Red Hill hits the screens

Its been a fair few Sid- Free- months in our little neighbourhood.

Our quiet street is quite sleepy most days but not today. At about 11 am this interesting duo came rolling down the road and stopped outside a house a few doors up. The duo are Julia Baker and her Scottish partner Johnny, who carries in the bags. Yes, bags to catch snakes in. The phone call from the neighbour brought Julia and a whole film crew who are filming the series Snake Boss for Animal Planet.

Julia reached fame when she decided she needed a change of career from a pastry chef and children's entertainer to a snake catcher and it is history after that. See below:

https://www.facebook.com/thesnakesheila/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZML8fg2sQ

So I was invited in by the neighbour to watch two wonderful women, Mandy and Margie from flickchicks   www.flickchicks.com.au and their cameramen as they filmed the catching of one of the carpet pythons in the roof. They were there from morning to late afternoon and in all the takes and shooting they will have come away with a short film which will be used. It has given me a new appreciation of how demanding and difficult it is to make good television.

The other python was in the Mango tree just outside the house, quite high and we think he has just eaten a possum so was probably quite content to stay put for a while. 

The one in the roof proved quite challenging because even though he was sleeping quietly by the time the film crew got up and the lights went on he thought that he could slip away without attracting any further notoriety. This found Julia on the floor in her immaculate black outfit and should I also point out manicure, knee deep in snake poo and 100 year old dust as she rolled on the attic floor of this Queenslander. There were noises and squeals and an eventual cry for help as the slippery beast made to get away so John went up there for extra reinforcement and between the two of them they managed to get hold of it and get it into the bag. I have no pictures to show you of either snake though the programme will be aired on Snake Boss on Animal Planet sometime in October.

Julia said recently in an article: 

“My connection with snakes is that growing up I felt completely misunderstood, and I look at snakes and I know they’re misunderstood. People really need to see snakes for what they really are – instinctive animals, with absolutely nothing mean or evil in them,” Julia says.

A high school dropout born in Brisbane but raised in England and Germany, Julia fell in love with reptiles when she held her first snake, aged 40, at a Queensland theme park. She now has four pythons and three lizards as pets in her Eatons Hill home on Brisbane’s northside.

Misunderstood ? Hmm... So if in need of a snake catcher look out for Julia, her motorcycle and her bags- not quite LV - perhaps on the inside this time!