I remember places. In this place we had stopped for a pee break in the heat of the early afternoon sun. We had not seen a human being in the last hour as we had driven across Murchison Park, and it was unlikely we would see a single person in the next hour and a half before we were out of it. In the dry grass of this stopping place the only animals we might see were warthogs.
I stretched while walking up the road. And then we saw it. “Look – That snake!”. To say it was gliding down the bank was to understate. It was much too fast. To say it was slithering was to misrepresent the grace and steadiness of its movement. To say it was bolting would be to understate the stateliness of its progress.
This was the fastest moving snake I have ever seen. It crossed the road and ascended the murram bank on the other side. A glamorous shiny green above and yellowish buff below. We estimated six or seven feet long, but people nearly always overestimate the length of snakes they have seen.
Getting home and looking in our books we thought it had to have been a Jamieson’s mamba. Whatever it was it was the most beautiful and memorable snake I have ever seen.