PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
THE TEMPTATION OF MARK

I was working to complete my voucher specimen spiriting and labelling, in order to move onto examination, documentation and photography of the UPNG Toxicocalamus loaded by Paulus Kei, when Owen and the boys arrived.

Dave had told me the day before that he and Owen were planning a 4-5 hour trip down the coast to Kupiano on Marshall Lagoon, to look for Papuan taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus canni) and then slowly spot-light the roads on the way back to Port Moresby.I had responded to say I would have loved to come along and surely would have done so if I had not got so much work to do on the specimens from UPNG. I would sadly have to pass this one up and knuckle down to the job in hand.

I was sitting on the verandah of the accommodation to prevent the preservative fumes from penetrating the rooms and periodically one of the boys: Ben, Julious, Jasper, would walk over to talk to me or ask me for some field kit, suffixing their comment or request with "So you're not coming then?"

I explained "No, I have to get this done" but the more often I repeated it the less convincing it sounded.

Then at around 10:30, as they completed their preparations I decided, I'm going too, this will be my last chance to go into the field with these guys until I come back to PNG nexy time. I will drive the second vehicle, I can do this other stuff tomorrow, work into the night, to which Julious' response was "Great, I will come and help you with the specimens after church tomorrow". I promised to teach him how to scale-count snakes for identification purposes.

By the time Dave got down stairs I had my field kit in the Pajero (the vehicle I had been given when I got back from Oro) and I had Ben and Julious onboard. Owen and Jasper would ride with Dave in the Snakebite Rescue Ambulance. At 11:00 we set off, refueled at a service station, and headed south down the Magi Highway.

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