Day 510 | Hallett Railway Station: 2nd time around these parts

61 km | zzOz total: 16,582 km

I’ve had surprisingly few encounters with wildlife at my nightly accommodations, if you discount the far off flapping feathered varieties: noisy dingos in close proximity out on the Mereenie Loop first time around; a frog leaping out, surprising me at Carolines Pool; a few suspicious White Owls on the Plenty Highway; inquisitive marsupials on the Birdsville; local rednecks with guns between Chillagoe and Karumba; ie, not a lot of concern to disturb a good night’s sleep all things considered.

Legless?

I haven’t seen anything around any campsite, guess those size 47 Keen sandals and my heavy tromp are doing their job superbly.

Surprisingly there’s been way less of the more-than-four-legs species than you might imagine: less flies, particularly in the drier areas, ie, everywhere, although in cattle areas there can be plenty during the day, but like any good child they head home unasked as the sun nears the horizon, they ain’t late night party animals; a few mossies, particularly from what you might imagine up Cape York or the Gulf of Carpentaria, I guess I’ve generally avoided swampy campsites; a couple of ginormous arachnids, palm sized, setting up home briefly on the outside of the tent mesh; maybe a few curious cockroach style insects from leaf litter.

Actually the biggest issue has always been those small, foul smelling, black ants, but scrupulously zipping up the tent tightly and patching the minor holes in the tent floor with Gaffer tape has that situation under control.

Last night I set up camp at the start of the Bundaleer Channel section of the trail, a 30 odd k run alongside a 4 m deep concrete lined irrigation channel constructed around 1898. Been there, done that before, I’d stayed here previously on my way north, a grove of native trees of various assortment, just to the side of the track, well enough hidden.

A hot night, I lay on my sleeping mat just in my night time change of shorts, err, pools of sweat staining the mat, no need for the sleeping bag when it’s still over 35ยบ.

I awoke around 10 with a feather on my legs, drowsily brushing it off and immediately dropping back to sleep, you can sleep well with this biking thing.

In the morning, more bright eyed and bushy tailed, I suddenly found i’d shared my accommodation with an unpaying guest, a many legged creature, I didn’t bother counting them, black and large and wiggling its way up the internal mesh.

This was surely the creepy crawly to beat them all, if you had a phobia, this would be an ultimate nightmare, probably 120 mm long, almost 5 inches, and about 40 mm wide, the uncountable legs all working in unison and heading my way.

I suspected the critter had probably had enough of me as well so I coaxed it on my Lawrence of Arabia head garb that was handy and showed it the exit.

I was just hoping it didn’t have an unseen companion.