Swamp Creature

In many ways and for many reasons, the high level of suspicion inherent in the average suburbanite can only be an asset for that persons's local community. Those who know me know very well that, if I saw something suspect, I would make it my business to find out what was going on. I would also be the first on the phone/FB/Twitter to update anyone who might care to listen. 

Don't be at all surprised, if you are messing around out the front of my house, to see me standing in the window on the phone: but be warned - I'll typically be in my underwear and there is currently no remedy to remove THAT image from your occipital lobes! 

The fact that everybody makes everybody else's business their business makes great business sense. For instance, I had a trailer and bobcat stolen from the verge down the side of my house a few months back. Twenty minutes spent chatting to neighbours that are sensitive sleepers, night-shift workers and early rising laborers narrowed the exact time of the theft to within one single hour during the night. I got the trailer and bobcat back the next day. 

But citizen surveillance makes one of my favorite past times very awkward indeed. You see, no matter how many tiger snakes I see I always want to see more. For five seconds or five minutes - I don't care. I absolutely adore them. So if ever I am out and about, hopping from one meeting to the next, I might pop into a local park or sanctuary that has a bit of water in it to have a poke around. In doing this I have had some delightful little encounters that I never had the time to enjoy during the three year spent studying this very same species for my PhD. Back then if I saw one, I jumped on it and poked it with stuff.

My problem is that you can't see squat walking alongside a wetland on a cycle path 15 foot from the water;s edge. So you have to get in amongst it; get down into the reeds and the mud. However, when I find myself with these magic moments of free time, I am most often dressed in full business attire and this makes me look a little bit odd  and out-of-sorts to passersby.

Yesterday, in an affluent coastal suburb, I emerged from the rushes and came face to face with a relatively robust looking teenage lad and his even more robust looking hound. So perturbed was he at the sight of a suited male emerging from a wetland fringe that he actually changed trajectory and quickly walked off in the other direction. We passed each other again about 10 minutes later as I ploughed through a grove of Melaleuca and, although his dog gave me a kind muzzle in the crotch, this young man simply refused to acknowledge my presence. 

By the time a mid-40's mum pushing a pram doubled back to get a decent make on me and a younger mum at the play ground gave me a 15 second unblinking death stare I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and I left. I can imagine the tweets - 5ft 8' brown haired, Caucasian male seen skulking around in swamp #carineneighbourhoodwatch #stalker #pervert #swampcreature). 

So next time you see someone loitering around the waters edge at your local, rank, litter strewn, hydrocarbon infused swamp do please report them. Whether they are sinister pond slime with perverted intent or innocent pillars of the business and scientific community, they should be reported because they should not be there. It is your swamp in your community and it is up to you to keep your community safe.

Don't Poke a Troll Pith One Instead

In 2010 I bought a little Sony handicam and an editing program called Sony Vegas. As a field zoologist I was travelling prodigiously and I was seeing so many cool things that it would have been a crime not to record them. As a presenter on my own documentary I thought I was OK. Knowledgeable enough to be informative and animated enough to be interesting. As a producer I was remarkably efficient. I can remember, on more than one occasion, gathering a weeks worth of footage out bush, cutting and editing it on the 4 hour flight home from Kununurra to Perth and having it ready to upload as soon as I was within range of my WiFi. A ridiculous amount of effort went into the process and it was a lonely undertaking. So what did I get out of it? The number of hits was a true and real-time indication that the world beyond my screen was seeing what I saw when I was out in the wilderness a million miles from home. 

However, if I am to be totally honest, I am sorry to say that the dozens upon dozens of comments on social media became my vice. Like an illicit drug, the comments about my uploads were my best friend one day and my worst enemy the next. One comment would feed my ego and the next would crush my soul.

I know a great many people who present on screen. Having been invited to feature on a total of five full-on wildlife documentaries I have worked closely with the likes of William McInnes (author and that lanky cop on Blue Heelers) and Steve Blackshall of Deadly 60 fame.

I wonder how many personalities can put their hand on their heart and state, with conviction, that they accept the role of Presenter only so that they may have the privilege of acting as a conduit to communicate a story to the masses. How many would see being a presenter on the TV as a self-less act to benefit those less fortunate than them who are stuck at home on the sofa. I suspect not many. Like I was, I expect that the majority of them are inherently narcissistic. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, if it were not for the narcissists then our TV screens and iDevices would comprise only images of animals and landscapes with voice overs and no-one on screen to engage us. 

