Macau Snail

Friday, 17 August 2012

I went for a walk today after work and I decided to walk around the nature reserve. It is a big hill that is covered trees/jungle. It took me over an hour to loop around the hill. On my walk I came across many snail shells. I didn’t actually see the snails but I was impressed by size of the shell. Other teachers at the school had told me about the giant snails but I had not seen one till today.

As I was walking along the trail I heard something moving around in the leaves beside the trail. So I stopped and looked into the bushes. I wondered if it might be a lizard or a snake. What ever it was moving around and making a lot of noise. I keep staring and staring in to the bushes. Finally I spotted an eye, then a round little body and I wondered what it was. A mouse, a squirrel? Nope. The animal finally turned and ran into the forest and I clearly saw it’s tail. It was a rat with a long, thin rat tail. Yuck. I had been standing there staring at a rat. I was disappointed.

I didn’t find any other animals on my walk. Maybe next time.

I walked to the top of the high which is called Taipa Grande (http://www.geonames.org/6611656/taipa-grande.html) which is 160 meters or 525 feet. That doesn’t sound very impressive compared to the tall peaks in the Banff National Park. But let me tell you with 80% humidity it was still a sweaty climb to the top!