Things you don't see at home every day

Snake Exclusion Fencing

We did see a billboard advertising snake exclusion fencing in the Margaret River area. Imagine the horror! In Margaret River, I guess this type of fencing is mostly used around the vineyards, but I have found this fascinating article on how to snake fence your house in Canada's British Columbia. I'll make sure to remember this if I ever decide to emigrate!

I have also found this really interesting article on Fauna Sensitive Road Design. Given the number of dead possums we saw in New Zealand and dead kangaroos in Australia, there is definitely a need to take action to help all animals cross the roads without being run over. We did see a sign for crossing reptiles in the Uluru National Park, but we didn't see any big lizards or snakes crossing the roads at all.

Given the large numbers of snakes in the country, it's hard to believe that we didn't see a single one while in Australia (and, believe me, I looked!).

Actually, I'm telling a lie, we saw lots of snakes in the Sydney Wildlife World, an excellent place to go if you want to see all the creepy-crawlies and the cuddly koalas. We spent hours there on a wet day in Sydney. Make sure to visit their games page where you can play Raymond the red-back spider trying to catch flies. What fascinated me more than anything was all their "weirder than fiction" facts posted all around the place. For someone like me, who has a strange fascination with venomous snakes and spiders, it was the perfect place to face all my fears! By the way, I want it to be known that I would have no problem touching a snake if I knew it's not venomous!


And we saw a tiny little snake on the path around Uluru. But it was so small, and it disappeared into the bushes so quickly that it doesn't really count.