Snakes will not hesitate to hunt you down, chase you so they can bite you. That’s what I thought. I believed this so much that I only had to see a photo of one and then I’d dream of snakes all night. And these dreams were not fun. As a kid, I was often in the bush stepping across creeks, walking around swamps, over sunny logs, through the long grass. I wandered among all the favorite lairs snakes would be waiting and lurking. Mum always warned me of them, maybe a little too much. One particular snaky experience instilled the wretched phobic fear into me.

Walking around a dam on my parents’ remote 150 acre property, I looked at the dirty brown water. A bare soil patch extended up the hill from the water’s edge. Turning my head from the water, I sensed something to my left. Looking there, I saw a huge Brown snake with its head level with mine, opening and shutting its mouth.

Two thirds of its big body came at me through the air fast whilst only a foot or so of its tail anchored it to the soil.

I probably screamed but I know I ran. I ran past it fast.  That snake’s face said it was angry and it was going to bite me. A bite from that monster could have killed me because we were situated hours away from any hospital. Mum saw the whole thing and said the snake was taller than me. Because this snake aggressively chased me whilst rearing up impressively on its tail it looked extra tall. Because the ground where it launched from was higher than where I was, it looked even larger. This, coupled with my young and impressionable age, led me to believe that all snakes all did that. Later I discovered only male Eastern Brown snakes become more aggressive in spring when they are fighting other males; most snakes just try and avoid people. Other species will even pretend to bite you if you hurt them by accidently stepping on them. They might strike your leg but many do this with their mouth firmly shut; it serves as a warning.

One time I heard a tale from my older brother who I thought for a while must be some crazy man. He sat down by this little creek one summer with the cicadas blaring and fell asleep in some shade. In fact, he lay across the footpath or slither path of the snakes. They weirdly slid their way alongside the creek next to the water. A big venomous blacksnake mistook Peter’s lower legs as logs or general forest paraphernalia.  Gripping onto Pete’s skin with its multitude of little scales, it slithered up and over him tongue flicking and tasting the air as it went. My brother awoke, looked down, saw the snake and stayed as still as a tree trunk. Absorbed in its own rhythm of the moment, the snake meandered on along the creek and out of sight, apparently oblivious of the live legs it had encountered.  Over time I realized this is the personality of the snake. I had them all wrong.

The game changer for me was my gradual mental deconstruction that all snakes behaved like the Flying Big Brown and that some are quite exquisitely beautiful.

On a walk I discovered that Northern Green Tree snakes were iridescent with an electric blue covering their sleek body and fluorescent yellow highlighting their head. Handling the cool smooth bodies of the non venomous species made me realize that snakes are no different to all the other beautiful wildlife I am lucky to encounter. Snakes are not out to get me. One cranky Olive python did manage to sink its sharp teeth into my thigh one time. It even left a tooth in me and gave me four purple bruises. It wasn’t happy with me lifting it off a road where it could have been run over. For a wild snake, it would probably feel strange and scary to be picked up and held off the ground by a human.

Death adders came into my life in a large way while I spent my nights in the tropical bush observing rock possums for my Doctoral studies. My main study site in Kakadu has a soft sandy substrate and heaps of leaf litter. As I walked between my possum groups through the bush, I had to be wary of every step I took. These adders are sit-and-wait predators so they usually would remain absolutely still in total contrast to the Flying Big Brown and many times I nearly stepped on their sausage bodies. One time I stepped out into the night in complete darkness barefoot. As my foot came down I somehow sensed something and managed to do an awkward stride. Looking back with a light, there was a big death adder lying inert on this concrete paver.. It was strikingly beautiful golden markings. The fangs on these snakes are very long, and their bite is deadly. Another time I heard a rustling on the path in front of me and it was an adder thrashing it’s body from side to side to let me know it was lying there and not to tread on it. Later, my boy friend started research on the floodplain type of Death adder. These are larger and duller patterned than my sandstone ones. For a while, all thirty of his study animals lived at home with us in purpose built snake boxes and when we moved house, so did all of the snakes. I do remember a few times at night when I’d seen the slithering dark form of a snake either on the bedroom floor, on the bed or hanging off the ceiling fan and I’d wake up Jonno and tell him ‘There’s a snake’. I’d be standing on the bed and somehow reach the light switch to find of course yes, zero snakes.

A few more incidents happened more recently that signaled to me that I was over the worst of my illogical serpentine fear. One night I was walking and spotlighting around a beautiful limestone rock wall in the remote Kimberley region known as the Ningbins. This area is an important and significant indigenous burial place that I had accidently stumbled into.

As I turned a corner, a large Red Tree snake dropped from the sky, and landed in a large loop onto my neck before entwining me like a necklace.

As I stopped and stepped backwards, it flopped to earth and sidled away. Tree snakes are arboreal and it isn’t surprising that one above me in a tree or a rock ledge should drop down occasionally. That is the logical, rational thought, but instead of thinking that or feeling fear, I felt a calm understanding that that red tree snake was actively protecting a sacred site and that it was time to leave.

Yes, I respect the snake.

***     *****     ***

You can now read more stories in my series about Encounters with Wild Animals such as a Eaten Alive, El Toro and Cujo-The Attack in my new book WILD Life death encounters with wild animals.

And you can read stories on how I Source Strength