TheBanyanTree: Bush uglies

[Anita Coia]

Hello, hello... poking my toe back in the water...or perhaps gingerly 
poking my hand in among the branches. Which isn't a particularly natural 
thing for me to do as an Antipodean, what with the garden's regular 
inhabitants of white-tail spiders (carrying a parasite that rots your 
flesh) and red-back spiders (poisonous) and huntsman spiders (not 
poisonous, just big and ugly). 
At least there are no leeches - not here, anyway. We have to travel up 
to The Male's beautiful 50 acre property in Kinglake, a semi-rural area 
about an hour from here. It contains a very pretty, very leech-ridden 
fern gully, with some plants probably hundreds and hundreds of years 
old. My only leech experience up there so far has been, unfortunately, 
when I was in the process of relieving myself on the fringes of 
aforementioned fern gully.  Yes, this property has no amenities at all - 
it's all native bush, apart from fire trails and a cleared area of about 
3 acres. The Male built a great hut with a rainwater tank, but you have 
to make your own heat and light, and the civilised delights of the WC 
are yet to appear - the bush dunny currently exists only through the aid 
of a shovel.
Looking down and finding a largish leech attached to my sock while my 
delicate regions were poised vulnerably out in the open air didn't 
thrill me one bit. The Male judged my scream to mean I was in a 
life-threatening situation (there are a couple of species of very 
poisonous snakes up there), and retreated in some disgust when he 
realised it was only a leech. I probably wouldn't have reacted so badly 
if it had in fact been a snake - at least I know they're too big to 
sneak up and bite me on the bottom.  I now know better than to relieve 
myself near the ferns - better to risk embarrassment in the more open 
areas...nothing like the bush to show me what a city girl I still am.  
Still, at least we don't have BEARS!!!!

Anita
xxx