But one thing is for certain: When you make the decision to step in front of the camera then you make a decision to accept that whatever burns into the hard drive of that camera is ultimately gong to be cast out into the public domain like a clay pigeon, whether you like it or not. When you choose to be on camera you choose to be a little black duck on Day 1 of Duck Season. You put a big fat target on your back.

How I saw myself as an on-screen wildlife presenter - free as a bird; poetry in motion

How the trolls see me by virtue of the fact that I chose to be on camera

I uploaded 19 episodes of the Snake Whisperer and, until another gentleman trademarked the name,  my video (without any promotion or cyber wizardry) was the first to appear on a Google search. Until the day that it all went horribly wrong. During a live interview on a popular radio station called NOVA, where the intent was to help people overcome a fear of snakes, I was bitten by a Western Tiger Snake. NOVA were filming and they released it onto YouTube. You can join the other 54, 512 viewers and take a look.

But do me the courtesy of watching it to the end. You see, the Trolls did not and they were ruthless in their assault on my integrity, my personality and my purpose. It did not matter to them that I was trying to convey a positive message about snake safety and snake conservation. I was the idiot that was playing with a venomous snake in an awkward situation and I got bitten. As far as the Trolls were concern I deserved it and, it would seem, many would have been quite happy to have seen me drop to my knees and fall face down in a puddle of vomit and urine. Within days the footage had been viewed more times than all of my Snake Whisperer episodes put together and the pages and pages of vitriolic comments continued to flow. The damage was done and I don't think I never made another episode of the Snake Whisperer after that.

Now I hide behind the camera and I have discovered a little serenity. I have all the freedom in the world to communicate what I see and what I do. But the mere practice of not putting my face on screen seems to have created a far less penetrable, much more Troll proof body amour. I used to think I was Teflon coated and bullet proof, but now I realise that that is not the case and that there are others out there who have thicker skin than I. So I want to write for those people. I will write and they can tell the stories. And I won't be alone anymore.

With my new body armour on I am ready to wage war on the trolls. I will be at the right hand of my on-screen talent and I very much look forward to pithing my first Troll.

Like a Wet Dog After a Bath

I nearly barfed up my breakfast when I was looking for an image to go with this story. Search for any image of something even slightly disturbing on the World's Weird Web and you are always going to get visually punished for your curiosity. But this one is not too bad; it is sufficient to make the point.

Metaphorically speaking, there are many counter currents opposing each other and straining my everyday life. For instance, I want a nice garden so I water and fertilize and I get weeds. I enjoy having friends over for dinner and drinks; it's nice, but it means I get more dishes to wash when the night is over. I love to have a fluffy little Shitchew (Chi Tzu / Chihuahua cross) but, as a consequence I have turds on my lawn that Thing 1 and Thing 2 refuse to pick up.

But the two greatest adversaries waging a war against each other on the battlefield that is my body are the Sun's UV and my predilection for the great outdoors. Most of us love being outside and we choose to spend our free time basking in the glorious sunshine. Many work outdoors and, as a consequence, spend 40 hours per week, 48 weeks of the year in the sun and then still choose to be outside on the weekend. 

My job is a little different. I spend long periods trapped indoors under the pathetic incandescence of office lighting, only to be thrust outdoors into the field for 12 hours per day in the Kimberley or Pilbara region where temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius very regularly. To make matters that much worse I vehemently loath sunscreen. I don't know what it is like for the other 23.7345 million Australians, but it messes with my bodies thermoregulatory capacity. It restricts heat lost through evapotranspiration by clogging my every pore with, what is effectively, man-made grease.

I guess I would not be able to cry foul should I ever get diagnosed with a malignant melanoma. But, sunscreen or no sunscreen, whether you are exposed to UV for 40 hours per week or 4 hours per month, I beg every single person that reads this (which is probably only about 50 unfortunately) to GET A BLOODY MOLE SCAN once per year.

