Eryn figured out what makes an Australian accent an Australian accent; make all the vowels into a long ‘i’ sound, so the title of this post would be pronounced something like ‘trikes ine rikes’ or something like that. I don’t know why, but Eryn was saying stuff like g’day mate or other such phrases in her new and weird attempt at an Australian accent tonight at dinner.

Today we went to see the dinosaur tracks that the farm is famous for. There are two main places where tracks are visible. One of them just has several sets of small tracks, and the other has a lot of big tracks. When we went this morning, we first stopped at the little tracks, to see what they were about. They are about three inches long from the tip of the largest of the three toes to the heel, and their stride is about one foot. After looking at those tracks in the sandstone, we continued up the tilted rock and came upon the big tracks, which are maybe a foot from the tip of the largest of three toes to the heel with a stride of about one yard. There were also several other sets of prints, or ‘spoors’ as our host calls them, and we sat up there and looked, while also using the phone reception that was so scant and spotty in the valley. In the evening, we went up there again and our host told us more about the sandstone and the ceratosaurus tracks.

Snakes, snakes, snakes…there are lots of snakes. Though only about 25% of the snakes in southern Africa are poisonous to people, there are still a lot of those type. Most of the ones that aren’t poisonous to people are pythons or small snakes. Our hosts have encountered snakes on various occasions, and the following are just some of those adventures:

In the campsites, there are some showers with water, along with toilets. Sometimes, when people leave those places, they don’t close the doors all the way. There was a woman who either did that, or someone in her party did that who went in to take a shower. Now, in the shower there is a big stone block that you can put your feet upon to scrub your leg without having to double over. This woman was taking a shower, when suddenly, out from under the rock, came a millipede. Now, of course, this woman probably had been stressing about snakes, and the sight of something coming out from under the rock was too much for her. She screamed ‘SNAKE’. At the house, Reinhold, our host, heard that scream and grabbed his revolver to go and shoot the snake. But when he got there, all he saw was a millipede.

We had a good laugh about that one, my family and I, remembering the first time that we had gone to Costa Rica and the parents had stressed to us about how there were lots of poisonous snakes there and if we saw one, we should get them. What happened was this; on our first day, we stayed in a treehouse. Eryn and I were playing down on the forest floor, when, suddenly, Eryn saw a millipede at the bottom of a small trench. The same thing happened for my father as it did Reinhold, and we have remembered it ever since.

Before dinner, Reinhold showed us a picture of a python coiled up in the grass and said, “Mary, the python” we laughed at that, and then he went on to tell us that Mary was a python that was shedding, and since they shed over their eyes, too, Mary stayed by water all the while. He told us that she sat there by the dam for a week before she finished shedding and left, never to be seen again.

Once, in the house, Reinhold and Adele thought that they heard a snake under the couch. Adele got down on her stomach by the china cabinet and proceeded to shine a light under the couch. The snake, however, was actually under the china cabinet, and when she got down, it spit it’s venom into her face. She immediately washed her face, and then they started to chase it out of the house. They chased and chased, and when it got near a big battery, it accidently touched both terminals at once and caused an explosion, blowing itself to kingdom-come while it was at it.

The black mamba is one of the most poisonous snakes in all of Africa. Once upon a time, there was a black mamba. It wanted shelter, so it went into the dog box by the screen door to the house. The owners heard the noise, but when they looked, the dog was in the box too, so it might have hurt the dog. After getting the dog out slowly and carefully, they took a shot, and that mamba didn’t see another day.

Those are four of Reinhold’s snake stories, I would bet that if I asked him, I would learn more, but then I might bore you with all of the stories.

That’s all for now folks!