Adventure in the Bush

Ranger in Namagdi National Park Visitor Center: most of the trails are closed due to recent flooding but there's a nice hike up this valley. Just watch out for the snakes, with this sun they'll be out and in the tall grass they'll be hard to see. Me: Snakes? What kind of snakes? Are they venomous? Ranger: Oh, yea they're all poisonous. There's the brown snake, the tiger snake, the death adder, the mulga,… Me: uh, what'll happen if I get bit, is the area patrolled? Ranger: well, you might die. Cell phone coverage is a spotty back there.

I drove to the Orroral Campground, where there was a single car, 2 kangaroos munching the grass next to it. I put on my running shorts and shoes and took off into the forest, following the Orroral river upstream, treading carefully and slowing to a walk when the grass obscured the trail. The trail climbed, then descended into a lush valley. I could see hundreds of kangaroos in troops about the valley, and rabbits scampered in all directions as I followed a barely-visible trail further upstream. Eventually I came to the site of a former NASA tracking station, now just concrete foundations. Aside from the 3 people I had passed on the trail just a short ways from the campground, I didn't see a single other person or car in the valley for the whole afternoon. The valley was magical, enchanting, dreamlike. The songs of birds I had never heard before, the breeze dancing in the tall grass, the brilliant blue sky adorned with billowing white clouds all made me very happy that I had come. And I didn't see a single snake.

I later learned that Australia is the only continent where venomous snakes (70%) outnumber non-venomous ones.