Creepy Crawlies

Our first stop along the Savannah Way which runs from Cairns to Broome was Undara Volcanic National Park.  (We’d skipped the chance to stop at Innot Hot Springs along the way.  Apparently very good but the air temperature was something like 36 degrees in the shade and the idea of boiling ourselves in bubbling rock pools didn’t do it.  If they’d have been “Icy cold springs”, there might have been more takers).

 Undara is a great spot – well worth a couple of days visit and the guided tour of the Lava Tubes.  The only downside was that as we pulled in, the car began misbehaving again.  I know that we are supposed to be education the kids as we travel, but I’m not sure the new vocabulary that they are learning from us each time something new breaks is quite what the school had in mind...

Next up, we pressed on to Normanton.  Spent most of the time there with my head under the bonnet of the car so can’t say too much about the place. 

The next day we headed south to the small town of Gregory Downs.  Not much more than a Junction in the road, but it does have a pub!  Though really just a timber and tin shed, it had a great atmosphere, cold beer and good food.  That night we were quite sorry to leave it and shuffle back to our bush camp a few hundred metre’s down the road. 

Back at camp we got the kids to bed and settled in around the fire. Then came the first strange creepy crawly incident of the night.  My head-torch light picked up the bright blue glint of something shiny in a nearby bush.  On closer inspection, the glint proved to be the refection in the eyes of a fair size spider.  Just to side, another set of glinting eyes...  A further sweep of the camp perimeter and a quick count revealed 30 or more pairs of eyes surrounding us – in the trees, in the grass, moving in along the ground... closer and closer (OK,  I’m dramatising now).

Just as we were becoming slightly creeped out by these creepy crawlies, Daniel cried out from the trailer; “Ahhh, I’ve just been bitten by something.  Ah, ah, it really hurts!”.  Rushing in thinking, OK, don’t know what these spiders are but they are not funnel webs or red-backs, so it’s not going to be too serious.  I flicked on the light and saw Daniel holding his hand in pain and something disappearing under the bedclothes.  Pulling the sheets back revealed not a spider at all, but a scorpion!  So here’s the thing; when you travel in Australia, they warn you about snakes and spiders and crocs and sharks and box jelly fish and a whole host of other stuff that can do you serious damage, but I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning scorpions.  As it turns out (after a hurried satellite phone conversation with Deb and some Googling, Australian scorpions are non-deadly and so after a bit of local anaesthetic, some anti-histamine, and a good night’s sleep (for Daniel – we were obviously awake most of the night) and he was as right as rain and looking forward to telling his friends at school that he has been stung by a scorpion!