Hi, everyone, and happy new year! I can’t believe 2022 is over. What a year it had been. Before the year ended, I was finally able to see a dugite – one of the many venomous snakes here in Australia.

Neil Hawkins Park

One morning, I took the train up to Joondalup to meet with my friend Liam for some food and a hike. He picked me up from the train station and we drove to downtown Joondalup, where we stopped at Cinnayum for cinnamon buns. Liam is obsessed with cinnamon buns. I like them, too, but prefer them from Ann Sather’s in Chicago, where they’re nice and warm. Out here, they aren’t served warm. At least at any of the place’s I’ve gotten them! Still, it was delicious and biscoff-flavored. YUM.

After Cinnayum, Liam drove us down to Neil Hawkins Park, which is a place I’ve been meaning to check out. He told me that he once saw a snake there and was hoping to see one again.

The walk itself was quite nice. The trail surrounds a large lake, so you get glimpses of water along the way. There were so many black swans out on the lake! At one point, we sat on a bench and just observed the birds. Pelicans, black swans, ducks, etc. Lots of different bird life.

Along the trail, Liam spotted a Christmas Tree spider. I asked Liam why they’re called that, and apparently it’s due to them being around most often during Christmastime/the summer months here in Australia.

What a cool design it had! We actually spotted two on our walk.

Apparently, Neil Hawkins Park is also a popular area for long-necked turtles. We didn’t see any, but we did see these cool sign posts for them!

We also saw a couple of bobtail lizards again. It’s neat that they’re showing up more and more lately. I was so excited to see them up close at John Forrest, and didn’t think I’d get the opportunity to see them again so soon. Well, I did!

And then… kangaroos! It looked like a little family. A mom, a very large dad, and a smaller one. They watched us for a moment and then hopped away, as they do.

On our walk, Liam kept making comments about snakes. He would say, “oh, I think this is the spot where I saw it that one time. It slithered across the path and then hid in the crack of that signpost.” “Oh, wait, I think this was the spot.” It was certainly on our minds the whole time. We were sort of willing it into existence.

I hadn’t known how I would respond when I finally saw a snake out here. I’ve mentioned before, but all of the snakes in Western Australia are venomous. So, yeah, they can kill you. And in a manner of hours. The most important thing you can do – I learned this from my Senior First Aid training months ago – is to get away from danger, and then just lay still after calling for help. The more you move, the more the venom spreads through your bloodstream. It’s best to wait for help, avoid movement, and get taken to the hospital where they can treat your symptoms. It’s also a good idea to bandage up your leg if you have a first aid kit with you, but I feel like that’s kind of unlikely for most people to carry around with them.

ANYWAY… on our walk back to the car, I spotted it. The dugite snake! It sat right off the edge of the path, looking right at me. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t scared. I certainly froze for a moment, but above anything, it was just incredibly awesome to observe such a powerful creature with my own eyes. It made sense, for this dangerous, venomous being to be here. It surprised me just how well-camouflaged it was.

I grabbed Liam’s shoulder and said something like, “There. It’s there.” He spotted it almost immediately. The dugite allowed me to snap a single picture of it before disappearing. It slithered backwards, creating that famous S-shape, and retreated deeper into the bush. The dugite wasn’t as thick as I thought it would be. In fact, it was quite small overall. The head was much smaller than I imagined, and it could have been a lot longer in size. Despite its appearance, it doesn’t change the fact that the reptile can be dangerous. Though, they tend to be shy. Snakes (and most creatures) see you before they see them. The way it was looking at me when I first spotted it, it probably had known I was approaching for quite some time.

The whole walk back to the car, Liam and I kept talking about the dugite. Liam teased me for saying “it’s there,” as if it was that specific snake we had been looking for the whole time. What an amazing experience it was! It’s all I could have hoped for – to spot a snake from a safe(ish) distance, to not startle it or get bitten, and to get a good picture. Thanks, Mr./Ms. Dugite!

After returning home (and still thinking about the dugite), I looked on Wikipedia to find some more information about dugites. Apparently, in 2011, a 7-year old boy in Perth was sleeping when a dugite came into his room, wrapped itself around his arm and bit him. He survived, though. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? It had me thinking, were the windows open? Doors open? How did this snake get in there, and what are the odds it would come into this boy’s room, approach him, and bite him like that? So bizarre.

I also learned of a story where a woman had a pet python. She let the snake sleep with her in her bed. At times, she would wake up to find the snake completely stretched out from head to toe next to her body. After a certain point, her snake stopped eating its meals. When she went to the vet to see what was wrong, the vets told her the snake was starving itself to prepare for its next big meal… When it stretched out next to her it was actually measuring her, to see if the woman would fit inside of its body. CRAZY.

