Struck by a brown snake in the Wollemi National Park 

Thank-you! This National Park/hike is one of my favourites. I also did a 5-day trip and made some videos - they are in the hiking playlist.

This cave in the Wollemi NP still remains my favourite place in this world - so many beautiful memories here and a beautiful landscape. Although since all the rains/flooding the river has risen there is no longer a sandbank in front on the cave. Also, a good deal of the sand inside the cave has been washed away and onto the rock overhang.

Thank-you! Australia really has some of the most beautiful and remote wilderness to hike. The only downside is all the animals that want to kill you. Unfortunately the snakes tend to be highly venomous here. In saying that only 2-3 people die of snake bites annually.

I guess pronunciation depends on location/circumstance. I spent 10 years in the Australian Army and they pronounced it as I did in the video during basic training/field training - so it becomes engrained. Also, until I started cycling I didn't really use the word a whole lot and my first cycle tour was down South America with my American friend Aaron for 3 months - I guess his way of talking rubbed off on me day in day out. I also did part of my PhD at Johns Hopkins in the USA and lived there for a while, worked there twice. So yeah, you tend to pick up different ways of talking as you travel around. I am sure there are enough Aussies saying it the way you do that the pronunciation won't disappear. I have never represented myself as a true-blue Aussie, I've spend more of my life elsewhere/travelling.

I was about to move to France so I didn't renew my SPOT subscription and did the hike without a PLB. Also forgot to pack the medical kit. Got complacent. Stupid.

Always listen to that little voice, it has saved my life many times. Have you ever done any hiking in NSW? Initially my channel was interviewing people to hear their story - then COVID hit a few months in. I then focused on telling my travel stories/experiences living in France and then started adding my hiking and cycling adventures as well. I am hoping to start interviewing again soon. So my channel ended up being a bit of everything and each topic is a different playlist in the playlist tab.

@@GoBushWanderingWild hi, I only hiked around Katoomba, and did the Saddle from a very challenging but fun rock face track into the bush below when I was young. My life is in Qld and my favorite walks have been done now in my senior years, in the Bunya Mountains and the valleys, hills and bushwalks around Toowoomba. I hope you succeed in your enterprise with interviews. All the very best. Trudi. 🇭🇲🐞

Yes, he was completely fine the next day and walked out with no problem with no further pain/injury.

@@GoBushWanderingWild thanks good to know

I think so too, he would have been cold/sluggish.

Pass IV. Before this track, I used to get to the river via Crawford's Lookout.

Thanks for the tip! I am still pretty new to making videos and have had many technical issues regarding focusing and lighting - especially transitioning from a DJI Osmo Pocket to GoPro Hero9

Glad you enjoyed it

Wow, that is very interesting and would have been possible given I was on a sandbank! I will never be so complacent again though and always have compression bandage and PLB!

They also recommend lying perfectly still in cold water, reduce breathing rate and heart rate very low, dreaming but not sleeping. They learned from watching bitten dogs/dingos. The human body can fight all snake and spider bites (over time) but only at the bite source by the immune lymphatic response through arterial flow OUT from the heart. But once venous return takes the venom back to the heart, lungs, kidbeys, liver, brain, you're fooked.

Nah. They would only survive if it were a dry bite. Lying still for 2 days won’t save you from that venom. You’d be dead well before then anyway.

Thanks Ebi - although not as scary as the great Glayva massacre on a subsequent trip there hahahahha

I survived that lesson and have never again been complacent on hiking trips - no matter how well I think I know the terrain or how 'experienced' I think I am. I always carry my EPIRB with an active subscription and medical kit (with compression bandages). Thank-you for your information regarding traditional owners of the land. I contacted The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council's (NSWALC). They checked the boundary maps and the area where I was hiking (from Crawfords lookout down the Colo River to the junction of Boorai Creek/Dooli Creek) is just inside the boundary of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council. They advised me to give the Metro LALC a call as multiple Aboriginal Nation groups have a long history with that area. I will keep you updated on any information I am provided regarding this.

