Snakes- they're back! Were they ever gone?

[Lamont]

Near Boar Gully, Brisbane ranges yesterday walking along singing along to soft music f%(%#@n' big Tiger snake on the side of the path had a go at me.
Saw it in all it's cobra like glory-raised and flattened head neck. It was either a half-hearted strike or more likely, the just woken strike. Either way he missed! I jumped / leapt and stopped a few metres away. Then it sat, raised head about 15cms off the ground waiting for a minute, then put it's head on a rock facing me.
My message to you all -Don't listen to f%&()&%$n' HOODOO GURUS (apologies to the Gurus- can't keep still when I listen to them) music that makes you sing or dance or otherwise be distracted when you should be watching what you are f(^%$#)n' doing!

[Xplora]

Came across my first Tiger of the season yesterday fishing our river. He was just warming up and a little poke got him off the track. It is hard to keep an eye on the water and on the track. Fishing is quite distracting as well. I have not seen a Tiger near the water in our area before and only in the last couple of years have we seen any. Mostly Copperheads and I just walk over them. Waders and gaters are good protection but still does not take the fright away.

[Biggles]

There is a proliferation of snakes in the Great Otway National Park at this moment. The burst of heat over the weekend was just the thing to get them moving!

Two were seen yesterday on an untracked, GPS-tracked route to OREN Falls, out of Forrest.
The first was fat and well fed and was in no hurry to move off three rocks in a clear gully of Smythe Creek West Branch.
The second was thinner, more spritely and guarded, turning abrubtly from a shaft of light penetrating the rainforest canopy and disappearing quickly into a copse of ferns. My companion swore something and glowered at me. Well! As if I am to blame for snakes!

I don't think any walker(s) should go about their activities on the expectation there is nothing much lurking right ahead or left and right — it is there, and often well within striking distance. We were kitted out in long pants and gaiters (despite the oppressive heat in the windless environment). Two of the group declined to start the walk after a briefing that the route was undefined and that snakes "will likely be encountered" (absolutely correct!). We got in and out over 5.30 hours within incident (except for mud and leech bites).

I expect to see more tigers next weekend on another walk in a more familiar environment where the striped serpents have been observed trackside several times. BTW, another walker has told me last night tigers are "on the march" at Mountain Creek campsite, jump-off point for Bogong. This is a lovely spot, but not without hazard!

I have a memory of Mountain Creek.
Back in 2004, an bicycle touring Adelaide guy who was escaping from family troubles, camped in the thick scrub downstream at Mountain Creek (you would never know he was there unless you bravely ventured that far), and every day, he was surrounded by active tigers! I saw them too, so I bedded down in the back of the car! A carefree German, he seemed unfussed by the attention, until they started coming into his tent, and he was fishing them out by the tail and throwing them into the creek (!) I asked him if he knew they were quite dangerous snakes. I thought maybe he was high on the herbs; he responded very lazily with an obscure German saying, "...kommt zeit, kommt rat" (in his own fractured words, "time brings counsel"). Next day he had packed up and was departing. I was leaving for home too.

Some weeks after, I received a lovely card from him, which I still have (written by an unknown second person in elegant cursive freehand on his behalf at Marla Roadhouse) with a photo of Mother Teresa on the front cover): he was enjoying camping in the scrub at Marla, en route Alice Springs and wished me well in my photography and travels.

I often wonder whatever became of Alfons, the long-haul bicycle tourist (as I was from 1982 to 1997). Because that card was the last I heard of him...

[legend]

Snakes are around all year. They are sometimes a bit slow, but I have come across them here in East Gippsland in July and August (a tiger on the beach near Point Hicks, and quite a few blacks near Dock Inlet and Cape Conran). The ones near Dock Inlet were seen on a road on cool drizzly day.
I have seen a copperhead just below the Kerries on a grassy patch in early September, and another cooperhead chasing a white-lip snake near Mt Lea (Main Range) on Melb cup w/e.
They are out there, most are quite placid - just take care

[Overlandman]

Saw 2 tiger snakes last week in the wild on the side of a road near Penguin
Generally they are out and about around Father’s Day, but will venture out on a sunny day during winter
or if they get flooded out.
I woke mine up a couple of weeks ago.
Fed them on Sunday for the first time in 5 months.
They have their 18th birthday in January.
Regards OLM.

[rcaffin]

Never mind the snakes - they are light-weight. It's the big goanna that currently lives under our deck that is the problem. He parks himself half out from underneath the deck and everyone goes everywhere when my wife or I go to step off the deck just there. He can move VERY fast across the garden and up a tree when he wants to.

Cheers
Roger

[Neo]

Cool you have a goanna! Lucky you are.

Less relaxed then a python but no worse than a rooster with attitude.