G'Day,
The Sunday scribblings post for this week is "Chance Encounters".
What came to mind first up was an encounter with a Red Belly Black snake I had when I was in my teens.
Let me tell you about it. We had gone on a family picnic up to Adelong Falls. There was me and Mum, My Auntie Joan and Uncle Jim, and their youngest daughter whom we called little Joanie and my niece Janelle, I can't remember who else but there were two car loads of us.
Adelong Falls is about an hours drive from Wagga where we were living at the time, and is a steep hilly gorge which was once a goldmine where early miners used the terrain and water there to process the ore that they mined. So it has old ruins and races cut into the rock and lots of little pathways to explore and best of all for kids on a hot day, little rock pools and waterfalls to play in. Us kids went wandering around the tracks and climbing up and down the big granite rocks that have been worn smooth by years of water rushing down hill over them and are everywhere there. Janelle, little Joanie and I were having a great time exploring when I decided to pull myself up on to a big granite boulder. I am the king of the castle type scenario. As I pulled myself up I came eye to eye with a big red belly black snake who was sunning itself there. Well, it went in one direction and I went the other. I was pretty shaken and scared at the thought that I could have been bitten, right between the eyes , if the snake had so wished so I thought "We are not going back past that way". We all climbed down the rocks to swim across the rock pool and get back on the other side of the creek. As my jeans were pretty tight I decided that I would take them off to swim across and put them back on to walk up the hill and back to the car. So I tied them around my waist and took to the water. Yes..... of course they fell off, and sunk, then we saw them go over the waterfall down stream. Not retrievable!
So I being the eldest of the three kids decided that I couldn't walk up the hill in my underwear and little Joanie was youngest, and by nature the least likely to be bothered by such matters, so she gave me her bright red shorts. God knows how I squeezed into them, but I did.
We arrived back at the picnic area , me with a very red face and little Joanie quite unconcerned about her state of dress. Mum was annoyed at me for having lost my jeans and everyone else was teasing me. Little Joan ,who is no longer little and about 6 inches taller than me , still brings it up when I see her. One of our "Do you remember when ..." stories.
About the snake. Red belly black snakes are quite timid and are venomous but would rather run away than bite. They like rocky areas near water and are not as deadly as some other Australian snakes but never the less would cause a lot of damage if they decided to bite you. They are a pretty snake with a dusty black back and as the name would suggest a bright red belly. We had quite an adventure that day and still laugh about it.
That's it Folks.
Bye
Love Linda.