What's slimy and worse than an Australian Snake?

We arrived yesterday in Tenterfield and settled in with our new hosts for the next few days. It's Sunday here and we set out for a little sightseeing in the Tenterfield area. There are several national parks. The first one we headed to was the falls in Boonoo Boonoo National park. That would be pronounced Baw-no Boo-new. I know, two words exactly the same spelling with different pronunciations. English is spoken here, but it's a whole other language let me tell you.

On the way to the falls we stop along the road to check out the Japanese tank traps set up during WWII. The Japanese had bombed Darwin in north Australia using the same carriers that bombed Pearl Harbor and the thought was that IF the Japanese would advance into Queensland and New South Wales, they would put in these tank traps along the "Brisbane Line" as a last line of defense. Well the Japanese never landed troops on Australian soil, but these tank traps still exist. They're in the mountains and our hosts seem to guess that these "traps" were more of a feel good measure because there was no way a tank could traverse this terrain.

Then we headed to Bald Rock National Park not very far away. It is the largest granite rock in Australia. If you've ever been to Stone Mountain Georgia, it's just like that only not commercialized and no confederate carvings. It was raining so we didn't head up the rock. Joe and I walked a few meters up and I slipped slightly coming down...just enough to be embarrassed a little and wet the back of my pants a lot.

After that we headed to a lavender farm. It's just what it sounds like and was quite interesting. We had lunch there prepared by the owner/ Rotarian. They have won numerous awards creating their essential oils from their lavender.

Now after that delightful day, here's the part that I'm including to try and make the people back home a little less jealous. Australia is the land of big things. Their bats are bigger, their snakes more poisonus, their spiders larger/ deadlier, the flies more numerous, their jellyfish more stinging. Texas could take a lesson from this country. When we arrived in Tweeds, our hosts warned us of the blue bottle jellies that had nasty stingers in the water and on the sand. Then the Coomera folks warned us of the bugs saying, "You're going out west...watch out for the flies! They're terrible!" I've avoided the jellies so far and the flies ARE bad just so you know. The thing about the snakes is that they flee from humans and most people never see them. That's good news. The one thing we were warned about somewhere along the way but we forgot about until this morning was the leeches.

We're out there looking at the Japanese tank traps and are getting ready to get back in the cars and they're everywhere. We had put insect repellant on our shoes and socks to keep them away and I never had any latch on to me (I don't think). But they're crawling all over your shoes. There's no pain, and you can just pull them right off. But these little creatures were only about a half inch long and IF they attached for very long we were told they could grow to 3-4" long in an hours time! At least the slimy snakes go away...these leaches come towards you! Needless to say these Missourians were a little freaked out. They'll attach through clothing too so you can't just rely on long sleeves and long pants. They like to attach in two places and to make it easier to remember this our hosts gave us a mnemonic device Always check your sock and your jock. You think ticks are bad, well just imagine checking for blood sucking slimy leaches attaching themselves you know where!

The question in the title of this blog was what's slimy and worse than an Australian snake? Now you know the answer.