I didn’t know what a possum was when we started this section. But you might be excited to hear we got pretty up-close and personal with a fair few these past few days! Unfortunately they were all dead :( Face down in the dirt. Quite distressing to see what you initially think is a domestic house cat spark out on the path ( very nearly becoming a gutsy mush all over your boots… ) These cute animals although protected in Australia are considered pests here and so are hunted and shot for fun. We saw 9 and a half possums in total ( the half was pretty gross! ). One of them left out in an advanced state of decomposition, ( grim! ) but all laying mid path. We assumed it was the work of hunters leaving their trophy kills for everyone to see ( which i thought was a bit sick ) but as it turned out the jungle had been laced with Potassium Cyanide to poison the poor fellas. Not great to find that warning sign only on exit of the forest after days of not being able to properly wash our hands. Fingers crossed we’ve not ingested any!
They probably eat a lot of crops(?), but I don’t know. Seems like Mr.Possum has a bit of a raw deal here :( Poor fellas.
Here’s a video clip that should give you an idea of how thick some of the forest we been fighting our way through is! Trust me this isn’t faked, we’re genuinely on trail (even though you can’t see it) and the camera is being held about shoulder height. Not sure how many video clips we’ll be able to upload while hiking, reliant upon finding a computer with a fairly fast broadband to handle the massive Canon 5D video files, 2 hours to upload this one..
It was bonfire night last night and German boys camped next to us made a timely bonfire for us in the evening :) Not sure if they knew anything about bonfire night though, I think they were just pyromaniacs! The fire was fueled mainly by old kitchen cabinets, god knows where they found them..?