This post's all about how mother nature wants to kill you. And me. She's got it in for humans, particularly Californians, and she's got some pretty sneaky weapons to get us with.

I can't really think of a better preamble to this post than that, so click read more, spare me the pain of using my brain.



I went for a quick hike up a hill called Bishop's Peak in San Luis Obispo, a college town halfway between LA and San Francisco, and stumbled across some of the evils that California's wilderness has to offer.

First and foremost, the ever-dreaded poison oak:



'Oh wow, what a harmless looking plant' I hear you say. Until you touch it. And you get itchy and rashy and horrendously uncomfortable for a week.

My favourite description of it so far goes to Kari, who said: 'I pity the unsuspecting couple who decides to get frisky in the bushes...ouch.'

Anyway, I walked to the top of Bishop Peak, yeah yeah, here's proof - only an unfit man at the top of a steep hill can produce that much sweat:



And on the way down, I saw this bad boy:



I, not knowing what sort of snake it was, froze, stepped back a metre or two and whipped out the camera. Obviously the safe reaction. But the awesome thing about the US is unlike Australia, most of the snakes here can't kill you, they just scare you then slither off to wait in surprise for the next unsuspecting human.

It was my second snake sighting in as many hikes, and from what the wise world of Google tells me, I saw a Gopher snake, which seems to be pretty harmless and dull. Still, awesome. I love snakes.

Oh, did I mention the mountain lions, rattlesnakes (those ones will hurt you), coyotes, gun-toting rednecks (yes you can buy guns from Walmart) and a variety of other crazy things? Cactus, anyone? Those things are made to hurt people. Big-horned mountain sheep? What the hell? Why do sheep need big horns?