I used to. Every year. Then I got lazy and as each year passed I got more and more afraid to face the fact that freckles and bumps were changing and some were appearing that were not previously there. Having not had a scan since 2008, I knew I really needed to 'grow a pair' and make an appointment. But because someone had spilled a tin of yellow paint down my back my wife had to do it for me.

When I put the plug in the laundry sink and start filling it up with water my wee little Shitchew, who typically lives under our feet, is suddenly nowhere to be found. Yet, immediately after a bath he runs and runs in circles around the house at a level of stupid that makes Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels look like nuclear physicists. If the Mole Scan Surgery was the laundry trough then I was the happy little soaking wet Shitchew when the doctor told me that I was all clear of melanomas. 

So don't hesitate people: it sucks to have to have a bath but it only takes a minute and you will feel so very much better afterwards. 

Wrapped In Cotton Wool for a Reason

(5.18 x 5.18) x 2  = 26.83 (3.05 x 3.05) x 2 = 9.30

26.83 + 9.3 = 36.13

36.13 square meters

Because I have all the maturity of a 15 year old, when my wife suggested we get a trampoline I thought that was a great idea. As my kids, Thing 1 and Thing 2, are 13 and 11 and both do acrobatics, I naturally thought that big is best. I didn't want one of those stupid round trampolines for jumpy fun. I wanted a proper big rectangle one. So we hit the net (the internet) and found what we were looking for. 

When I went to pick it up in the company ute, I just happened to have a dual axle 2 tonne capacity flat bed trailer on the back (it carries my bobcat). I'm glad I did because this thing was gargantuan. So big was it, that I actually had to bring Google Earth up on my phone, find my house and measure my back yard. That little excercise suggested it was going to be a tight fit, so I asked my dear wife to go home from work and actually physically measure the back yard. 

She expressed grave concern and suggested we get a smaller one (that would be sensible), so I bought the bigger one.

I thought that Thing 1 & 2, could do many tricks on such a big trampoline. And with that towering safety net and padded springs we would be safe from any possible injury. Certainly, much safer than when I was a child. Back then, a failed attempt at a double back would send you shooting off the side of the tramp and the closest thing to a safety net was the old Super Six asbestos fence. A  front half twist resulted in both legs through the springs and the only padding to cushion the blow was your underpants and shorts. The advantages of trampolining back in my day were twofold: fitness and the ability to sing soprano after nearly every accident.

But, alas, my mega tramp came with a strict warning. There was to be no somersaults, flips, twists or double bouncing i.e. no fun. It said so in bright white permanent marker in a big bold white box on the safety padding at the entry point. The warnings were hard to miss, to say the least.

So after about......ooooohhhhhhh......maybe, 15 seconds I decided that, as the manufactures were not present in the privacy of my back yard, we would ignore the warnings and bust out some big moves. Needless to say, it was not long before our lack of attention to safety bit us on the backside.

This trampoline has 36.13 square meters of safety netting and only about 1 square meter in which to enter and exit. Thing 2 undid the zipper to enter whilst Thing 1 was bouncing. Thing 2 did not think to close the zipper. After a very nice layout back somersault with an very unfortunate over-rotation Thing 1 shot back wards on the rebound of her landing. Of the 36.13 square meters of netting, she some how managed to find the gap you see pictured above. She also found a Cottonwood tree and a soft clump of Liriopes. Luckily, she did not manage to find the concrete wall.

After some remedial therapy on Thing 1, I decided to recapture my youth (as a gymnast) and attempt a layout back-sault half twist. I promptly landed on my face and this morning my neck is very sore . Now I have to stare at my laptop with my head skewed so that my left ear is nearly resting on my shoulder. 

Today I am off to the newsagent to get one of those big, fat white ink permanent markers.

Would you sell your sister?

My two kids are each other's 'besties', but when they are fighting like two mangy alley cats their answer to this question would probably be yes. But the question is simply a metaphor inviting you to ponder the following scenarios.

Pets are often considered very much a part of the family and, often, I think they are actually more endearing than family members. That being the case, most normal people would perish the thought of voluntarily relinquishing their pet for financial gain or to honor some type of contractual obligation. Any reasonable person would not commit to a pet if they new they would have to give it up. 

