Day 46 - Swansea to Bridport - 330km

Today was my day for creepy crawly's. It started as we were riding down Dolphin Sands Peninsula to take a look at Freycinet National Park and some large winged insect flew up the front of my helmet and halfway into my mouth. I spit it out and got my visor open and it was gone. I wasn't sure if it left through the front or just climbed back down my neck but we kept motoring on and it didn't bother me again. The view was amazing on the end of the peninsula with just a short swim to get you to the national park. Next we got into some old logging trails near Douglas-Apsley National Park and found a few roads that hadn't been travelled in years. One road got tighter and tighter until I was wedged between two large bushes with one in front of me. Deciding it was probably to overgrown to continue I struggled off the bike, refused any help from my father on getting my bike unstuck(I'm stubborn as a mule), and over the next ten minutes worked my bike out of the tight spot with my body half buried in the bushes. I didn't realise it at the time but all the bugs in the bush took the opportunity to climb onto me and I first noticed a spider spinning a web between my arm and the bike as I was resting after pulling the big bitch out. We backtracked to a more open road when I felt something crawling on my hands and biting me. When we stopped I found ants had invaded my gloves which had been on me the whole time. With my gloves cleared we went from the dry logging area into a rainforest with road cut into a cliff. There were waterfalls right into the road with rock and log bridges built to get across. This was probably the coolest road I've been on in Australia so far. When we got out of the rainforest I stopped to make sure my dad had made it and as soon as I pulled away a Tiger Snake (one of the most deadly and aggressive snakes in the world) came out of the grass right were I was waiting and crossed the road. And if that wasn't enough we pulled into the next town and while we were eating lunch I felt something crawl out of my shirt and up my neck. I pulled it off and it was a caterpillar with eyes on stalks like a slug. Everything in Australia is dangerous and this caterpillar was no exception and he left a nice welt on my neck. Every road we turned down was heaven for dual sport bikes and we were sad to see the day getting late and we had to get to our final destination. We checked into our accommodation, the Platypus Park Country Retreat, then rode into town after shedding our luggage. We did donuts on the beach with our bikes and drank beer at the local pub(Not in that order), and then decided to go on a Platypus Expedition on the property we were staying at. The farm dog decided to accompany us down there and as we were quietly walking down the edge of the water there was a loud racket through the brush around us. We tracked down the noise and the dog had pinned down a big possum. We took a few pictures and called it a night before anything else had the chance to crawl on or near me.