The food cycle in Australia’s Kakadu National Park has remained almost unchanged for 40,000 years. In our first evening there we watched the sunset over a marsh while dingoes chased a wallaby through the brush. The next morning, we saw an eagle dive from a tree into a murky river, grabbing a snake in its talons. As the eagle flew away, the snake wriggled free and dropped to the water. The sounds of the splash sent half a dozen crocodiles swimming in its direction. Later that day, we went on a hike through a forest blanketed by thousands of butterflies, stopping at a pooling creek where a three-foot monitor lizard languidly alternated between sunbathing and fishing for its lunch as we ate our cheese sandwiches. Kakadu was alive and we were eager to get our hands dirty.

To find out how we talked to park rangers, almost all of whom are members of the indigenous Aboriginal tribes who have lived on these five million acres in the Northern Territory of Australia since their arrival from Africa 50,000 years ago. The locals all said that the best way to taste life in Kakadu was to join a local elder who led tours through the bush. We signed up for the next available tour and spent the time in between exploring the park.

The morning of the tour, our guide Sean — an energetic non-aboriginal Australian wearing a sand colored safari outfi — picked us and four others up in his snorkel-equipped Jeep. We got settled and Sean addressed us all. “Alright, folks. We’ve got to get one more person before we can really start, my good friend Patsy. She lives in the park.” With that we drove down roads that at times resembled pothole-filled dirt tracts, and at others little more than brush mowed down by the front of the Jeep.

An hour into Kakadu, we stopped at the corrugated metal shed that Patsy called home. Out came a barefoot woman, her large upper body covered in a baggy Hawaiian shirt, balancing on a pair of bird-like legs. Her wrinkled smile and deep eyes could barely be seen past her graying curls. Without a word, Patsy tossed a pillowcase into the back, climbed in next to Sean, and whispered into his ear while gesturing towards the case. Sean turned to us, his smile ear to ear: “Patsy caught us two ducks this mornin’!”

For most of her life, Patsy relied on herself for food. Like many aboriginals, she still lived a largely hunter-gatherer lifestyle, sustaining herself from the bush, road kill, and a small local buffalo farm. But since this tour started, only five years earlier, she has passed her ancient knowledge to others.

We drove in silence for about half an hour. Patsy turned towards Sean and whispered in his ear. The car stopped next to a grove of thin trees and we followed Patsy to one. Patsy hovered her ear inches from its bark and tapped with her knuckle. From behind us, Sean said, “Patsy’s listening for an empty sound.” Patsy turned her head toward us, bowed it in approval, and went back to her task. Then she pulled out a knife and cut an inch into the wood. Her long finger plunged into the hole, twisted a few times, and pulled out a cocktail weenie-sized grub. The wriggling white worm lay in her palm, presented to us like candy pulled from an old lady’s bag. Two more trees were tapped for worms. While we looked at each other in wonder, Sean confirmed our suspicions. “That should be enough for appetizers,” he said. At this we climbed back into the Jeep.

During the next two stops on our tour we were given lessons on using bark to cure headaches and extracting fibers from the aloe plant for making string. While collecting the bark, Patsy pointed to three or four softball-sized bunches of leaves held together by thin threads. “These are the nests of weaver ants, held together by silk milked from their larvae," Sean said. "You quickly learn to be the first person walking in line in the bush with these buggers,” and with that he flicked one of the nests.

Hundreds of ants came rushing out, stretched on their hind legs, biting at anything with their visibly powerful jaws. “Not only do they bite, but they spit ascorbic acid into the wound," Sean said. "This acid is used by the locals to cure a cold. It’s just like drinking a glass of orange juice.” Patsy then reached for one of the undisturbed nests, one hand on either side, and clapped them together. She aggressively rubbed her hands, stopping to flick off a couple of stray ants that were biting her arm. Patsy carefully pulled out the leaves and offered us our first taste of bush food — mangled ants.

I looked at my mom, who was the first to reach for the pile of insect mush, and grabbed a pinch. I closed my eyes, dropping the ants into my mouth. To my surprise, my face puckered at the sour lemon taste. The only odd part was picking the legs and antennae out of my teeth.

After the snack, Patsy brought us to a small pond as Sean explained an ancient fishing technique. While rounding the pool, Patsy abruptly stopped, throwing her arm behind her. She whispered to Sean while pointing to a bush 20 feet from the water's edge.

“Looks like we’ve gotta turn around folks — the local croc has set up in that bush," Sean said. "He got used to us walking by everyday and Patsy thinks he’s waiting to catch someone.” As if on cue, the 12-foot crocodile slowly turned its head towards us. No one said a word on the way back to the Jeep.

We made a final stop before dinner at an estuarial marsh. We collected a few dozen water chestnuts from the mud and then Patsy handed us all sticks and led the group to a stand of mangrove trees to hunt for turtles. During the heat of the day, these turtles dig a few feet into the cool ground. To find them, we followed Patsy’s lead in stabbing the ground with the sticks, listening for what Sean told us would be a hollow thud. After half an hour, we gave up and started our way out of the mangroves.

A soft nasal voice called from the trees: “I got one!” Patsy walked toward the group, mud up to her elbows, proudly showing us the turtle she held by its outstretched neck. We all felt victorious for the find. Now it was time to celebrate.

Sean parked the Jeep next to the Mamukala billabong just as the sun began to set in yellows, reds, and purples that reflected off the water and through the trees like stained glass. We gathered firewood to the noise of tens of thousands of honking geese, whose collective hum sounded like a fleet of speeding trucks.

Patsy started a fire piled with rocks while Sean peeled the water chestnuts with a hunting knife, handing them out as soon as they were clean. In your mouth, they crunched like a hard apple and burst with juice that tasted like slightly floral sugar water. Around us, the fire gained strength. Sean brewed bush tea and made a simple dough. Patsy plucked the feathers from the game birds in the pillowcase and then unceremoniously snapped the neck of the turtle.

Once the rocks became white hot, Patsy knocked them from the fire, creating a platform of radiating heat. She reached into her pocket and threw the grubs on the coals. After only a minute or two, she pulled them off with a leaf, cut them in half, and handed them out. Surprisingly, eating a grub off a scorching coal is a lot like taking a bite from a freshly roasted chestnut: soft, sweet, and delicately flavored.

While we ate our bugs, Patsy tossed the turtle and birds onto the rocks. She created a traditional oven by covering the food with fresh leaves for flavor, glowing embers from the fire, then sheets of bark, all covered with dirt. Then she placed the dough in the remaining coals of the fire and we all sat back, sipped our tea, and waited for the main course.

The bread was the first to finish, and out of the embers came a beautifully steam-leavened piece of bread whose crispy crust and airy yet chewy interior could not have been better if it came from a bakery. The turtle and fowl quickly followed, both of which we ate with our hands. Because of its shell the turtle cooked like a stew, simmering in its own juices. Slightly salty from the estuary, the meat had no distinguishable flavors. But, the duck dripping with fat both gamey and fragrant made everyone smile as we picked the bones clean.

We drove Patsy back to her home. She stepped out of the Jeep. Her gentle eyes acknowledged each one of us, and she smiled. Patsy opened her lips for only the second time all day.

“Goodbye.”

Nadav Lelkes is a student at Drexel University.

Duck photograph from Stephen Barnett via Flickr (Creative Commons), crocoldile photograph from GothPhil via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Dispatch" photograph from King Molan via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Plate" photograph from FoodCollection/Getty Images.