Just A Sliver

Since the news last week that our tennis tournament had been stolen by sneaky Queensland, the media have been keeping an eye out for any similar behaviour. Sure enough, this week we find that our northern neighbours are stealing nurses from South Australia. Not in late night body snatches from the hospital canteen, but through the underhand trick of offering a lot more money.

Queensland is the home of all year sunshine, surfing, rain forests, and now, increasingly affluent nurses. Quite an attractive sort of place which I thought might appeal to Mandy.

I asked her if she wanted to head north to work to escape the inclement weather, earn a bit more money and, of course, to watch some tennis. But, despite even these lures, she wouldn’t hear of it, declaring that Adelaide wasn’t such a bad place. She also added that people from Queensland tended to come from close families, or something like that.

She has got a point and, just to demonstrate this, we celebrated Christmas lunch with our diving club at a very well situated restaurant up in the hills. On a good day it is possible to look across the eucalypt covered hilltops to the sea while enjoying the fabulous food they dish up.

However, this was Christmas so the view was limited to a very large rain cloud while we opened our presents and pulled the crackers. It all seemed very traditional until my kangaroo steak arrived.

Why we had Christmas in the middle of July remains a mystery, but a rather tasty one in the case of my steak and one which rounded off a great weekend during which I came face to face with the world’s most venomous snakes.

Mandy had a week of night shifts, which never makes her brightest little ray of sunshine, so I was happy to make a dash for the Barossa Valley to keep a date with a company which milks snakes for their venom.

I have to underline that I was very lucky to get this invitation. It was the fruit of repeatedly mithering a nice chap who happens to know the owner of the business and who spends his weekends clearing houses of dangerous reptiles; for fun as well as the money.

So it was with a skip in my step that I followed the chief snake wrangler into one of the sheds situated among the pruned vines of the rolling Barossa hills.

I have to admit that my bounce disappeared pretty quickly as a cage door was opened and, three feet from my face, a large cobra sprung to it’s full height with it’s hood fully spread. My first instinct was to jump backwards with a little yelp; not quite the image that image I was hoping to portray!

From this point on, poise recovery and adopting a cool exterior were my key targets. This meant that as each cage was opened, I had to put my face as close as possible to huge African vipers, rattlesnakes, more cobras and Australia’s finest specimens, which are generally more toxic than any other snake you are likely to come across.

The only inmates we were not allowed anywhere near were the coastal taipans. These are pretty much the most venomous snake in the world and they look like it too; they are lithe and menacing with deeply intense eyes. A beautiful, but deadly animal. There were 160 of these snakes in the space of an average living room, somebody somewhere wanted a lot of taipan venom!

I asked why they kept so many, (10 of every other species seemed sufficient), and was told that a special customer required it. It all seemed a bit suspicious to me. OK it is probably the health service which needs those quantities to treat unfortunate fruit pickers, but maybe, just maybe, it was an evil criminal mastermind of Bond film magnitude and I have uncovered a conspiracy which threatens the world.


Anyway, it was an absolute privilege to spend a few hours with the people who run this place (each of the 600 snakes is hand milked) and to get so close to such fantastic animals.

The only way to improve on this was to drop into a small winery along the way and sample a few of their finest drops. Perfect.

I slept well that night, although it was in the cinema. Mandy didn’t mind too much as she could gaze with starry eyes at Johnny Depp while I happily snored the film away.

Hope all is well
M&W