While walking through a dense sub-tropical rainforest:
Nora: I wonder how many snakes are in this park.
Kelly: Don’t be silly. It’s winter. They’re all hiding. I think they're hibernating.
Nora: Hibernating? Do snakes hibernate?
Kelly: Not sure. But if they don’t hibernate, they certainly
hide in holes somewhere.
Nora: You know, Australia
is home to the largest number of poisonous and venomous and generally deadly
animals by an exponential amount.
Kelly: Yeah, but they are all scared of us. And they’re way
off in the Australian bush somewhere, not here in the middle of it all.
Nora: Kel. We are at least 50kms from the nearest real town
which is still only home to a few hundred people. And we’re 4kms from the
bloody parking lot, which was empty when we came! We’re not exactly in a hub of
urban life here. A hub of snakes, perhaps.
Kelly: But it’s winter. The snakes are slow and dopey. They
won’t even have the energy to attack. Besides which, they’re not here.
Nora: Why aren’t they here? Snakes like to hang out
specifically on paths like these, so they can sun themselves. A startled dopey
snake in the middle of our way doesn’t seem like a good thing.
Kelly: Don’t worry. We won’t see any snakes.
(pause)
Kelly: I don’t have much experience with snakes.
Nora: Great. That makes me feel better. How are you supposed
to save me if you don’t know what to do?! Gaaaawd. I tell you, if I didn’t –
Woah.
(Nora comes to dead halt, Kelly crashes into her)
Kelly: What?
Nora: Snake.
Kelly: Yeah, sure –
Nora: No really. In front of us.
Sure enough, a green snake about one meter in length
slithered off the path directly in front of us, eyeing us and sticking its
tongue out at us the whole way.
And so began our two days of hikes and camping in Springbrook National Park. It was wonderful to
get out of the city and its traffic, and into the bush for
some hiking (something we hadn’t done since Hawaii) – a
time which seems like eons ago what with helping Burma and Dengue Fever domineering our Asian adventures.
We were in a high-altitude temperate rainforest environment
for most of the journey. The miles and miles of incredibly windy roads would
make my friends who still ride motorcycles drool and shake. Roads, which seem
to meander forever and can’t possibly lead to anywhere, but which spill out
periodically into towns and cities. These winding meccas are actually main
roads and access routes.
The region, about 100kms south-west of Brisbane,
is home to one 
of many little national parks that line the inside of the east
coast of Australia.
Here, huge walls of granite (we are eagerly awaiting a chance to go rock
climbing) line little mountains (as high as 1,000 meters) enveloped in
cool-temperate rainforest. In the middle of it all: a huge volcanic caldera from
an eruption 23 million years ago, filled with ancient Antarctic beech trees.
Due to flood damage remaining from a storm in January, many
walking trails were closed. But we still had lots to choose from – most of them ending in gloriously high waterfalls – and decided to stick around for two
nights. Too bad the campground was almost intolerably windy and freaking cold.
Ah well – at least the cold weather was sure to make the
snakes dopey. Because after spotting our rather large slithering friend on the
first
hike, we had our eyes peeled for more. Every branch, every tree root (and
there were many), could have been a snake for a while. The walking was slow.
But eventually, we managed to push on and pick up the tempo.
Dopey snakes or not, the scenery at Springbrook
National Park was too beautiful to
pass up.
