Welcome To The Jungle

Lamington National Park: A warm subtropical rainforest filled with dangerous spiders, leeches, and many many cliffs. In fact, the dominant theme of the trip was the consistent near falling to my death. So many of our hikes, traveling through the rainforest or scrubby heath, make do with narrow ledges, pointy outjutting rocks, and just sheer dropoffs. Beautiful, but liable to kill me. I have no sense of balance as is; a one-shoulder backpack destabilizing my center of gravity and chronic lack of sleep destabilizing my mind doesn’t help the issue.

I seem to like dangerous things. I keep turning over logs to find snakes; nevermind most Australian snakes are highly venomous elapids. My project was on funnelweb spiders, and I keep trying to draw them out by teasing them with pine needles and food (but more about that later). Nevermind a bite will put me in a hospital. Oh, and I do so love climbing trees, scampering over rocks on steep mountaintops, and exploring closed-off trails.

Before going, I thought we were roughing it. I didn’t even bring soap, expecting no showers. Instead, we have running water, hot high-pressure showers, electricity, and even catered meals (with dessert). Atleast we lack AC.

Not that we needed it. Everyone was cold, usually bundled up in 3 layers and still shivering. I laughed at them as I strolled around in my t-shirt. Suppose it comes with being a New Yorker. Ah well, they’ll get the last laugh when I’m in Darwin during summer.

The work was easy enough. A few hikes, a few ridiculously early mornings to bird watch or mammal trap, and even a little frogging. Very much like my time in Vermont, only with more ways to die. Oh, and leeches. And paralysis ticks. Fun little guys.

For some reason, we brought along an artist with us. He painted trees. I still don’t get it, but we enjoyed our Bob Ross impersonator. He even brought along crayons for us to color with. I drew an out-of-scale picture of myself with a crocodile. Then I ate candy and took a nap. God I miss elementary school.

In the campground was a van with strange writing on the side. I realized it was katakana, the Japanese system of writing foreign words. Unfortunately, my high school Japanese was slipping, so I thought it said “Sete Macotte… wtf?” Luckily, we had a little Asian girl with us. “Saak mai kokku… what does saak mai kokku mean?” She looked at us, wide-eyed and innocent, as we barely managed to contain our laughter.

None of us had the heart to explain what “Suck my cock” means.

The owners of the van were actually renters. A couple of highly pierced German backpackers. They had no idea what the vans said, but were appreciative of the translation. Thanks to our little Asian, my katakana came back to me to read the other side. “Iit mai pushii… Oh, your van wants you to eat its pussy. And suck its cock. Well, atleast it’s fair about it.”

Despite neat vans and near tumbles, I was beginning to regret not going on the Fraser Island trip. I hadn’t seen a single snake, and would not for the entire trip. However, this changed when I had a staring contest with a Lace Monitor. Essentially, the little brother (but still damn big!) of a Komodo Dragon. It was less than a meter away from me, hissing and coiling its tail to strike. My TA essentially started prepping my will. But I refused to blink. Luckily, while monitors are closely related to snakes and have forked tongues, they have retained eyelids. Can’t win a staring contest with a snake, ya know? However, I won this round, and the goanna mellowly wandered off.

I got stopped by a ranger once. Not for fucking with monitors or funnelwebs. He simply pulled up in his truck, got out, and said “I have a specimen for you.” I wondered if that wasn’t some biologist pickup line. I just gave him a look. “You’re part of that group, right?” he asks, and takes out a crate, which contained a blanket, before I could answer. “It’s cute and pointy,” he says. Oh, an echidna. I thanked him, took it, and walked back to camp, only later realizing I had no idea where to release it. So we just upended the box out in a field. However, it clung to the bottom for dear life, so I had the rare pleasure of terrifying a monotreme by lifting its claws, one by one, until it fell out. The creature simply curled up into a protective spiky ball, and started digging. There it remained for the rest of the day.

With all of these experiences with wild animals, I felt my natural instincts kick in. I had a real urge to mate. Conveniently, the teahouse waiter was plainly gay. I know this because he admitted he has CDs for Pink and Mika in his car. That was my cue to go for it. I figured inviting him for a “night hike” or to go “snake hunting” or telling him I was “on my knees all day (dramatic pause) looking for funnelwebs” was hint enough. The “UQ Union: Friends With Benefits” t-shirt was probably overkill. Unfortunately, the lazy bastard was off on our last night, so I never got to seal the deal. Still, I got to enjoy innuendo with the waiter in front of 30 oblivious people.

So despite the lack of snakes, trouser or otherwise, it was still quite the pleasant week. Of course, the meat and potatos was the funnelweb experiments…