Yesterday I went for a walk with the kids up a mountain in the clouds nearish us. We got covered in leeches. I tried to be brave about that because one should be in front of three year olds. The three year old had never seen leeches before and he kept referring to them as “glitches” or “peaches,” which made them a lot easier to be brave about.
We took a closed path and that meant climbing over a lot of fallen trees to continue and then eventually we came across an urn with ashes in it by the side of the path. There was the smell of marijuana in the air so I hope we didn’t frighten a stoned griever away. We may have, I think my seven year old looked like a child vampire in these clothes.
During most of the hike we were accompanied by a catbird wailing in the rainforest like an abandoned baby. Australian rainforests know how to do spooky.
It was dark by the time we made it back to the car to drive home. The three year old promptly fell asleep, and then, only once did we need to pull over because I could feel one last leech on me.
(P.S. sorry about the quality of the photos, they’re from my phone).
Catbirds are pretty amazing. Was this in Lamington NP?
Yes, aren’t they an amazing sound. We were walking in the D’Aguilar Range.