Monday 13 July 2015

14th July - Pulau Friwin - Papuan python encounter

Tuesday 14th July 2015


Last night it was all VERY Attenborough on 2XS…

Pete woke at 3am to hear tinkling glass in the galley.  Hmmm…someone must have broken in… But if that were the case, why didn’t our trusty alarm (thank you John Miedecke) go off??

 No humans in sight, but one quite large and very calm but curious…python…



Pete came and woke me up from a very deep slumber.  “You have to come and see this,” he said, and noting my appalled expression, “NO it is not a spider!”  Oh OK, NOT a spider – all is well!

We stayed with our visitor for an hour so, wondering what to do.  This might sound a bit pathetic but…we are Tasmanians, and while we both know what to do with a tiger snake or a copperhead, we are just not familiar with pythons.



So what do you do when faced with The Unknown??  Why…you Google it, of course!

So while our naughty python, 3-4 metres in length, slithered across the table, threatening to upend my computer, I read out to Pete the instructions.  Don’t grab around its head; it won’t like that.  Pick it up in the middle; it won’t mind that at all.  So…with a lot of help from Google, and from me, because as Pete gently lifted our friend out of the cabin, it wound its tail tightly around the director’s chair and had to be prised off…

He is there, right behind the computer...
And then, with a resounding splash, off it went…We sat up with cups of soothing tea until our adrenalin had gone down…


This morning we are leaving our lovely favorite Friwin anchorage – off to the Kabui Passage to fill our tanks with waterfall water, and to do a vast mound of washing.  No internet there,…and probably no pythons!

2 comments:

  1. Blimey!!!

    The kids were in awe at this story. Leo thought it was particularly funny that you and Pete felt perfectly confident to handle a tiger snake under these circumstances...

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  2. I LOVE this post! Every single word! Can't wait to tell/show felix and jemima! X

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