A few of our vertebral poofers needed repair, so part of Tuesday morning went to brushing out ptfe tape and swapping out sheared-off streets.

Using this rad butane-powered soldering iron, Denise repairs a poofer apparatus whose cable got destroyed in transit. photo by Ted

Xa and Slinky run the LPG hose along the spine.

Lex and Xa couple pipe.

Xa and Margaret join the schedule 80 pipe that brings the fuel from our depot out to the Snake.

Sam stares down the jaw, and ponders the nature of man versus beast. photo by Ted

Bolting the head into place is an all-hands job.

Per the Australian safety authorities, Sam installs a special drop bear alarm system module into the Serpent’s upper jaw.

Hooray for the ball valve farm! Here is where we sort out all the hoses that come into Snakey’s spine. photo by our local Melbourne-based FLG Steph

Ted and Margaret wiggle the egg shooter apparatus into place. photo by Steph

One of the last things we do is attach the inside-halves of the vertebrae. You can see them placed all along the ground — they don’t get bolted on until all the propane and electronics have passed leak- and click-testing. photo by Steph

… sure.

This sticker, on the back of the VR — er sorry, telehandler. ell oh ell. y’all quirky here.

These are soy sauce packets. Far better than those rectangular pouches that are difficult to open and drizzle everywhere, these little plastic fishes are far easier to dispense, and WAY cuter!

Dropping the container on site as the sun comes up…

Mills breaking into our container — during transit, they put a tamper seal on it. It didn’t take us too long to defeat this obstacle.

Mills and Margaret, cheesing in front of our build site at the Melbourne Museum.

Removing the egg from the container, while Sam staggers away from a near-collision with a drop bear. THEY’RE OUT HERE.

This is a VR handing off the head rack to a fork lift, all while doing a complicated dance amidst the trees by the build site.

We love flow charts.

Splitting the head rack to access the ladder parts.

Love notes from our past selves.

Surveying from the egg to the fuel depot.

We start at the egg and spiral the tail outwards. Here is where the vertebrae rises up off the ground.

“Persuading” the vertebrae outwards with the VR.

Deliv

Meanwhile, Marisa discovered our initials already adorn a wall here on Flinders Lane in the Central Business District…

This is a still life of various dodgy-looking items we had to bring in our checked baggage.

Carolyn penned a lovely note to the customs folks, and even included a tool for opening the box!

Most of our crew, plus some local friends — shoutout to Lex and Corey, our homies from Burning Man DPW. Here we are enjoying the late evening sun after a delicious barbeque. Rock solid way to close out our first day before the build begins.