By Elliot

Distance: 26km

Today, we walked. First we were on a gravel road, then farmland, some more road, more farmland, then a path along a river, and then we were there.

We saw signs that were applicable to us.

Had some pretty nice views.

Saw a waterfall or two.

And when we got into town, we had a smoothie.

But what I really want to talk about was our night at Blackbridge camp, two nights ago.

We’ve previously mentioned hearing about a possum problem, and reading about possums. But up until two nights ago, it was all purely academic.

It was the middle of the night and we were asleep. I’m not a very deep sleeper, so I hear rustling on Ruth’s side of the tent. I look over, and there’s a possum, climbing all over Ruth’s bag, which was inside the vestibule. I didn’t want to wake the other people at the campsite, so I whispered-yelled, “pishta!”. The possum wasn’t easily frightened. I hit the side of the tent, trying to intimidate it. It was non-plussed.

Eventually, I managed to get it to go away. Not two minutes later, it pops up in the vestibule on my side! Now I start the whole intimidation game from zero. I decided I was going to shine my flashlight directly in its eyes, thinking that that would frighten it off. I turned on the flashlight, and blinded it with a powerful white light. Maybe in different lighting the possum would have looked cute, but 2am white light from a flashlight made it look feral. But it was not bothered by the flashlight. So I kept moving and whispering at it. Eventually it went away.

When it came back later that night, I decided to take a more laissez faire approach. Unless it was actively trying to get into my bag, I would let it crawl around. That seemed to be what I should have done to begin with, because it got bored quickly and left. So I guess I can now proudly say I’ve outwitted a possum.