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As soon as we arrived in Australia one of the first things we began to think about was how to deal with living in a place that has, as everyone now knows thanks to Steve Irwin, some of the most poisonous animals on Planet Earth. To be honest this is not seen by most inhabitants as a major drama. Urbanisation has certainly reduced the natural habitat of many indigenous reptiles and insects although being so versatile the insects always seem to come through by adapting to new habitats. The growth of cities has also reduced the population of some on
Australia’s better known creatures like the Koala and Echidna. But as with everywhere else the little creepy crawly critters manage to find somewhere to live. And it’s their occupation of the space we’d like to live in that is of most concern to us.
We know very few of the names of the spiders and insects that live in this country, indeed who on earth could even begin to learn such a mountain of knowledge but we’re getting to know the most common ones especially those that we should leave well alone as well as those who simply look like trouble.
My first sighting of a Huntsman spider came whilst staying with the lads down at Bonnet Bay before the family arrived. We were out by the pool clearing up when Ben spotted the spider as he uncoiled the pool hose from its reel. According to him it was a reasonably large specimen, whereas according to me it was simply the biggest spider I had ever set eyes on in the world. It was so big that from where I was standing a metre and a half away to where it sat on the pool hose I could actually see its upper row of eyes! It was huge, easily the size of a saucer, with a flattish big fat body a mottled duty colour. Spotting him on the grey plastic hose reel was easy but nigh on impossible on the bark of a tree or a dusty woodland floor. Of course my initial thoughts filled me with caution, almost shitting a brick if the real truth be known but I collected my senses, reached into my inner mind for Attenborough’s cool and took a closer look before he took off. I knew already that Huntsman spiders were not poisonous, although as with anything they could give a painful bite if poked into a corner, well at least one with jaws this big could, when as quick as a flash, like a flick of motion it was gone, scuttling away to the underside of the fence rails out of sight. To picture this particular spider just remember the film ‘Arachnophobia’ – the Huntsman is the one they based the monster spider on.
So when I got a call at work to say Ted and Scarlett had found a Huntsman on the plastic play slide in the garden my first question was how big it was? A baby as it turned out, probably no bigger than a really big European house spider and using a plastic food box it was easily transferred to the front garden where it was let go. Pleasingly the kids went straight to Mummy when they saw it after turning the slide upside down to illegally clamber over it. This time though I wasn’t about to tell them off for playing on the wrong side of the thing and I’m happier with them giving the play toys a good shaking before they use them each time. No good putting them in the garage at night as there’s more spiders in there than the garden! And after several tales of Huntsmans climbing through open car windows and going for a sleep behind the folded up sun visors you can guess whose car sits in the garage with all its windows shut. Anyway, you’re probably wondering who Sid is. It’s the name we’ve given to our resident bathroom spider, which after a bit of investigating is a Daddy-long-legs and as common as could be. Initially we were wary of him with his very long legs and stealth approach sitting in the web so we left Arachnidan Bathroomicus well alone but now we’re quite happy to have him around. Same with the Huntsman, they keep the numbers of mozzies and biting flies to a minimum. Every night Sid can be found in a different corner of the ceiling or underneath the edge of the sink cupboard just sitting in his web waiting for something to happen and apart from taking a peep under the loo seat before sitting down, shaking the towel is the only new habit we have just to make sure Sid hasn’t taken up refuge among its folds. He never ventures out of the ensuite but since she read it somewhere Lindsay has taken to checking the bedclothes every night before snuggling down, something I’m pretty sure is completely unnecessary unless we’ve been away for six weeks and left all the windows open.
