There’s no extra charge for the wildlife

One thing I  learnt pretty quickly when travelling was that the wild life has no understanding of the words “do not disturb”.  When I shut the door of my room at night for some sleep a whole zoo of small scurrying things seems to appear from nowhere to keep me awake.   Wide eyed geckos large and small crawl over the room walls interrupting my slumber with their throaty calls, rodents scrabble in the roof eves waking me and putting me on alert for sounds entry, insects swoop whining in their excitement of a  tasty snack, cockroaches and ants scuttle across the floor seeking any food left by unwary humans.   A thorough search of the room to evict any unwanted guests, the bunging up of any suspicious looking means of entry, a mossie net and heavy duty sprays often clears up the majority of the less savory visitors but there’s still a minority that slip through the radar – normally in the bathroom when I’m in a vulnerable position.        

My first serious unwanted encounter with foreign wild life was in Darwin.  It was hot and humid.  The shower was located some way from the room – down the corridor and past the lounge where the male residents were sat watching neighbours on TV (yes I did say neighbours!).    Two minutes into the shower the hairs on the back of my neck started to prickle.  Something was watching me.   Washing the soap out of my eyes I looked around the very small cubical and saw nothing.  The  feeling persisted and I looked around again.  Now, at that time my understanding about exotic amphibians was limited ie if they were brightly coloured they were generally poisonous.  So when I made eye contact with a luminous green frog that was sitting on the window shelf, I panicked.  Not stopping to turn the shower off I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me and shot out of the door.  I ran past the lounge where the sight of a freaked out, naked women, wrapped in a small wet towel did nothing to rouse the men’s ‘interest’ or chivalrous side – so intent were they on the fate of Kylie and Jason.    My travelling companion, who went to check out the bathroom and reclaim my clothes when I fell through the door of our room had a good laugh at my expense when he found out that the lethal animal in question was a small and rather cute looking tree frog. 

After that incident smirks were exhanged between my friend and the resident lounge lizards everytime they met.  I suspect that he’d bonded with them over the stupidity of Shelias.  Well they may snigger and act tough but I hold the trump card.   I know that the male rough cut diamonds of Darwin watch soaps!