Southern Cross Creations

An Australian Woman's Journal
about life in remote, rural
Far North Queensland

21 September 2002
We're back home after house-and-dog sitting in Cairns for Redbird and Cameron. I like Cairns best in the winter as the tropical summer heat wipes me out. I had forgotten what a luxury it is to have unlimited electricity, and a supermarket nearby!

Being home again, I wonder what makes it seem so peaceful here. I notice how few human sounds I hear and how bright the stars are. The night brings out other inhabitants of our home, like this gecko, (7-8 cm; 3 inches). He has large, lidless eyes and soft, velvety skin. He runs up glass windows or stone walls, no worries, to catch moths lured inside by the kitchen light.

Some geckoes spent the winter in a box containing various bits of our power supply (solar panels/generator to batteries, etc). The inverters there stay warm enough to keep a gecko toasty in cold weather.

14 September 2002

We left Cairns to spend last weekend on the Walsh River. Martin and Asmund, visiting from Norway, joined us and Asmund found quite a surprise one morning.

Click on the picture of Martin and Asmund to see Martin's photos of our unexpected visitor.

The lid to the toilet had been left open and carpet snake moved into the toilet bowl. He wouldn't leave! If we disturbed him, he disappeared down the S-bend! (A carpet snake is a kind of python. This one is maybe two metres - or six feet - long.)

Neighbour Max tells us that carpet snakes sometimes like to immerse themselves before molting, perhaps to soften their skin.

When we left for Cairns a few days later, the snake was still in charge of the toilet. A neighbour checked while we were away and reported that, yes, the snake was still there. Lucky for us, another neighbour offered to remove the snake. This is how Dave explained his success:

(Don't Try This At Home, Kids!)

"You walk in slow, talking gentle to the snake, don't pause to wonder what to do, just walk up slow, keeping talking and grab the snake behind the head with one hand. Then grab as far down as possible with your other hand and keep pulling. When the snake gives a little, move your second hand further along and keep pulling. Took about ten minutes. I released him about 100 metres down the hill. Maybe he'll find some rats to eat down there. Better keep the toilet lid down though. That snake knows that's a good hidey hole!"