During the rainy season here it can get a bit overwhelming when it rains for days and days on end. You begin to wonder if you’ll ever have dry shoes to wear and if you’ll ever be able to do anything outside. I get the impression too sometimes that even the wildlife starts to get fed up when It’s been such a long time without sunshine. Our dog definitely gets down when she’s not being taken for walks or dragged through the rain on her walks.

One week it had rained every day, alternating between drizzle and heavy down pours with barely half an hour going by without rainfall. Finally one afternoon the rain stopped just long enough to let the sunshine through the clouds. We quickly grabbed the dog and headed for the beach as fast as we could.

As we turned off the main road and onto the smaller road we could see that the road and surroundings were  bustling with life.  The road was crawling with millipedes, snails and other creepy crawlies and  the telephone wires were lined with bee eaters, kingfishers and other birds sunning themselves.

As we neared the beach we spotted an ornate tree snake crossing the road and then not 15metres past that we spotted what we think was a rat snake sunning itself on the side of the road. On the way back we spotted a large rat snake on the road, although to be honest I almost didn’t spot it. I almost ran it over and had to slam on the brakes to avoid it. As the bike slowed and I had to put my feet down I had shock as it rushed past my feet to get into the bushes on the side of the road.

We were amazed at having seen three snakes and were on a bit of a high heading home but the best was yet to come. As we rounded a corner I spotted what I thought was another snake on the side of the road. We did a quick loop and pulled over off the road near where I’d seen it.

I was shocked to see this snake was a cobra of some sort. We ushered it off the road and onto a bare patch of ground nearby so we could have a look. The white ring on its back gave it away instantly. We were looking at a monocled cobra, a very, very venomous species of snake.

Needless to say I was very cautious around this snake and gave it a wide berth as I tried to snap some pictures of it. It was very well behaved though and was only concerned with escaping into some nearby grass. Trying to get it to spread its hood was a little difficult as it was so passive but with a little waving of a flip flop it reluctantly raised its head and spread its hood for a while before trying to slither away again.

What an amazing day! Just enough time to snap one last shot before the little guy disappeared for good.