Glen paused, dug around in some scrubs, then jumped back. Then he went in again, and fished out a long, slender snake by its tail. He brought it back into the road, but lost his grip when it started wriggling and gave a good lunge. It started to escape, and Glen went for its tail again. The snake turned, postured in an “I’m not kidding around” manner, and gave a quick strike. Glen backed off.

“I’m not gonna get too close to this one,” Glen yelled. “It’s a really cranky snake. This could be one of the elapids, but I’m not sure which one.” Elapids are exceedingly venomous snakes. In the meantime the snake was working itself into a considerable frenzy; striking madly at Glen’s direction and just being generally hostile. “We’re not gonna play with him too much. He’s very cranky,” Glen added.

We stood and watched the snake for awhile. It eventually calmed down and, seeing its opportunity, took its leave into a patch of bushes by the road. We watched it go.

“I won’t fuck with it if I don’t know what it is,” Glen was saying, walking back to the car.

“Now wait a sec,” I said, all but falling over. “You jumped out of the car and grabbed the thing by the tail! Now correct me if I am wrong, but in my observation, that is fucking with it!”

A brief pause. “Well, yeah, but there’s degrees of fucking with it,” Glen laughed. “And that wasn’t fucking with it.” He gave a smile.

“No, of course not,” I smiled back.

Glen poked his head into my tent, “Come on Dom. Get up.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s eight. Low tide, mate. Only time we can get into the caves.”

I emerged from my tent, poured myself a cuppa, and felt marginally awake. A second cuppa pushed the margin a bit further. It was really late when we pulled in the night before – a steep descent into Captain Billy Landing and a mass of fumbling around in the dark as we set up camp at an arbitrary little spot next to the old boathouse and the beach – and it was not until now that I had a good look at my new surroundings. A sign to my left read “WARNING – Estuarine crocodiles inhabit this coastal area”.

Being that we were directly next to the boatshed, we had a quick look inside. The boatshed at Captain Billy was a marvel to behold indeed. We had heard that it is adorned with mementos of past visitors, and we wanted to confirm for ourselves. Well, it was. The whole place is filled with writings on the wall; poems, messages, announcements, as well as an array of dangling things constructed of nearly anything and everything; buoys, old bottles on strings, shoes, hats, shells, and, as one mysterious item from a car was described, “we didn’t know what this thing is but haven’t used it yet, so we’ll leave it here”. We walked around, sampling the various keepsakes and messages others have left behind. Glen read one aloud: “We drove down the coast, the corrugations were most. We came across Captain Billy and the wind drove us silly. We camped for a day, then we went on our way. With the memory of this shed firmly in our head. Natalie and Ben from August of last year.”