Tiger trip turns up heat for Vlastuin

HEAD-DRENCHING spices, jungle treks and leeches — lots of blood-sucking leeches.

Nick Vlastuin didn’t know what he was in for.

While the off-season had plenty of the usual for the premiership Tiger — sun, surf and a few cold refreshments — things took a turn a fortnight ago. Sumatra was the destination, turning up the heat in 30C-plus conditions.

But Vlastuin — and teammate Jack Graham — couldn’t have known how tough a time they were in for on the tooth as they went bush with the World Wildlife Fund.

“There was tons of leeches,” Vlastuin said.

“The hardest part was probably the spice in the food.

“Jacky Graham, he really struggled with that, especially in the ranger station.

“The closest restaurant is a four-hour 4WD ride away, so you’ve got no choice.

“They kept cooking up chicken and fish, and Jack would ask: ‘Is this spicy?’

“And they’d say: ‘Nah, no spice’. Five minutes later, he was sweating bullets.

“I struggled a little bit, not as much as Jack. But I had been over there for a month beforehand, surfing in the Mentawai Islands, so I’d kind of gotten used to it then.”

The duo joined the WWF and its tiger protection unit — who looked “big and mean” but loved taking selfies with the players — almost four hours outside Pekanbaru in central Sumatra as part of Richmond’s conservation partnership with WWF Australia.

Fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild and poaching is their greatest threat.

The tigers are responsible for an average of 10 human deaths a year in the region, meaning while Vlastuin and Graham travelled to the island to learn more about their plight, they weren’t exactly all that keen to come across one while trekking in the jungle.