The plan for the Friday of the Easter long weekend was to go for a 100km ride through a beautiful national park and take pictures to make to folks back in Thunder Bay want to come out a visit. The route would take me through Ku-Ring-Gui Chase Park and up to a scenic platform called West Head that was supposed to have amazing views. During these rides I normally have plenty of time to think about what I want to write about so when I get home the blog entry already has some shape.

Physically, I was exhausted, just over halfway and almost at the scenic lookout but mentally I was feeling creative and I was going over all the great parts of the ride. I decided to stop at a picnic table to have a quick snack and get my camera out so that I had it ready when great views came into sight. I plunked my sweaty, spandexed butt down at the picnic table and I immediately saw the back half of a snake making its way under the table. Thinking that there would probably be a snake biting my toes shortly, I leaped backwards into a terribly performed reverse somersault. Even if I had been wearing a kimono with a matching headband I would not have been confused with a ninja.

Much to my relief there wasn’t a small snake under my table. There was a huge lizard and the “snake” part that I had seen was only the tip of it’s tail. The lizard was roughly 5 feet long! As expected, at this point I changed from a ninja impersonator to an Olympic sprinter impersonator and may have recorded a PB.

Goannas (also called Monitor Lizards) are significantly larger than any type of lizard that I had previously seen and since everything in Australia is poisonous, I can hardly be blamed for hauling ass away from it. Goannas are in fact poisonous although their venom is quite mild and instead of ensuring death it primarily causes incessant bleeding, infection and severe pain…so no big deal really. I detoured around the creepy thing back to my bike and threw my helmet about 20 feet in front of it because I needed some perspective for the photos. Sensing a trap (or more likely smelling my fear) it took its sweet time leaving my table and I managed to take a few pics of it. There you have it folks, I risked my safety for your entertainment.

Oh yeah, the views were great and yadda yadda. Seriously, the lizard was huge.