Snakes. Why Did it Have to Be Snakes...

You are now looking what I found inside of my hostel dorm's bathroom at around 12:30am. So really, given that statement, this photo could have been much, much worse.

When I walked into the bathroom and switched the light on, the snake and I had basically the same reaction: jerk upright, stare, and not move a single muscle. I quietly turned the light back off, closed the door, and calmly informed the rest of the room that there was a snake in the bathroom, and that I was getting some help. I walked outside to the hostel's attached bar and told one of the security guys. He asked if it was a green snake. When I told him it was reddish-brown, he inhaled sharply through his teeth and went to get more people. When he told them it was a brown snake, nobody laughed. At least until one of them turned to me and said “Well, I've got good news for you, mate: the end with the mouth on it? That's the dangerous part.” Then there was a quiet argument as to who was going to take a look at the thing.

One of them lost the argument and came back with me. We opened the bathroom door and turned the light on. No snake. The windows were open. We closed them. The guy inspected the rest of the bathroom, then rushed out asking us to “give them a tingle” if we saw it again, especially considering the color. I looked at his back running away, and then, deliberately leaving the bathroom light on, closed the door again, looking down. The light illuminated about a two or three inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

I swore under my breath and asked for a flashlight. We looked under all the beds and bags but didn't find anything. It wasn't until I'd been laying in my bed for five minutes that I remembered that I'd taken the picture when I first walked into the bathroom. Nobody in our dorm slept very well that night.

Luckily nobody did see the snake again. I'm pretty sure it must have escaped by the bathroom window after I left the first time. I showed the picture to reception, expecting gasps, apologies, offers of a room change, an inspection of the windows, something. Instead, the girl looked at it and said “Oh, yep, you're in Australia. Cool. Hey, Meg, what do you reckon this one is, a python?”

I guess that's just life down here.

A couple days later on a hike, I passed a couple of informational signs, describing the nearby ruins of a World War II fort, the names of some of the bays, the aboriginal origin myth of the islands, and a warning about a local snake called the Death Adder, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. It wasn't until about half an hour later that it occurred to me that a lot of my friends wouldn't have considered that last bit part of normal hiking. Maybe I've been here too long for my own good.

I'm still getting used to some parts of the wildlife though. Like my first night on Magnetic Island-- I asked at reception for tips on a good place to see the sunset. As a response, I was handed a refrigerated sack of veggies and told to go feed the rock wallabies at the end of the bay. And that's how I spent the sunset: sitting on some boulders overlooking the sea, handing food out to about twenty or so pint-sized wallabies bouncing around.

For those keeping score, I spent the day after my dorm snake encounter sailing and snorkeling on the Whitsunday islands, getting my first taste of the Great Barrier Reef, then a couple days hiking in national parks between Nelly Bay, Horseshoe Bay, and Arcadia (yes, a couple of you are wondering, that's really where I slept: Arcadia), where I was staying on Magnetic Island. A head cold kept me from diving. Again. But snorkeling off the Bali Hai island in the Whitsundays was still pretty impressive. So much of the coral seems to be dying though, and our captain in was bragging about how pristine the spot he'd taken us to was. Pretty soon, I'll get a better taste of how the place is doing. I'm in Cairns, Queensland, and I've finally gotten the cold out of my system. Cairns is known worldwide for one thing, and I'm doing it tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.

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