@@GoBushWanderingWild Re traditional owners, I've done a LOT of research into this. I lived beside the Upper Colo and made several efforts to get local descendent koories to come out to my land. Long story short: The Dharug have been saying the Colo River area was "theirs" since the Darkinjing (originally middle and upper Hawkesbury regions) were wiped out around 1800 - 1850s. Several early historians mentioned them, and R.L. Mathews wrote extensively about them before his works were lost. But the Darkinjung's territory, people, and language was confused with Dharug (Western Sydney), Wiradjuri (Western and Northern Blue Mountains area), Kamilaroi and Wannarua (Singleton-Hunter River) and Awabakal (Mt Yengo-Gosford area). The poor old Darkinjung (St Albans-Colo-Wollemi--Putty-Sackville-Richmond) got forgotten and their lands got wrongly identified, hence 99% of Sydney historians and Dharug descendants THINK the Colo/Wollemi is Dharug. But it is not. Even the modern day Local Land Councils (money grubbing parasites, they are) continue the Dharug falsehood about Colo. Yeah, and the so-called Darkinjung Land Council is in Gosford ... nowhere near their real lands. So much for true history. PS ... Colo means Koala. Eventually I got a Darkinjung elder to come out to my place. She immediately fingered all the significant sites on my property. She said " No Dharug would ever have known them". Now, the famous Wollemi National Park, the massive wild area where the ancient Wollemi Pines were found, and the very secret site known as the largest site of koori art on the east coast, was in fact a multi-tribe corroboree area, a meeting place for all the surrounding tribes, but had MAINLY Darkinjung artifacts and art. Only several *Darkinjung elders* , and a few historians from the Australian Museum, and a few NPWS seniors actually know where it is so it doesn't get touristy. It's a 4 day hike from any nearest fire trails I'm reliably told. Mostly they helicopter drop in there for their research. So, if you really do want the straight facts on the Colo Aborigines,, download Geoff Ford's definitive MA Histographical Thesis on the Darkinjung people. Search for: Darkiñung Recognition An Analysis of the Historiography for the Aborigines from the Hawkesbury-Hunter Ranges to the Northwest of Sydney.

Wow, thank-you for sharing your research @@thedolphin5428. I will download a copy of Geoff Fords thesis. A friend of mine has spent 40+ years exploring the Wollemi National Park. He knew of the existence of the Wollemi Pine in the 80s and has a lot of photos etc. I will ask him if he knows about the corroboree site, as he found a lot of spear rubbings and artwork. He doesn't want 'tourists' descending into the area or for the NP to be closed off so he doesn't report findings.

@@GoBushWanderingWild I think the corroboree site was known as Eagle's Rest or Eagle's Nest (by the whites), and when first discovered (by whites) was described as "an open air museum". Darkinjung Country, as you may already sense, is DEEPLY DEEPLY mysterious due to its isolation. At certain locations their dreaming is very profound. To be honest, I find all these "bushwalks in the Colo/Wollemi" YT videos rather superficial. It's all about how much fun one can have in canoe; how awesome are the mountains and valleys; how yummy are the creeks and beaches; how long it takes to get from A to B, etc. But no exposé of the true spirituality of the region people trample through with their water bottles and muesli bars ... disturbing the snakes. Next visit, spend some time conversing with the Darkinjung Dreaming ... as their guest. That's the true spirit of the Colo.

@@thedolphin5428 - perhaps since you are a local and I am currently residing locally would you be interested in a collaboration? I am not sure I could trek the area without bringing in food and water containers to purify the water (20 years ago I drank straight from the river but not these days) or have the skills to live off the land (or how that would be possible without disturbing anything) but if you have these skills and would like to do a trip into the WNP I could take you to the sites special to me and vice versa and make a video of these sites where you talk about the dreaming etc ?? I don't believe such a video exists on RU-vid. If you didn't want your face to be in the videos I could do a voice recording over video of the sites?

Different states and territories have different drone laws. In NSW you can with approval from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). Regarding other drone laws - I took the footage back in 2019 with a DJI Mavic Mini - back then as it is under 250g I did not need accreditation with the civilian aviation safety authority (CASA) nor did I have to register the drone.

you need friends

Are you not familiar with the Australian sun - and I have blue eyes. I would call being able to see a necessity for vigilance, considering the terrain here.

I knew there would be a god comment in here somewhere. 😀

I am not a religious person but I was thankful I listened to that little voice in my head, whether it was my instincts or something greater - I guess one day I'll find that out.