Could you imagine purchasing a wee little fluffy puppy, feeding it and nurturing it for 12 months and then handing it over to a complete stranger. I can't imagine that anyone would ever willingly put themselves in that situation. But people do. They really do. Not so much with dogs and cats, but with other animals.

'A pet is for life' is the common mantra of animals welfare groups and they have a very valid point. If you accept the responsibility of ownership of a living, breathing organism that is dependent on you then you should damn well look after it until it, or you, takes a last breath. I know very well that this is not always the case and that there is a sub-set of lower human life forms that acquire a pet without thinking through the commitment required and then abandon it for the most insignificant of reasons. But that is not what this is about. I am talking, here, about people willingly opening their hearts to a pet that they know they will have to give up.

Lets first consider the pets that reside in the shallower end of the emotional pond: the reptiles. Most Australian’s acknowledge that things are done a little differently in the Northern Territory but let us not be prejudice.  In the NT you are allowed to purchase a crocodile from a licenced supplier and keep it as a pet in the middle of suburbia. The only caveat is that you have to surrender it once it attains a certain size. So Territorians purchase a little snapper, fall in love with it, feed it and watch it grow and, the minute it hits 60cm in length they have to give it up to whomever it was purchased from. Wouldn't you save yourself the pain and just not get the animal in the first place?

A similarly bizarre behaviour is common among amateur herpetoculturalists: people who keep reptiles and amphibians as pets. In Western Australia laws allowing people to keep reptiles as pets were only passed in about 2003. So for many years thereafter keepers were very limited in the number of species they could choose to have as pets. As such, unique variations in colour morphology were all the rage. It was not unusual for a keeper to hatch a snake, that was quickly integrated into the family as besotted pet, only to swap it a few years down the track for the same species of snake a slightly different colour. I know, I was one of those people. Make no mistake, we loved our animals and spent obscene amounts of money on them, but for reasons that I can't imagine would extend to the family mutt, we traded animals like they were baseball cards.

At this point you are thinking that my argument is a little shallow because it is based on pets that are generally regarded as having zero ability to express affection and are not at all altruistic in their emotion. Well then, let us consider horses.

Meet Blacky, and Emma. Both are part of a good friend's family

It is no secret that horse people are a little obsessive. I am fairly certain the average horse owner would dismember, with a spoon, any person that represented a threat to their beloved ungulate. The connection that a true equinist shares with their horse is hard to define, suffice is to say that it is deep. But horse people will sell their animals if they desire to do so, no matter how strong the bond is with the animal. 

I have a friend who is a competitive show-jumper that has dominated the local scene for many years. In 2012, at the age of 23, she was given the opportunity to compete in Europe. Her sponsors paid the $25,000 AUD to transport her horse half way around the world. Before she left, I asked her what she would do for money if she chose to stay on longer than her sponsors were willing to support her and her answer was concise and direct: she would sell her horse. Now this is a horse that she had grown up with. A horse she got as a foal when she was a teenager. Her horse was an extension of her body as a rider and jumper, but he was also a companion that gave her peace and solace and kept her grounded (her words) as a teenager and as a young adult. In fact, this horse was not a pet; it was her best friend.

After two years on the European show jumping circuit she has returned to Perth and I caught up with her the other day for a coffee. I told her that I had been pondering the conundrum that she faced when she left and I asked her what had become of Blacky. Yes, she had sold him, but uttering those words  out loud almost immediately brought a tear to her eye. It was easy to see that this would have been the hardest decision she had ever made, but it was a choice she had to make to enable her to do what she had aspired to do as a child. It was a very mature and practical decision she had made that carried with it a massive emotional burden. Imagine having to deal with that? 

So next time you gaze into the eyes of your fur child spare a thought for those that choose to love an animal knowing that, one day they will have to let it go. Cue music score from 'born free'.

Isle of the Dead

Picture postcard perfect isn't it? But it wasn't always so. From 1830 to 1877 more than 12,500 convicts did 'hard time' at the Port Arthur penal colony on the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania. The peninsula was ideally suited as base for convict settlement due to it's topographic setting; even though it is a substantial and diverse land mass it clings desperately to the south east of Tasmania by a land bridge that is not more than 100 m wide.

