Kinglake, Australia (reprise)

I arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon and Brian picked me up at the airport. It was kind of strange – I’ve done so much in the last couple of months, but driving back to Brian’s place it felt like I hadn’t left.

My time in the Melbourne area has been pretty quiet. Brian has been working most days and he doesn’t have a spare car this time around, so I’ve mostly been hanging around the house. I did get into the city one day to run some errands and post a few photos to my website. I checked in with Vietnam Air, who is flying me back to Bangkok tomorrow. I have had quite a time with them trying to secure dates for my return trip (among other things) and was glad I dropped into their office as my itinerary had changed for the third time. I will now have a layover in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on my way through. This is actually a good thing despite the fact that it is wreaking havoc on my hotel plans in Bangkok. I didn’t make it to Vietnam in the fall as I got sidetracked in Laos and I’ve been struggling with whether or not to try to fit it into my upcoming schedule. I think that I will likely not come back to SE Asia after Nepal as it will be unbearably hot at that time of year. Perhaps this short visit to Ho Chi Minh City will help me decide whether or not Vietnam will be a priority for me. As mentioned, I’ve run into quite a few problems with Vietnam Air and will do everything I can not to fly them again. Fingers crossed that I actually arrive in Bangkok on April 4 as planned.

Autumn has definitely arrived in southern Australia. The weather has been very fickle but yesterday was the most awesome Indian summer day. In the late morning I went up the back hill for my run through the pine tree plantation and was absolutely gobsmacked by the beauty of the day. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the pine trees stood out so vividly against the blue backdrop. It was hot and sunny but the air had that little crispness that comes to us in September at home. It was a perfect football game day. It was very odd to feel this air but not to see the accompanying colours in the trees.

On my way back down the hill I noticed a snake in Brian’s back yard, but am getting quite blasé about the whole slithering reptilian thing by now. When Brian got home, I told him about the snake and he went to investigate. There was a roll of plastic netting on the ground in which not one, but two copperheads had managed to entangle themselves. Brian was unable to find a snake handler in the area on a Sunday evening (go figure!) so he decided to store them in a garbage bin and take them to the Healesville animal sanctuary this morning to have them extricated from the net. I figured that a hatchet or a round of buckshot would do the trick, but I found out the hard way to not even joke about such things in the presence of a National Parks employee.

Given that I hadn’t taken any photos of my snake encounters in Tasmania (I generally had other things on my mind than grabbing my camera) I decided I’d take a few shots of these guys. Wanting to know what I was getting myself into, I asked Brian what the consequences of a bite from a copperhead would be. He told me that I would probably make it to the hospital, but that when he called 911 they would be sending a helicopter rather than an ambulance to get me to improve my chances. Great. I put on my hiking boots and jeans and headed out. I took a couple of snaps but couldn’t bring myself to get too close to them so Brian took a couple of close-ups for me. Then came the moment of truth. Using a long-handled forceps-like tool he picked up the bundle of netting with the two snakes dangling from it and tried to fit it into a large plastic drum. When this failed he decided to use the garbage bin which had a larger mouth and was successful. I took a couple of photos which I’ll post, but as you’ll see they’re not my best effort. I’m not sure if I had the camera on the wrong setting or if I was just shaking so darn hard that I couldn’t hold it still, but one way or another they’re very blurred. So much for blasé. I wasn't quite as convinced as Brian that they were well and truly stuck in the netting and I kept waiting for one or both to break free and lunge at me (as they do). I hope that Michael is reading this in Sydney and is proud of me for living another day during which I scared the crap out of myself. Brian spent most of the evening fretting that the snakes were going to be cold in the garbage bin and debating whether he should go cover them with a blanket. As for me, I was very happy to see the bin with it's venomous cargo gone this morning. Apparently the copperheads were delivered safely to the sanctuary and they are going to be dropped back off here this afternoon once they’ve been disentangled. Goodness knows we wouldn’t want to disrupt the poor things by permanently removing them from their home.

Tomorrow morning I leave Australia and head back to Asia. I am very much looking forward to this as I feel I’ve been here much longer that planned and I’m ready to move on. Life here is very similar to life at home and as Brian put it, I need to get out of my comfort zone. It is also autumn here, so it’s time to move back up to the northern hemisphere. I was just thinking how great it is to be able to follow summer around the globe until I checked out the weather in Myanmar, which is where I’ll be in a week or so. Lows are about 25 and highs are about 38 – yikes! In addition, this country is quite sheltered and very Buddhist, so I’ll have to dress very modestly. Nothing like needing to cover your arms and legs in 38 degree weather.

I will try to post another blog from Bangkok and also to get up-to-date with my photos while I'm there. I will not be able to communicate from within Myanmar due to the political situation there (no access to outside websites etc.) but will be with a tour and very safe. The tour company, Geckos, has all your contact information so just remember that no news is good news. If you need to find me while I’m there, please contact Stacey Anderton, my booking agent in Brisbane. She’s at 011-61-7-3854-1022 (from Canada) or Stacey@backtrack.com.au. I’ll be keeping a journal in Myanmar as I expect this to be quite a different and interesting leg of my journey. I’ll provide all the details in my blog afterwards. Dates of the tour are April 8 – 22.