This should keep my blog full for a couple of months.
Cheers
Danny
My first encounter with Hunter S Thompson and how he changed my holidays Part 4
*Queensland Wildlife*
After a great meal of home cooked real fresh food, we showered and went down the Tavern and bought some slabs of XXXX we thought when in Rome, etcetera .
(A popular Queensland beer in bright yellow cans with 4 Red X’s prominently emblazed across the front. Popular myth was that it was popular because Queenslander’s couldn’t spell beer)
After Lin (My big Sister) had put the kids to bed we hit the beer .
Hard.
Lin and Rob were currently building an extension on the house and it was finished to lock up stage.
It was for Rob’s mother who was moving in with them, but since it wasn’t habitable yet it was perfect for Marty and I.
It was shelter and clean and kept the bugs away.
Now one thing you never get used to Queensland are the insects, everything you accept as normal down in the southern states disregard totally.
They are bigger (sometimes by ten times) more mobile and deadlier than their pissy southern cousins.
We were sitting on the balcony over looking the street,(every house in the street was built on stilts) to Martin and I it felt like early summer so we were in Tee Shirt.
We were having a drink while Lin was fixing the kids for bed when I was hit on the side of the head by something, it didn’t hurt but made me react.
“Someone’s throwing shit at me” I yelped
“No their not , look” said Rob laughing while pointing at something on my chest.
It was the biggest cockroach I had seen in my life.
“Aghh!” I cried (I think that’s the proper spelling?) and flicked it off me in the process knocking it onto Martin as well as half my beer that I was holding at the time.
Martin’s reaction mirrored mine and for one retarded moment we were just knocking a stunned cockroach backwards and forward while spraying each other with beer.
Rob was laughing so hard Lin came out to tell him to keep it down, then she saw the state of us two went back inside got a towel and said we weren’t allowed back inside until the kids were asleep.
I eventually knocked the stupid thing off the deck.
“That’s not a cockroach” I said “Cockroaches don’t grow that big, cockroaches live under rubbish and they don’t fucking fly”
“Up here they do, I hope you don’t run into any of the spiders” Rob said laughing again. “And I’m saying nothing about the cane toads”
We let that last statement slide and settled back to enjoy the warm balmy night. After about 15 minutes Martin asked where he could have a leak since we were banned from inside. Rob pointed downstairs and said to just go beside the house where it was dark. As Martin made his way down the stairs Rob sidled up close and said
“This should be fun”
I had no idea what he was talking about until about 90 seconds later.
It was like the tiger scene out of “Apocalypse Now” except Martin was screaming:
“Fucking frog, look at the fucking frog!”
Rob was on the floor again in hysterics, I was confused. Lin came out fuming.
“What the hells going on here, Martin for God’s sake SHUT UP, we have neighbours you know”
Martin had stepped on a cane toad in the dark and thinking it was rock went to kick it with his thongs and it jumped at him, in the process peeing all down his legs.
“Sorry Lin” Martin said as he bolted upstairs “But I really need to have another shower now”
Lin conceded “OK you better, but keep it quiet”
As She led Martin through the house I heard him say.
“You don’t have leeches in the water tank do you? I’m not gonna get covered in leeches in the shower?”
Rob was still sniggering. “Here, look at this”
He walked over and reached in the front door and flicked the front light. Down below it looked like a hundred dog turds had decided to jump into the shadows. “Cool Hey” said Rob.
All I could think of was:
“Never get off the deck, Godamn never get off the fucking deck”.
We were lucky that the entire living area was upstairs because quite frankly there was no way Martin or myself would stumble in the dark with all those slimey bastards down there. We continued the night drinking and catching up and everytime Lin went inside we would piss off the balcony, aiming at any toad in view.
Next week: Part 5 The Horror The Horror