For the convicts cast out of England in the early 1800's, this meant that once you had arrived on the peninsula there was little chance of getting off alive, unless you graciously accepted your punishment, put your back into the hard labor and dutifully served out the full term of your incarceration. Many refused to do so and, as such, paid the ultimate price.

Port Arthur and surrounds was a melting pot for the best and worst of society born of the womb of Mother England. Endearing adventurers, incredible architects and amazing engineers, together with their wives and families, threw their hat in the ring to help build this remarkable settlement in what must have felt like the most distant and darkest bowels of the known world. But, with the good came the bad and the bad came in their thousands.

Troubled children as young as 9 years of age were sent to Point Puer Boys' Prison while the adult penitentiary at Port Arthur became a seething, writhing cesspit of rapists, murderers, thieves, fraudsters and heretics. Needless to say, not all of the 12,500 convicts that arrived at Port Arthur managed to survive the full term of their incarceration. Some slipped away quietly in their sleep after battling malnutrition, dysentery or worse. With delusions of a successful escape, some slipped away quietly in the night only to be shot in the back by one of 25 soldiers or mauled by one of a dozen dogs that guarded the land bridge at Eaglehawk Neck. A great many died in anguish; descending into a state of lunacy when they fell through the cracks of the master plan, which was to reform and rehabilitate them into honest and abiding new citizens of Van Diemen's Land. 

But where did all the dead go? Worthy of no respect in life and deemed worthy of less still in death, over 1000 convicts were buried in unmarked graves on the southern side of the Isle of the Dead. 

Sharing this tiny land mass, though partitioned at a respectful distance from the damned convicts, were nearly 300 colonialists who's graves were adorned with elaborate tributes. So in death, as it was in life, the military and civilian officers and their families continued to lord over the filth of the mother country for what is now approaching 185 years. 

If that were not demeaning enough, consider this - the Google Earth image below clearly shows that the Isle of the Dead is no bigger than a football field. With nearly 300 grave sites accommodating civilian and military folk placed in neat, geometric rows one can surmise that there was not a great deal of room for the 1000 convicts. These, the scum of society, were therefore either buried on top of each other or vertically; slumped or standing depending on the size of the individual and the dimensions of the space available in which to dig them a hole. 

 

Considering all of the above, it should come as no surprise that there are more than a few well documented accounts of the paranormal at Port Arthur. A decade and half after it was closed, many of the convicts that died an untimely death are very likely still seeking the absolution that they were never granted in life.

To enable us, the tourists, to fully appreciate these untold stories the (exceptional) guides at Port Arthur offer tours of the penal settlement in the dead of night. They punctuate your lantern-lit journey with tales of strange occurrences and sightings that have been documented in years gone by. Some stories capture the deaths of inmates so agonised that their passing almost justifies or validates their right haunt us in the present. The tour is so comprehensive that the guides will even lock you in the torture cell; a cell where the worst inmates were held for up to 30 days in a tiny, cold, damp stone room that is darker than death itself.

However, what came as a massive surprise to me was that Port Arthur do not offer up what could only be described as the greatest challenge ever to the paranormal skeptic: the chance to spend a comfortless night on the Isle of the Dead. If you believed that you truly don't believe, then this would most certainly test your resolve.

I would go back to Port Arthur tomorrow for a dozen different reasons. If they were to offer me the chance to sleep on the Isle of the Dead I would be back there in a heartbeat.

What A Scientist Sees That Others Don't

Lonely Planet lists Port Arthur as the most visited destination in all of Tasmania. It is not hard to imagine why. The history of this place is of national and international significance. Established as a penal station in 1830, Port Arthur has more architectural and anthropological history, and more heritage value packed into 40 ha than the rest of Australia has within its 7, 694, 024 km2. I'm not kidding; it is a full-on mind-soaking experience.

It is also notable for an atrocity far worse than any experienced by the convicts back in the day. It is the site of Martin Bryant's massacre of  35 men, women and children (a further 19 wounded) in 1996. Oh, the irony: So much suffering has been endured at what is now a simply magnificent place. I don't believe that I am at all overstating the sensory impact that Port Arthur has on the average Australian or International tourist. It is overwhelming, which makes the following account of my first visit here all the more abstract.

