I came across the biggest snake I've ever seen - like, ever, not just outdoors or in a zoo, fucking ever - last week on a sandy trail in the Royal National Park south of Sydney.
Came around a bend, playing stick-stick-snake, every Australian trail runner's favourite game, and thought "Oh is that huge shiny black log a ... yep... it's moving."
It was about 15m ahead and I slowed, then stopped as it unfurled. It was at least 2m in length and thick and I swear the thing I remember apart from its head lifting so it would be at my knee level was that the blackness of its scales was so dark, so black, it seemed to grab all light around it, and the scarlet of its belly was so red...
Anyway, Red bellied black snakes aren't aggressive, just highly venomous, and they'll only bite if you startle them or step on them, sort of like I would have if it had been resting just AROUND the bend instead of in the middle of the track. It was overgrown bush on either side of the 1m track. It slowly eased off the trail, as they're supposed to, and I was left to continue. If it had been a Brown snake I'd have been in real trouble, they're the ones that actually kill people and they often refuse to move away, and when they do that, if you make any move at all towards them they'll go after you.
I couldn't turn around and go back the way I came because I'd actually only 2 minutes leapt over a small brown snake next to a rock I jumped off on a downhill. I didn't see it till I landed past it, and it was no threat but I certainly couldn't go back that way.
Taught me a good lesson, never go trail running NO MATTER the length without my support shit. I was just doing loops of this track and a beach (Jibbon beach) as sand training about 2km from our holiday house. I normally carry a bandage and phone with me (at the least) no matter where I go because they're so useful for like 90 per cent of trail running mishaps. But because I was close, and it was 95'f I went out in singlet and shorts. If I'd been bitten my options were to walk in high heat 2km back for help which is the worst thing you can ever do with a snake bite, or sit in snake-town on a trail waiting for potential runners or bushwalkers to find me.
I got back and picked up a beer and absolutely inhaled it.