On top of the world...

As promised, I am posting a few pics of my new favourite hiking spot close to home....Crown land behind Alice Eastside, 5 minutes from home & spectacular views of  the West MacDonnell Ranges & Mount Sonder (below).  It looks almost fluorescent green after all the rain we have had in the last couple of weeks, a beautiful contrast don't you think?  I cant wait to see all the wildflowers in bloom!

 

My dogs love their new playground and it is also a favourite among dirt bike riders too....with many accepting the challenge of the rocky hillsides opposite the lookout (and making me stare wide eyed in wonder how they don't fall off!).

 

While wandering down the hill, singing to myself & feeling all serene after absorbing these vast open spaces that seem to soothe my soul, I noticed these beautiful markings in the sandy trail, criss crossing all over the place.  It wasn't until I finally realised that they disappeared into the large scrubby bushes next to the trail that it dawned on me they were 'possibly' snake trails.  I told myself this A/ because I only had one pair on knickers on me B/ because I had my best snake safety hiking attire of shorts and thongs on C/ because I had to get out of there and passing out would have helped no-one...and the dogs would have licked my face till it fell off.

I say this in jest as I am not actually afraid of snakes...not even the deadly variety.  That doesn't mean to say I would be happy to stumble across one in the wild....or even at home for that matter (and there has been a few accounts lately of people leaving their screen doors open to find brown snakes in their lounge room....eeek)  BUT these were all over the place, I mean EVERYWHERE...and they were LONG.   Like up to 5 meters at a time long.  I know that doesn't mean the snake was that long, but anything that can leave a thumb width dent and 5 meters long has already earned my respect man, no need to be a hero or anything!

Needless to say as soon as I got down that hill I jumped into the car and looked up snake trails in Central Australia and this is what I found......

A Brown snake trail....I wont put the snake up here as I HATE spiders and almost fall off my chair when someone kindly posts one on bloody Facebook, or I accidentally stumble upon a picture...eeek and cant get it off my screen fast enough then need to lie down and recover for a while after trying to scrub the image out of my eyeballs...okay I think my point is made, we are all scared of something, so I wont post that blasted snake.  But boy am I glad I didn't meet the fella or his friends...(gaggle?...what DO they call a bunch of snakes, a Wriggle?)

So to get our minds off that we can focus instead on the lovely colours of the Central Australian Dusk....

 

 

 

 

 

AND we won't think at all about how just two nights ago we were camping right here...

 

And I will leave you with a 'family joke' I have been taught since I was a little girl, hailing from my grandfather who sadly I never met as I think I would have done him proud with my own sense of humour...
Q:What do you do if you come across a (insert scary wild animal HERE) BROWN SNAKE in the wild?
A: You get a bit of poo on the end of a stick and wave it around and it will go away~!
Q: But...Where do you find the poo?
A: Oh YOU'LL find it, don't worry!

he he,  yep  quite possible a strange family ....