It was 2003 and I had decided to invest what little money I had as a PhD scholar into attending the Australia New Zealand Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry conference in Hobart. Budget travel (red-eye), budget accommodation (shared with many) and budget food (beer and whatever biscuits appeared on the coffee breaks). We, the delegates, had the last day free before our flight home so, like every other tourist that visits Tasmania, we chose to spend it at Port Arthur. 

Now I am hoping that the delegate to whom I make reference was at least a little enamored with the architectural, historical, cultural, religious, engineering and anthropological attributes of Port Arthur because, as I tottered along behind her, she espoused an observation so very underwhelming that I can still recall it 12 years later. 

She observed the wear and tear in the steps leading out of the Commandant's House and remarked that the abrasions of nearly two hundred years of foot traffic reflected the inverse shape of a Bell Curve (Normal or Gaussian Distribution). If you are not a scientist do please flick to this page so you know what I am talking about. In short, a bell curve is a graphical representation that shows a common pattern of how the majority of a collection of data points or values describing one variable (e.g. human height or human weight) fall close to and either side of the average or mean. Many values falls further from the mean and far few values fall far from the mean; at the extremes. For instance 500 adult blokes may weigh 80 kg, another 450 blokes may weigh either 75 or 85 kg and only 50 blokes would weigh either 50 or 110 kg. 

Despite the 'Nerd Factor' of this comment she was pretty much spot on. On average people stepped in the middle of the step with about 50% stepping to the right and 50% stepping to the left of center. 95% of the ascents or descents down these steps were made within two standard deviations of the mean, and some people went down the steps or up the steps way over to one side or the other!! The tendency for the wear to be to the left may reflect the fact that this side has a hand rail? How ridiculously dull, but delightfully logical.

Check out that nearly bimodal distribution on the bottom step! That is a whole-nother story

I vowed to myself that if I ever went back to Port Arthur I would photograph the steps as a tribute to my fellow delegates scientific insight and I did exactly that. But like any true scientist I had to further investigate this paradigm of predictability so I sought out some better examples. This is what we, as scientists, call 'one-up-man-ship'. In this next example we have the repeated pattern of the normal distribution through the sedimentary layers of this sandstone step!! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!!

Such an astute and agile scientist am I that I even managed to capture an image that re-enforces this paradigm in real time allowing me to surmise something truly profound.The person in the photo is a complete stranger to me. She knows nothing about me other than the fact that I was lying in the hallway of the Commandant's House taking photos of people's feet for no apparent reason. But this observation facilitates a conclusion about this lady that is as sinister as it is profound: like the thousands of deviants and misfit convicts that trod before her over these very steps nearly 200 years ago, this woman chooses to walk one standard deviation left of the mean!!! It proves conclusively that all Aussies are basically just the progeny of convicts.

Just missed out on the trifecta

I don't bet on the ponies. My Grandpa did and, as I understand it, he lost a pretty penny or two at the track. Forgive my ignorance, but I do believe that to win a trifecta you must pick the first, second and third nag across the line. I don't know if the finishing order is important? 

Whatever the case, when searching for fauna in Tasmania, my trifector comprises the race favourites or sure bets: the Lowland Copperhead, White-lipped Snake and the Tasmanian Tiger Snake. Every other animal is just an 'also ran', with the notable exception of the quolls and er....the echidnas.....and the wombats.........and, of course the devils which are all so ridiculously cute and appealing to even the most hard-core herpetologist.

Just days after publishing my recent blog lamenting the alarming amount of road kill around Tasmania, my family and I have just enjoyed the most magnificent day immersed among the pristine landscapes and iconic wildlife of Cradle Mountain. The best bit? Well, I am most pleased to report that, in Cradle Mountain at least, nearly all of the fauna still has a pulse.

When we first arrived, I felt a bit like a bullock being herded into a corral to be sent off for slaughter. We were bundled through the Walkers Registration, had 12 gig of verbal data dumped upon us before being pushed out through a (metaphorical) one way revolving door only to be crammed onto a mini-bus and ferried to the base of the mountain. I immediately forgave the clinical nature of this entire process the instant that I realised that the crowd control was for the express purpose of maintaining the majesty of this Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. It was amazing: A credit to Parks and Wildlife Tasmania.

