Sunday, July 24, 2011

Evil Aussie Bush grass


Michele -- The rocks in Cloncurry and Mt. Isa (western Queensland) are really amazing but we’ve encountered a drawback even more ubiquitous than the poisonous snakes out here -- evil Aussie bush grass with spikes of death. Sure it looks innocuous enough in this picture. Just a pleasant clump of grass waving in the breeze. Don’t be deceived! Those ‘blades’ of grass are truly blades of grass. The blades are rigid and extremely sharp tipped. As I walked by I swear I heard them whispering “Ha! Your tough canvas trousers present no challenge to us. Take that!”. Of course the grasses have Aussie accents. I now appreciate why Kangaroos hop across the outback and did my best to leap over the grass clumps.

So far I haven’t seen any of the famous Aussie snakes even though yesterday’s rocks were part of the Snake Creek Anticline. This is just fine with me.

Addendum: My field partner, Steve Micklethwaite, has pointed out that I erroneously ascribed Gallic inflections to the Evil Aussie Bush Grass. What Steve heard as he passed was "I'll cut ya down t' size, ya bloody tall poppies!". I stand corrected.

1 comment:

  1. The addendum was the best part! Love hearing about the adventures.

    ReplyDelete