Snakes

Before I was born the world did not exist.  Well apparently it did, but it did not to me.
What I am writing about was probably prompted by Merril mowing the other day.  Both of us mow and we have invested in a battery powered lawn mower.  I was off doing something else and Merril mowed.  She came across two snakes in a clump of grass.  Well it was three we think by the time she finished and one had no head. 
My parents bought a place in Townsville that was on the road up Castle Hill (the world is full of eccentrics of which I am one, but there was a guy that resented Castle Hill being a hill and was taking dirt up to make it a mountain).  Bushland was our back yard and it was a fantastic place to grow up. I’m not bitter and twisted but I got a boomerang for my birthday and my brother assured me it would come back.  It didn’t.  We never found it.
One thing about backing onto bushland is the snakes.  To welcome my parents a large dead snake was draped over the hills hoist.  We saw a Death Adder disappearing into a wall not two meters from us.  Another time we were dismantling a wall and picked up a rock to discover a snake curled up under it.  The rock was gently put back.
Fortunately we rarely saw them.  A friend of ours who has cows said you smell them before you see them.  I have changed location on several occasions based on a smell that is transient.
I was on a walking track on an island in the Whitsundays and came across a snake.  I did not hang around but headed down the mountain at a cracking pace.  Unfortunately the snake had the same idea.  We both headed off down the mountain parallel to each other.  Neither of us was getting away from the other really.
I heard about one poor fella recently in Noosa who was walking beside the property he was staying at and was bitten.  He was rushed to hospital and the next day he was walking on the same track and came across the same snake.  I think there is a lesson there somewhere.
I think I may have a phobia of snakes.  Thinking about it, it was probably born of my walking out our house to see a large snake up a tree who had just swallowed our cat.  The snake was large enough to be sent alive to Toronga Park Zoo for a display.  We then took someone to hospital who was going there because of a nervous breakdown.  Par of the course that day really.  Not long after we believe we encountered its mate but it was only 16 foot.
Snakes I try to avoid.  I am told if you make enough noise they tend to avoid us as well.  It is the unexpected encounter that provokes the fight of flight syndrome.  Sometimes humans come off second best.