As many have probably heard, Australia has some of the most dangerous animals in the world. And like the paranoia of being caught wearing mismatching socks by Tim Gunn, I was a tad worried about encountering these famous buggers.
Now, I hadn’t completely willingly signed up for this bush walk. There was an information session in the upstairs of some rickety building with loads of people there. Three small tables, supervised by 55+ year old men, served the purpose of telling you about the various places they were going, about the guides, the difficulty, and blah blah blah.
Here’s where it got crafty. One guy said to me, "It’s an 18 K (about 11 miles) walk with hills. Maybe you would like to go on the beginner one instead?" "Pft! I’m a third of your age and have been hiking since age 6! I think I can handle it."
Okay, I’m much more polite in person, but he still had me right where he wanted me--the ego trip. Next thing I knew, I was thirty dollars poorer and awake at a god forsaken hour, loading on the bus with the other sad saps.
The group contained a variety of people: other visitors in this dangerous land, a few veterans of bushwalking, and locals who decided they wanted to get out of the city and meet people. After a couple hours on the bus, we arrived and started the hike.
The environment of the bush was so unique. I loved it. Do you know what is also distinct? The leeches.
It was a heavily tread area and a fairly moist day. You walked, minding your own business, and leeches fell from the leaves, landed on whatever exposed limb they could find, and sucked your blood. I kid you not; they’re the size of your pinky and are an ominous dark black. The key is to let them finish their business because if you knock them off before they’re done, you just bleed and bleed. When they finish, they will clot the bite (so they can save you for an after dinner snack).
As you may have guessed, the reason I am so wise to the ways of leeches is because, not even 10 minutes into the walk, I was visited by the leech from hell. The first thing I did was scream. The second thing was to wave my hand back and forth, wishing it away. The third was flicking it off with my other hand. Luckily I actually saved myself--it hadn’t bitten me yet. I laughed, disguising my inner torment at the incident. Apparently I fooled everyone, and they had a nice laugh at me too. We continued on the hike, jolly and leech ridden.
So I made it out alive, by a fairly wide hair, but a hair none the less. When I got home, I was changing out of my muddy clothes and on the back of my right calf I found a lovely reminder of the day: a large dried blob of blood and then tracks of blood down my leg. A second leech from hell had been more successful than the first. Brilliant.