Wrapping Up 2022

2022 was a very interesting year. As I mentioned last week, my year was split into three segments. Packing up/preparing to leave Chicago, spending time with my loved ones before leaving the states, and then beginning my journey in Australia. It was emotional at times, but it was a great year with so many memories made.

At times, it has been isolating and unusual for me here in Australia. While I’ve made friends and have connected with work colleagues, I am like… the only American here. In a lot of ways, that doesn’t matter and is part of the fun, but then there are some instances where I’m just like – only my friends/family/fellow Midwesterners would understand “this.” “This” can mean many things – sometimes it’s a behavior, or a common slang, etc. I don’t know if this makes sense to you, the reader. Maybe it’s more of an existential thing?

With that said, it has been really cool to make connections out here. To learn so much about Australia – the culture, the people, the wildlife and national parks. It has been so amazing. SO amazing. Not every day is filled with excitement, but there have been some really incredible experiences since I’ve been here. And I’m glad I get to share it with you all!

On New Year’s Eve at the end of 2021, my dear friends Joey, Rob, and I spent the evening together and tried to decide what our “word” was going to be for 2022. Joey’s was “ignite,” mine was “persevere,” and Rob doesn’t remember what his was hahaha. I think I certainly persevered in 2022. For 2023, my word is “presence.” I want to try to remain present and to be mindful of my actions/thoughts/etc. At times, I struggle with anxiety, and I am a definite future-tripper. It can be hard to live in the moment, day by day, one day at a time. So, I think having presence will be a good goal for me.

I spent New Year’s Eve at work with my coworkers, who have been a cherished part of living in Perth. Sometimes, I hate that I have to work and am resentful of the hours I put in there. Recently, I realized that working here is part of the experience. I get to meet other travelers and people who have lived in Australia their whole life. So, I’ve been trying to be mindful of that, because before I know it, I’ll be done working here and onto the next part of my journey. The shift was for a New Year’s Eve dinner cruise, where we got to serve a bunch of guests alcohol and food. We had a DJ and we could see fireworks throughout the evening while on the river. At midnight, we all got a glass of champagne (sans me, I had a non-alcoholic prosecco) and toasted one another. I called my parents on the walk home to wish one another a happy new year. At the time of the call, it was 2023 in my timezone, but still 2022 for them. So weird!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and I hope 2023 is filled with blessings, adventure, laughter, and love!

Art of the Week

At the end of each year, I try to do a drawing that encapsulates a bunch of different “themes” that I’ve explored throughout the year. This year, I’ve looked into platform shoes, gridded patterns, trippy patterns, multi-headed beauties, color blocking, geometry, plant life, the use of negative space, and more. It has been a while since I’ve drawn a human. Months. But above all, I love drawing humans. We’ll see how they reappear in the new year. I hope you enjoy this one!

Reflections

Plasters = band-aids

I’ve mentioned before that I pass the Swan River along my walk to work. I usually look out further into the water to try and spot dolphins, but when the water is calm, I’ll look along the edge of the water to see jellyfish and various fish that swim along the edge. Usually, the sea critters I spot are very small. They’ve always been small, until the other day.

I spotted this guy – who is apparently an estuarine cobbler fish. If provoked, they have spikes that pop out on either side of their fins, and on their dorsal fin. They are very painful, supposedly. Australia, you’re crazy.

Oh! One of my coworkers gave me three American dollars the other day. She goes, “You’ll have more use for it than me.” It was funny to see American money for the first time in four months.

Also, one “thorn” for this week… As of Christmas day last week, I have had swimmer’s ear, which is essentially when water gets blocked in your ear. I think it was brought on by me diving down to the bottom of the water without properly clearing my ears. I have hardly been able to hear out of my left ear and it’s been incredibly frustrating. While it hasn’t hurt, it sucks to have everything be very muffled and to know that I can’t go snorkeling because it would make it worse. I got some ear drops and between that and a combination of furiously digging at my ear (probably shouldn’t do that lol), my ear popped open last night. Annnnnnd proceeded to close again overnight. Now it has popped open yet again. Fingers crossed it stays open for good this time.

That’s all, folks! I have quite a few days off work this week which is nice. I don’t have too much planned at the moment. I may try to go on a hike with a friend. I was thinking of going to Rottnest again to snorkel on Thursday since it is going to be 98 Fahrenheit here in Perth. It’s usually much colder over at Rottnest, so that will be a good day to escape the heat. Stay tuned!

P.S. This is more for me to remember, but… during the Neil Hawkins hike with Liam, I had Christmas songs stuck in my head still and I was making a joke about that “Partrich in a Pear Tree” song, going something like “Five bin chicken, four kookaburras, three kangaroos, two bobtail skinks, one dugggiiittte snaaaake.”