PETER KRANZ

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but growing up in Australia I have a great respect for snakes, as a kid having come across red-bellies, blacks and pythons in the bush just a few dozen metres from my back yard.

I survived.

Just give them a wide berth. Don't annoy them and they won't annoy you.

But in Mosbi, I had a different experience. There was a 12 foot Papuan Black in my back yard.

"Muran! Daddy Peter, muran!" 12 year-old Margaret shouted as I was sitting on the steps of my A3 house one afternoon.

What the hell's a muran? I was soon to find out.

A piece of long black rope appeared in the grass in front of me and wound it's way around the house and across the garden.

Young Margaret jumped up on the balcony behind me. "It's a snake!" Her English lessons doing her good service at last.

And it was. A bloody great 12 foot long Papuan Black winding its way lazily around my back garden.

I knew these were dangerous, being a type of Taipan, and I quickly jumped inside the house and closed the back door.

But young Margaret was my conscience. She said, "Daddy Peter, he might eat the neighbours!"

So I hurtled out the door, grabbed a garden fork and started shouting to the neighbours. "Muran, Muran, yu must find im, killim im he di long pinis!"

And so started the Great Snake Race at Fort Banner in 2007. We chased him down the road, all the while me shouting.

And people joined me, armed with sticks, rakes, bus knives and axes. We chased him all the way down to the guard post, where there was a drain leading up to the Olympic Village. He disappeared.

We screamed and yelled, but the drain was too long and dark, and there was no sign of snake.

So we went home exhausted, and had a beer or two to recuperate.

I think the giant snake is still up there near Tokorara somewhere, maybe terrorising the good local people.

I just hope he meets the spirit of my late great pig Mangi Mosbi, who was a dab hand at dealing with snakes.