Quote from: Sephirah on January 25, 2025, 07:55:29 PMI think I would love to see both. But I suffer from the same problem as going to spend time with my number one gal, Sarah B, down in Oz. The heat just... it's torture for me. Put me in a cold climate, it's like Red Bull. But anything remotely warm it's like "Come on, Lion, Spider, Stonefish... fair game!"
I didn't know that you and Sarah B were an item. That's great. I have never been to Australia but I have a boomerang that my grandmother brought me and a didgeridoo that my mother brought me, My grandmother spent a year or so visiting relatives and my mother spent a few months there.
You mention a few potentially dangerous creatures but I gather that the chances of being badly hurt by them are remote,
I think that most people who get hurt by them do the sort of daft thing that I used to do to try to get a good view or a photo. My biggest fright was in a nature reserve west of the Kruger National Park where I was allowed to wander around by myself because there were no lions or elephants. There were leopards, crocodiles amd hippos, though.
I went down to the Letaba river to actually look for crocodiles. I am actually a physical coward but am cursed with almost suicidal curiosity. I didn't see any straight away and I became complacent. Dense bush forced me right down to the bank to get a better view. I walked along the bank a bit to "just have a quick peek around the corner". Then I had a peek round another corner and so on. As I came to the next corner, a large crocodile slid quickly into the river. I believe that if I had met it before it heard me coming, I would probably be dead. Thank goodness I walk like a herd of crazed elephants, even when I am carefully stalking my photographic prey. Even so, I then had to walk back the way I came, as the bush was too dense and thorny to walk inland. It cannot have been very far but it felt like the longest walk of my life.
How dangerous are the crocodiles to people who aren't as suicidally idiotic as I can be? I don't really know, After that day, I saw crocodiles every day without having to take any risks. A couple of days after my idiocy, a Tsonga woman was angling close to the spot where I emerged to safety. I told her about the big crocodile that lived nearby and she laughed. I photographed her while she was fishing in her attractive traditional dress and I waited some distance back for some time. Was I waiting to be a hero and rescue her or was I waiting to take a really exciting photo? It was a long time ago and I'm not sure. I like to think it was concern for her safety. After all, I did warn her. On the other hand, I had recently proven that I could be dangerously insane in pursuit of a photograph.
I wish that I could say that I learned my lesson. Just days later, in an attempt to photograph baby crocodiles basking on a ledge lower than the one I was using, I found myself trapped by infamous wait-a-bit (aka hack-and-stab) thorns clinging to my clothes. Trying to free myself, I would have fallen off the ledge onto rocks below if the thorn bushes hadn't pulled me back. I did manage to carefully free myself but I stopped trying to get the photo.
It was a great trip though and I saw hippos, giraffes, zebras, monkeys and a variety of antelopes and interesting birds. I was also able to appreciate the plant life better than one can while driving in a car in reserves with lions and elephants. The only down side of a foot safari, as some people would call it, is that it is usually easier to get close to wild animals in cars. (Yeah, yeah, I know that wild animals don't drive.)
