The Bad Baby: A Lovely Story about a Lovely Walk

It has now been long enough that I can talk about the horror that took place a couple of weeks ago on one of our walks. Either that or we just watched the whole series of Game of Thrones and I didn't have time to write about it.

Anyway, the dad and I had planned to go on a walk up the top of the escarpment. Later on in the morning Aunty Von called and asked if we wanted to go on a walk with them instead. So they drove up to our house and we decided to do a much harder walk from close to where we live all the way up the escarpment.

Side note: If you look on this map you might think that the freeway just northwest of where we live is very close to us. But what you can't see on the map is the escarpment that rises straight up about 400m from behind our little town. Actually that's a general rule in pretty much any map from around here - there is probably some kind of enormous hill that you can't see on the map.

We got all ready and drove up to the beginning of the walk. Here is a map of what the walk was supposed to be. Along a road left of where we parked, then along a trail looping around to the right, up the escarpment, and back down to our car. So we started off, laughing, joking, generally having a good time. The first part of the walk was road, then what used to be a very small dirt road.

Oh, isn't this fun...

I'm a really good photographer.

Still having fun...

It was when we reached a clearing full of grass that we discovered the leeches. Now, I've known some leeches in my time, but this was like nothing I've ever seen. If you stood still for 20 seconds there would be approximately 30-100 leeches on your shoes. I marked that point as a helicopter on the map because that's what I really really would have liked to come and pick me up. Looking back, the smart thing to do would have been to turn around right then. But no, we continued. And so did the leeches. Eventually we were almost running down the track while desperately flicking any leeches off that we could see on our legs. It was no use stopping to pull them off because (as I said before) 20 more would climb on. The sight of houses and then road was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Picey was right in front of me most of the time, saying every now and then, 'I think there's a leech under my sleeve.' Well I didn't believe him because who has a leech on their arm? Leeches are on the ground, right? Not so much. As soon as we reached the road he took his shirt off and I removed no less than five leeches off his back, stomach, and arms. Loo had some right up near his diaper. Even now I shudder at the thought of it all.