Can't Touch This

I have returned! Not only figuratively but physically to the keyboard.

Yes dear readers, it has been many a moon since we have conversed. The shock of Frank Arrington death coupled with the stress and uncertainty of moving the entire Conspirasteve body politic to a foreign land conspired to render the vivacious yet humble author of this blog mute. However, not unlike an antediluvian damn, all things fail. So the failure of my enemies conspiring to destroy the Conspirateve nation have once again been dispatched..

That was the 'figuratively' portion of my mea culpa. Now on to the physical.

The Conspirasteve bunker is located in Manly Beach. a northern neighborhood in Sydney proper. Two kilos south of the Conspirasteve bunker of truth (tm) is a national park known as North Head. This being a popular destination for a sizable portion of Sydneysiders trying to get out of the city without actually leaving said city. It would not be hard to visualize the crowds.

I Conspirasteve, borne from the land of small population and large open spaces naturally gravitates to similar environmental conditions. With this in mind and being the natural explorer that has come to define the Conspirasteve body politic, it would not come as a shock that I would have discovered an previously unknown path in the park. This trail follows a WW2 era defensive granite wall from the western top of the head to a cliff face 40 meters above the mouth of Sydney Harbor. To the west is a rocky semi trail that leads down to a fisherman's cove between two massive cliff heads. I had took it upon myself to explore these western cliff heads. However I had been warned about the native wild life up in the cliffs, most notably the snakes and spiders. I Conspirasteve, being Conspirasteve dismissively nodded politely and set off on my quest to discover new lands! To blaze my own trail and claim land for the Conspirasteve nation!

The first thing I noticed about my new found home is the harshness of the "Bush"; Aussie speak for forest. This Bush is actually, well just that, bushes. Low brutal scrub brush packed densely into spaces dead trees stubbornly cling onto There are no leafy ferns to softly brush against your legs as you stroll by. Indeed, if your bare legs and Bush come into contact, the experience would be akin to brushing up against Freddy Kruger's custom made glove. This Bush is interspersed with open flat sandstone boulders. in which i had to leapfrog to and fro to even penetrate this harsh landscape.

Once at the bottom of the cove I was faced with the arduous task of making it up to the cliff tops through the Bush I had described earlier. I was determined! I was resolute! Hell I was the Fifteen minute rush master! what could possibly go wrong?  It is assumed that one should listen to the warning of the natives. I of course never like to assume anything. Something about making an ass out of something... I don't remember. Whatever. Once more into the breach my friends!

The first part of my journey was pretty uneventful, yet invigorating. I was free bouldering up a 55-60 degree cliff face, testing my new found Vegan diet for weaknesses. none was found. As I approached the top, I envisioned myself as a star tracker! a voyager! I would be the first to trek into such unforgiving territory! There was no equal! I was king of this mountain! Etc.   As I surveyed my newly conquered landscape, a landscape so forbidding and remote, that surely no one has had the fortitude to conquer it before!  I noticed something quite disturbing to a man who was in the process of discovering unkown lands, an EMPTY BOTTLE OF SPRITE appeared! Damn I thought, If I'm not the first man to climb this Olympus I must be the second, or god forbid the third. I felt satisfied in this thought until I started looking at the ground in which I stood. I started to notice strange carvings in the sandstone on which I perched.... I was standing on the graffiti grounds of ancient mariners. These long dead hooligans had carved the names of their ships and the dates their heinous crimes against mother nature were committed.. "The Conuga August 1885' ; NKY NIKKO MARU 1810", this had Japanese characters next to it;  The Melbourne 1889. I was aghast that these ancients hooligans had beat me to the punch by over 200 years!

Dejected, I moved north along the cliff top trying to keep my distance from the edge with it's vertigo inducing 300 foot vertical drop to the warm waters of port Jackson, where Great White sharks were spotted roaming the waters edge earlier in the day. I pushed on to higher and more forbidding areas of North Head.The evidence of the ancient scallywags were no longer visible. Surely they would not have trekked this far into Hells Gate. I once more felt I was the new king of this land.

Within 3 feet of the cliff face and it's forbidding drop was the thick impassible Bush that I had described earlier. The sudden realization on why so few souls ventured this far into the park shook me to the core. This place was dangerous. But I liked it. "U Cant Touch This" by MC Hammer played on an endless loop in my mind .I had come to a point where the cliff edge and the Bush had met. I was faced with the choice between trampling into an impassible landscape or turn back with the determination to return another day armed with a machete and a flask of whisky. I chose the latter. I was committed to blaze my own personal trail through my new kingdom. I was triumphant in my achievement.

 I had been leaving trail markers intermittently through my journey into this forbidden territory.  I was searching for these trail markers, lost in the though of self congratulations when I had came across a Pseudonaja textilis.. or commonly referred to as an Eastern Brown Snake .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_brown_snake sunning itself on the narrow trail between Bush and the cliff edge.These are very aggressive villainous vipers. Not unlike a Florida Republican armed with a Stand-Your-Ground law and a 357. This local thug was not going to back down. I gave this vile vermin a wide berth. I chose to head into a rocky section of the Bush and go around the venomous sunbather. I felt i had cleared the space i needed to head back onto my previous road.  The moment I had turned away from the Bush toward the trail, I was astonished to discover that little fucker had flanked me along the trail and was heading toward Conspirasteve at a rate of speed physics would deem impossible!. Of course I had done what any other American male, full of testosterone, full of life, secure in the knowledge that I had come from the biggest superpower this world has ever known! I let out a scream so loud and high in pitch that it would be indistinguishable from a 6 year old girl and headed back into the Bush at DEFCON 1, where I was sure that motherfuckers cousins were lying in wait! I would be dead in seconds!

 And then it got worse..

 After about what seemed like 10 miles of warp speed, (but was more like 10 meters), I took a quick glance behind  a split second before I ran face first into a web spun by an gargantuan spider so massive the world has refused to confront it's existence out of pure primal fear. Thus landing the spawn of Satan on my cheek. I was once again presented with a choice. A  choice between calmly flicking away said arachnid from my cheek. Or, once again, scream like a pre-pubescent Justin Beiber fan, flip my new baseball cap off my head  with aggressive arm flailing motions around my head and face  and generally freak the fuck out. I chose the latter. I have heard of mothers being able to lift cars to save their children. It is now the Conspirasteve corporate policy to never question the ability of humans to perform super human feats. The speed in which i had ran would have made Hussein Bolt look like a speed walker.  After I had found a large boulder to perch, a boulder in which I'm sure I had lept up in one single bound. I was able to stop and pull the spiderwebs off my face and take stock. I was not dead (yet} from either vicious viper or Satan's personal Demon pet.

Strangely " U Cant Touch This" was no longer on my mental play list

Fuckin Australia.