travelling circus

It’s perhaps important to note here that Lou isn’t your regular cat owner.

Originally from Adelaide, she has spent the past five years teaching secondary students subjects, including English and maths, at a school in a remote Aboriginal community in South Australia.

Lou has a triple language major and has just finished her Master’s degree in ESL teaching.

While she’s passionate about languages and teaching, she’s also a fan of the performing arts.

Lou learned how to fire spin with the help of some friends in Adelaide and has since performed at festivals, corporate gigs and schools.

Performance is what led her to start teaching remotely.

“I visited a remote Aboriginal community more than 10 years ago with a school immersion trek,” she says.

“I choreographed circus routines with students from Adelaide, who then performed for the Indigenous kids.

“It’s an awesome program that I’ve managed to connect up with every year since.”

Cure for loneliness?

In 2016, Lou realised she didn’t want to live alone anymore.

Kartika came to her as a 12-week-old kitten, from a Bengal breeder in the Northern Adelaide Hills.

“I think mentally just having a friend to have in the house and check out new things with is great.

“Taking things slowly at a cat’s pace, checking things out, it makes you slow down and see the small things.”

Lou taught Kartika to walk on a lead early on.

She said it took the clever cat a week to learn that when the lead came out fun times were just ahead.

“I just put the harness on her and got her used to it over a week by putting it on her when she was going to sleep so she felt comfortable,” Lou says.

“As soon as she associated that with going outside, then it was pretty easy.”

Whenever Kartika is taken outside “she always has to wear her lead and harness”, to protect the native wildlife.

“The lead is a retractable lead, so I’ll either be holding the other end or have it clicked onto me somehow.

“She’s got a little bit of free movement so she can go and check out things, but she’s restricted to a certain distance from me.

“She has caught a lizard or two, but luckily they’ve gotten away.”

It’s a good thing Kartika doesn’t enjoy the water because she rarely sees it in the outback.

Although Bengals are known to like water and swimming, Kartika will rarely take a dip in a waterhole.

“She has not had a lot of experience playing around in water because we live so remote in the desert, but she does sometimes venture into the shower,” Lou says.

Sometimes, Kartika is mistaken for a wild cat.

“Most people think she’s a wild animal that I’ve tamed somehow,” Lou says.

“I guess it’s not something you see every day — especially the kids find it funny.

Bengals are the muscular athletes of the domesticated feline world.

One of their ancestors is the small but powerful Asian leopard cat, found in Asia’s South, Southeast and East.

Wild Asian leopard cats are often taken from their natural habitat and interbred with domestic cat breeds to create the hybrid Bengal breed.

“They’re very active, have very strong personalities and really like to get into things,” Lou says.

Bengal cats aren’t for everyone.

Because of their heritage, they require lots of care and exercise.

While Lou says it might be a good idea to get a pet for companionship if you’re living in a remote area, you may want to think twice before linking up with a Bengal.

“I’d caution people to do their research before they get a Bengal, just to understand the time and effort that is required looking after them and the kind of lifestyle that you have with them,” she says.

“It’s not like a regular cat.”