I Have a New Guest

I wasn't really sure how I would react to snakes in Australia.  Spiders I knew I wouldn't like because I don't even like the small ones at home.  During the summer months, I used to have tons and tons of spiders spinning webs outside of my apartment door.  At night, they would come out and hang in front of it, so it was always a challenge to sneak into my apartment.

Actual Python near my tent

Snakes, however, I didn't encounter very often.  To be honest, I don't even remember the last time I saw one back home.  When I was younger, my brother used to find Garter snakes all of the time in our yard, since my parents lived out in the country.  They weren't venomous snakes, though occasionally my brother would get bitten.  The 'wound' was really only like a paper cut.

Now I'm in a country with loads of snakes, both venomous and not.  I think if I saw an Eastern Brown snake, I would have a heart attack because I really don't want to die or even be sick in the hospital because of a bite from one of them.

This weekend, I actually saw a Python near my tent.  Growing up, some families kept Pythons as pets.  On rare occasions, I remember seeing massive snakes wrapped around people's necks and shoulders like a fashion accessory.  A pet like that, however, you don't really expect to see out in the wild.

It was a bit of a shock at first, but after knowing it was a Python (which are nonvenomous snakes), I wasn't really bothered by it at all.  It was coiled up like a garden hose , but I really would've liked to see it slithering through the grass or wrapping itself around a tree.  I posted the photo on Facebook and, of course, my friends and family back home were horrified.

No one at the AFL was really the least bit afraid.  A few people, including myself, came to gawk at the animal, but aside from that no one was even the least bit alarmed. I thought it was a Python right away, but another backpacker confirmed my suspicions when one of my friends asked what it was. 

I think that because there are so many things that can kill you here, a nonvenomous snake is the least of my worries.  It even eats rodents, so really, it's a pest-remover.   Now I just need to be able to see Huntsman spiders in the same light.