Lets get the mammals out of the way first. A full-grown adult echidna waddled across the road in front of us as we drove into the park. So enamored by it were we that we sat in the car, all four of us with a 'daft cutesy' look on our faces. It was actually the fourth one we had seen, but I never tire of simply observing their clumsy agility Then, finally, a real live adult wombat. I had seen a couple recently on Flinders Island but I could never get close enough to fully appreciate them. This big bad boy simply wandered past us as if we were not even there.

As for my trifecta? Well my wife and two kids passed within inches of a gorgeous White-lipped Snake that was splayed out in full sun atop a small mass of miniature ferns. It did not even move, assuming it's presence had been missed. One down, two to go.

Only 100 m shy of the end of the last walk for the day I was nearly overwhelmed by anxiety at the prospect of not seeing another snake. Then I heard a very faint noise well behind me and to my right; off the path. My desperation was such that I actually turned around and went back to have a look as the family stormed ever onward. After glimpsing the tiniest length of black tail disappearing under a tussock I dived into the bushes and I poked and prodded around until finally I saw this sub-adult Tiger Snake. Two out of three, but our time at Cradle Mountain was over.

We descended from the highlands to the coastal town of Launceston arriving a little after 5:30. So desperate was I for the trifecta I hit Google maps, found a stormwater catchment wetland, threw on my joggers and abandoned the family for a sprint through the grasslands and damplands. I took a punt that this was the nearest and best chance I had of finding that elusive Lowland Copperhead. 

Unfortunately, like every gambler willing to play the odds on a long shot in the hope of a hitting pay dirt, I finished the day in the gutter. But just like every gambler, I have succumb to my obsession less than 24 hours later and I am heading out yet again with a totally renewed enthusiasm.

PLEASE SLOW DOWN (graphic content)

Spot-lighting is fun for the whole family. The other night at Tarraleah the family bundled itself into our Hireundi and set off, in our pyjamas, to see some wildlife. We were immediately rewarded with numerous macropods bounding left and right, in and out of our field of view. We saw Bennett's Wallaby, Tasmanian Pademelon and I was blown clean into next week when I spyed a Spotted Quoll. It was standing up proud on it's hind quarters peering out of the grass by the roadside. This was the faunal equivalent of pulling three matching cherries on the poky machines at your local RSL.

I thought we had done very well on our little nocturnal foray. But that paled in comparison to the plethora of new species we were to discover the very next day in the short, 35 km drive from Tarraleah to the Derwent Bridge. We discovered four new mammal species not previously described by science. 

The first and most significant by far was a species I shall name the Tasmangled Devil. I suspect this species is closely related to the Tasmanian Devil (Endangered under the EPBC Act (1999)), however this new species must be far more common as we saw three in under one hour. The two appear quite discernible, as the Tasmangled Devil has blood red fur and it's intestines are typically located externally to and distal from the rectum. Both species have large flashes of bright white on the dorsal fore-quarter and both have large eyes that glow bright red when the animal looks directly into your high beam. It is surprising this species has remained undiscovered when it appears so obvious in the headlights of anyone travelling at night.

The taxon most commonly encountered was the Splattymelon, with the holotype encountered within two minutes of leaving Tarraleah, and dozens more paratypes observed at 100 m intervals along the road for most of the journey. In a cold, lifeless bundle by the roadside and missing half of it's hair having usually been dragged under a moving vehicle, this species is difficult to discern from the newly described Bennett's Whallopy (Ladyman c2015). A determination is most easily made by the length of the hind limbs when the animal is fully bloated and they are at their most distended.

One particularly interesting new discovery was the species I shall name the Wombsplat. What is most interesting is not only the commonality of this species, but the shear size. Measuring nearly one metre and length with a shoulder hieght of nearly 40cm it must be nearly impossible NOT to see this slow moving creature as it ambles across the road. It's presence is especially obvious when it is taking refuge under a small vehicle such a Suzuki Swift or Kia Rio, the front end of which has been shattered by the impact and the vehicle, like the Wombsplat, sits motionless by the roadside. 

