Now I know why so much of the country gets a burn off. Never seen it like that. A lot of that dry brown grass has fallen over, so when green must have been higher as well.

Even down here about 3000 kms due South of there, we used to have high grass. Colonel William Light the explorer and surveyor before settlement in the 1830's passed by my home area, "Light Pass", and also named our "Duck Ponds Creek". The area was rich in game, ducks and roos, there the creek's name. He also recorded for "Light Pass" that the grass was so high that it reached to his waist while riding his horse. We don't have grass like that nowadays, settled lands, less flooding and flooding sediments on the now river banked flood plains. Probably a dryer climate since then as well due to deafforestation, and also possibly other climate changes. Was only talking about that recently.

High grass in snake country. Yes I think the guys would take turns walking in front. Doing that recently in far shorter grass, i get the dog to walk first when possible. Risk? One of my pruner workers stood on a Eastern Brown Snake a couple of weeks or so ago ... one of the four most deadly snakes in the world, and very common here. It was probably sluggish with the cold/cooler weather, but out to try to warm up in the sun.