Eggbert's Travels

Sunday 14^th May 2017

SHE SAID:

WELL WHAT A NIGHT!...

Technically it happened last night from around 10.30pm, but we were still awake till well after midnight! We heard a thump coming from the direction of the lounge. Geoff went to investigate, but couldn't see why it had happened. A little while later it happened again, so we both got up & headed into the lounge area. I turned on all the lights & we spotted a couple of ornaments on the floor by one of the bookcases. And a rapidly disappearing brown “snake-like tail” heading into the bookcase. OMG!

Very carefully Geoff started moving books off the shelves where we last saw it; he pushed them onto the floor with a long stick. Nothing was seen for ages. We'd moved about 75% of the books, trying to narrow down the area, then we saw it trying to hide from us, curled up tightly in a corner on top of some books that we hadn't yet moved! It was a lovely coppery brown colour. We had NO idea what it might be, but it wasn't a python, so it could have been deadly.

I found a snake catcher's phone number in Cairns, woke the poor guy up, sent him a picture & he ID'd it as a Brown Tree Snake: NOT deadly – phew. He suggested we just try & sweep it out with a broom! Not as easy as it sounds!

We nearly got it into a sack, but it slithered away into the hardest to reach corner of the bookcase. I got a metal coat hanger & Geoff bent & twisted it around a long thin stick. He eventually hooked it & rushed outside, throwing it into the bush!

OM*G! 

We were so hyped up after that it took about ½ hour to relax enough to go to sleep.

To top the day off we went & watched the release of a huge 100+ year old Green Turtle back into the ocean off Kurrimine Beach. She had been rescued 5 months ago when she was seen floating in the water in obvious distress.

This will be a 24 hours to remember!

The only picture I got of the snake, sadly, but we were in no state get posed photos!

The aftermath of our snake hunting exercise last night!

And Geoff armed to the eyeballs!

The crowds begin to gather on Kurrimine Beach in hopes of seeing a Green Turtle

getting released back into it's home environment

Lining up as the turtle is carried to the water's edge

Euroma the 100 year old Green Turtle arrives

Euroma's last journey to the ocean, with the help of her rescuer; right &

the people who rehabilitated her (she had swallowed heaps of plastic, & was unable dive because of it)

Free at last, she makes a speedy getaway to the water

HE SAID:

We know that most people around here keep all trees and shrubbery well away from their houses, and for good reason. The nearer the trees/shrubs/bushes etc to a house the better the chances of meeting an unwanted trespasser of some sort. This house has trees and shrubs touching the house.

Today's unwanted trespasser was the world's deadliest (in my mind for a few minutes, at the time, until guess-semi-identified by the Cairns snake bloke), and we wanted it gone! I knew there would be no sleep for us until it was found and removed.

Only some of my profuse sweating was due to the exertion of removing a few hundred books from a bookcase with one hand whilst leaning at a strange angle and holding a stick! I reckon I was more of a klutz like Steve Irwin, than a smooth operator like Attenborough.

But we got the job done! No-one got eaten, harmed, or killed in any way. The snake was released into the wild, and we were relieved into the bed. At last.

PS: The dog, Bruce, either didn't detect the snake, or didn't care. Either way he was as much help as a chocolate teapot.