Finally, we have the species I shall name the Crumbled Mushtail Possum. The closely related congener, the Common Brushtail, sometimes occurs in plague proportions in areas of agriculture and forestry and they are shot or trapped in their thousands as part of an annual and highly regulated commercial harvest in Tasmania. However, it is very apparent to me, from the number of individuals of the Mushtail that I observed, that this species would be far better suited to commercial harvest as they don't need to be shot or trapped. It would appear that the Crumbled Mushtail employs a defensive strategy that sees individuals immediately feign death when they encounter bitumen. Therefore harvest simply requires a shovel and a plastic bag.

Please, when you are touring Tasmania, slow down and enjoy the fauna alive. Do not drive on autopilot like every other tourist seems to do. We don't need to create any more new species.

. 

Just keep swimming swimming swimming

Product Disclosure Statement: I am not exceptionally fit, nor am I exceptionally motivated and I am about as qualified as a used car salesman to dispense my philosophy to others on the art of living well. I do not write for your counsel: I just do what I do and So Lucky To Be Alive is simply the medium by which I enjoy the catharsis of writing.

Boarding the plane for Hobart I was brimming with anticipation at the prospect of 14 days exploring all that Tasmania has to offer. Though I had only ever briefly visited once before, I had enjoyed Tasmania a great many times vicariously through customer’s photos during my time as a photo lab technician.

As a photo lab tech you see the world in negative. Words and images are reversed and colours are inverted. But you become adept are re-reversing the images in your mind and so when I saw negatives richly saturated by magenta I knew I was looking at Tasmania. Nowhere else is as vividly green.

You cannot begin to imagine how disappointed I was with the landscape from Hobart through to the highland town of Tarraleah. Everywhere east of Tarraleah to Hobart is on the wrong side of the orographic rainfall effect: Clouds rise over the highlands, condense and dump all of their rain on the highlands. From Hobart to Tarraleah the forest was not at all spectacular and all of the rolling pasture lands looked parched and desperate, relative to what I had anticipated. Worse was that this cardboard country side had been dissected by power line corridors no less than 100m wide and clear-felled of any and all forest.

I was so deflated by the time I reached Tarraleah; a feeling that was compounded by the miserable weather. It was December 29. The rain was thrashing sideways, icy winds were lacerating any exposed living tissue and, to add insult to injury, the gods saw fit to pelt my hire car with hailstones!

I desperately needed to lift my spirits so I slipped on my runners and hit the forest trails.

Granted, there is no more difficult a task than lifting yourself out of a comfortable club lounge chair in front of a gas log fire only to step outside into Antarctic wind and sideways rains.  Trust me, I know.

But this is what I did and as I dissolved into the wilderness I left my misery behind me. Towering ferns invited me in.

When your heart is pounding in your throat and your body ducks and weaves to avoid gnarled branches that threaten to take your eyes out you feel very much alive. When you are trail running your feet move faster than your brain will allow just to find traction on the irregular surface. You feel yourself sliding down the phylogenetic tree as you become less human and more wild animal. Nothing else matters except the path you can barely see in front of you. It does not even matter where you are going provided you have the stamina and the resolve to get home again.

I started running just shy of ten years ago. I was terribly unfit and I hit the wall after just 800m, grinding down from a jog to a stumble to a walk. It was the first and only time I have ever broken stride during a run. You see, I run governed by only one rule; never stop running. It is a simple rule with one primary function. It forces me to push myself whether I want to or not. It is not rocket science and, as such, I will explain to you how it works.

1) When you make the decision to run you must go for a run. Once committed approach Step 2 very carefully;

2) When you walk out of the front door you must have a destination clear in your mind;

3) Unless you have no alternative, you must never run home the way you ran out to reach your destination;

4) No matter what obstacles present during the run you must never, ever break stride and stop running. By definition, to walk means to have one foot in contact with the ground at all times, therefore to run simply means to have a moment of time where neither foot is on the ground.

When I descended nearly 300m in a matter of minutes on Tarraleahs Eagle Trail I knew the ascent was going to burn like fire, but I just kept running. I never stopped moving forward even if my forward momentum was measurable in inches per hour rather than miles.

The pipe marks a 584m drop from the hill crest to the valley below.

If you just keep running, moving ever forward in inches, meters or miles, you will amaze yourself at what you can achieve. But if you break stride and walk, even just once, you will find that your weakness will cut you down time and time again. It will white-ant your intestinal fortitude to the point where you wont bother to run any more.

Run hard, run wild; connect with your primal being.