A few years back, possibly 2010, Jo and I and the dogs went for an adventurous walk on the top of Mount Macedon. It was late Autumn and I could sense some rain coming. The walk was relatively short and we figured we would make it. Mount Macedon is 1000 metres above sea level and is lovely place to visit all year round. There are some hidden dangers in the Australian bush.
About 100 metres into the walk I started feeling a little uneasy about the weather. The air had an iciness about it and with rain in late May it could be quite unpleasant if unprepared. I decided to retreat, with my dog Billie, and push back to the car. Jo wanted to push on. I told her, and little Rogan, I would meet them about 2 km down the track, where another larger forest track intersected the walk. That way she did not need to retrace her steps.
I drove on to the the carpark nearest the intersecting point and with Billie, headed 100 m or so down the forest track to rendezvous with Jo and Rogie. They had not arrived yet so I waited a about 10 minutes and there they were. The weather had indeed worsened so we all scurried back to the car.
Upon arriving at the car we noticed that all of us had quite a number of little leeches on our clothing. I had encountered this many times bushwalking and just systematically flicked them all off. Jo, who also knew how to deal with leeches, was wearing tracksuit pants and she had so many she decided to just remove them. There was no-one around and she was wearing underwear. The dogs had heaps of them too so we flicked all of them off and jumped in the car.
Safe in the car with Jo driving, we headed back down to home. The road was empty of traffic. A short distance down the road Jo was feeling a little uncomfortable, around the eye. She stopped, did not pull over, and screamed at me to check her eye. “Can you see anything? There’s salt in the glove-box. Quick!” “Ar yes there is; I’m getting the salt now” I said. Just at that moment, as Jo was applying the salt, a police car pulled to the right of us. Jo’s window was down and we both explained the situation, but not Jo’s attire – it seemed irrelevant.
Thankfully they understood immediately, pulled up in front of us and handed me a bottle of water on the passenger side “Keep it” they said. Jo was able to stop the leech from crawling under her eyelid.
Added for The Changing Seasons December 2018 Thanks Su
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