Geocaching Australia

Almost stepped on a black snake last Tuesday whilst doing a cache in Ballan, Vic. The grass was very long (about 700mm) and quite thick and I only saw it when I stopped to take a photo of the cache site.

Looked down at the carmera phone and saw the snake right beside my shoe. I momentarily froze until I heard it start to turn around in the grass and I ran back to GZ. Silly thing to do really, because I had to then go past the site to get back to the car.

This was the first very close encounter in 3 years of caching and it has made me very wary of any long grass areas now.

Went for an overnight camping trip to the Colo River yesterday. On the drive in had to dodge about a 1.5metre black snake that was crossing the dirt road - might have been a red belly, didn't stop to look closely.

Mannum quarry on Friday I was having a look for a cache under some big rocks. While I was doing that I was thinking 'gee, I hope I don't see a snake here' and guess what... I did . The gentle rustle of the grass in the wind was just enough to cover the rustle of the grass by the snake. A nice 5 foot brown. Fortunately I saw it when I was walking to the next pile of big rocks so it was on open ground in front of me and not backed up in a hole with nowhere to go but forwards towards me.

Later that day Nomad was looking for a cache in a tree. She went to look in a hollow but the hollow started to hiss at her . She decided that she didn't want to look in there after all.

At 130kg, whenever I have stamped through the bush, I am yet to see a snack on the track. I did have an interesting experience with a baby tigersnake once.

Log from now archived cache in Hunter Valley;
December 11, 2006 by bshwckr (398 found)
Had to fight a TIGER SNAKE for this one. Snake was a baby (but still deadly poisonous) and was all over the cache, and the long grass. Thought it had gone then nearly stepped on it just as I laid my hands on the cache. It struck but missed (I was wearing shorts!). I bolted back to the car with cache in hand and sat there writing the log. Then, all I had to do was place the cache back, no problems How slow do you think I placed my feet down in the grass on the way back to the cache spot!!!!

Ever since then, I carry some leather work gloves in my caching bag and if I need to stick my hand in a hole in summer, I slip the gloves on.

2 X 1.5m brown snakes on Tuesday last week in Mt Crawford within 50m of each other - one at GZ

Mrs matmob was absolutely paranoid about snakes, however after several sightings whilst caching has become slightly (ever so slightly ) desensitised. We always carry bandages in our geocaching backpack. Apparently snake venom is carried around the body in the lymph glands, not the bloodstream - unless you are alone and unable to call for help I would not recommend moving at all until you have medical assistance.

I have been amazed that I haven't seen one snake this season. My daughter claims to have seen one while caching in Sturt River Gorge, but I didn't see it so I'm not convinced.

The only one I did see was in the middle of a path that I was walking on but it was dead, or sleeping very heavily.

We had a day on Yorke Peninsula where we found over 100 caches and didn't see or hear one, despite all the long grass and warm weather.

I've even done a few walks through what I would call snake heaven and haven't seen one.

Not that I'm complaining.

Old Jindabyne Road was a happening place on December 29! The nine (mostly) sleepy lizards didn't really bother us, it was the snake slithering away from the general GZ area . I'm pleased to have spotted it actually. I could have had a very nasty run in 30 seconds earlier.