Aussie Wildlife Update

Well I thought it was a snake! At 10 am it caught my eye under the decking at Shaun and Liz's just as we'd got back from the parkrun. Gleaming in the sunlight a thick round yellow and brown cross section of something rolled around in front of me below the wooden slats. Must have been at least as thick as my wrist and caused us some slight alarms. I rushed inside with the girls but Vicky, being the foolhardy soul she is, decided to keep looking at it ('Otherwise we won't know when it's gone!')
A quick google told us that it was likely to be a Spotted Python which is usually a good 4 to 5 foot long. Thus it was not likely to be one of the splendid variety of venomous snakes that are on the Australian list of deadly creatures - but more about this another time! However when Shaun arrived back home he spotted a leg - so not a snake at all but a Skink, which is a type of lizard - in this case the Eastern Blue Tongued Lizard and not to be confused with the Eastern Bearded Dragon which is a similar size lizard.

Not a Welsh dragon is it!

And so with one of life's funny little coincidences later that evening we found ourselves in a pub called the Bearded Dragon at Tamborine. Tamborine is a bit touristy and my first thought was that this name had mythological connections, but it turns out that Bearded Dragons hang out around here a lot, mostly from tree branches frightening little children. Three breweries round here for us to have a go at so will report in due course! 

This final wildlife report comes with the discovery that unlike the Brisbane suburbs Tamborine is crawling with Wallabies and Kangaroos - here's a snap of an Eastern Grey Kangaroo taken from the driver's side yesterday evening (I did stop!)

Who you looking at?

Improved times for both of us at Bunyaville Parkrun on Saturday with Vicky 67th in 37.06 and me in 3rd again with a record V60 time of 22.43 (however I was beaten by two young whippets who should have done a junior race instead!)