Machete-ing is an art form!

So yesterday I went back to one of the new sites, caught 3 lizards pretty easily and went after a fourth - the problem was that the fourth was under a thin flake of rock, halfway up a very sleep slope, so I couldn't do anything from above...

I tried to give up and go across to the other new site, but after I got stuck in my millionth thorn bush I gave up. Let me just add, that I HATE thorn bushes! I understand that the plants don't want to be eaten and so on, but can't they do it in a way that doesn't hurt me? Like tannins, or growing taller or something... my arms and legs and hands are covered in scratches and I don't like it, because I'm always just sunburned enough to make it sting a little bit more than I can ignore...

So I went back and tried to get the last lizard. The problem was that although I could just about reach the area where it was, the whole base of the slope was covered in thorn bushes, trees and dead branches from thorn trees that made a kind of thorny mesh that was completely impenetrable. I managed to get through and break off enough of the dead branches to make it almost accessible, and then climbed up a few feet to set traps. About half an hour later when I hadn't had any luck, I went back and adjusted them. I climbed a few feet higher to be able to work more effectively, ,and then, a few minutes alter, realized that the foothold I was using was not only smooth granite, but smooth granite with lichen and twigs on it. I might have done it myself from disturbing so many trees, but either way, my foot slipped and I tumbled off the rocks and into the thorn mesh...

I scrambled furiously at the rock, but wasn't able to stop myself, and succeeded in scarping down an adjacent rock with a very sharp edge. In the chaos, with me falling, bits of rock falling, traps falling... the lizard finally made an appearance and hid under a rock the as completely covered in thorn bushes. I gave up and gathered my things, to feel something cold on my leg. I looked down and realised that I'd cut my leg open -a long gash along the inside of my calf, from my knee to my ankle, and it was bleeding quite impressively.

The worst part is, besides losing the lizard, i went to the other site today, armed with a machete for the thorny bits, an found that it's actually incredibly unsuitable. It's all big boulders, which are fun to climb, but almost impossible to trap, and the lizards that live on boulders are invariably more intelligent than the ones on flat outcrops.

For the record though, swinging a machete is both incredibly therapeutic and incredibly ineffective! But from the way my arms are feeling, it's also a good workout!