Getting used to these creatures and respecting their habitat is a good thing as we found out one evening after jumping into the pool for a dip before dinner. From her vantage point on the side Lindsay spotted a little black spider apparently swimming around near the edge. Using a large leaf we fished him out and not knowing what he was took him across to our neighbour, whose Dad is a pest control expert and runs Extreme Pest Control. Something sort of stood out about this spider, I’m not sure what but he was almost black and had a distinct white stripe running down his back, which rung a little alarm bell suggesting he might be one of Sid’s more anti-social cousins. Immediately he was identified as a white tailed spider and despatched hencewith. Don’t want to get bitten by one of those; you’ll be sick for the rest of your life was the report. These particular spiders apparently are not only able to swim but can remain under water for very long periods of time without suffering any ill effects. Despite this I am convinced he would not have harmed any of us and whether he was knocked into the pool or was residing under the stone edges, the chances of any harm coming to us remain extremely slim. And if we start believing there’s a poisonous spider in every nook and cranny we might as well pack up and leave! Seems the spiders won’t leave the house even though the air conditioning is now on a lot of the time as Ted recently woke up to a Huntsman on his bedroom wall about the size of a Pringles lid! Calmly he went and got Mum and they used paper and box to carry him off.
As a precaution though we have booked Extreme Pest Control to come in and sort things out a bit.
We fix a look, deep into searching eyes and they flash a smile. An expression of their feelings, a trust so strong it takes away my breath.
Together they have almost ten years between them and already I feel I’ve lived a thousand magical lifetimes.
It‘s so beautiful it must be the definition of what is truly magic. Can one man be so blessed?
Last night I whilst enjoying the medicinal properties of a cold brew of water and hops I sat and watched a mechanical genius at work. We have a pool at the house, nothing grand, a mere 5m x 5m and some 2m deep at the middle but it’s incredible fun and fenced off properly before anyone starts worrying about people falling in, so as with all these things it requires cleaning on a regular basis depending on how much use it sees. There are automatic filtering systems that do their job while I’m asleep, the guy who comes round to cut the grass checks the chemical levels and tips in more salt or chlorine but for the daily task of keeping it clean it’s down to us. This is fair enough and quite relaxing actually; put it this way I’m far happier spending time of an evening using a net on a pole to collect leaves from the bottom of the pool than using a snow shovel to clear ice from my driveway.
Anyway, the mechanical marvel I refer to is something called a Polaris, well that’s the company that makes it and so that’s what is gets known as. Same as the Kreepy-Krawly and when someone first said to me they had a creepy-crawly in the pool I really did start peering into the water looking for a tropical multi legged creature swimming around the bottom! Our Polaris has been nicknamed Little Blue, because, well he’s little and mostly made of blue plastic and last night was the first time that I’ve properly sat and watched him go about his duties.
Connected to the pump via an umbilical hose he sits on the bottom ready to go. When the pump is switched on a jet of water drives him forward at the same time operating his three asymmetric wheels and the smaller jets of water that actually drive the debris up into his collecting bag, all the while he is followed by his long plastic tail, which lets out another jet to keep his forward motion up. And he’s not that slow either. When he reaches the side of the pool the wheels allow him to start climbing the sides but because there are two wheels on one side and only one on the other he naturally tips over and turns himself to start traveling in the opposite direction, on a new course across the bottom where his work takes place. It’s really so simple but at the same time ingenious and because you never know where he’s going next it makes for fascinating viewing. At least far more fascinating than Miami CSI. The best bit is when it looks like he’s about to get tangled or stuck in the same little corner. Every so often a clever little device inside a buoyed float about a metre or so back along his umbilical hose activates a cunningly concealed jet system that lifts Little Blue clear of the bottom and drags the whole lot over to another part of the pool, it then switches off and he sinks back down with his wheels running to set off again in another place, sucking away at the debris on the bottom, thus avoiding tangles and getting stuck all without the need for us pesky humans to intervene.
Although this doesn’t take place automatically as does the filtration it really is quite relaxing just sitting there watching him go about his business with his tail whipping along after him bathed in halogen light, which is more for my benefit than his as he can go around in the dark too. After an hour or so I switch off his pump and he crawls to a stop, work done for the night. All that’s left to do is pull him out of the water, let him drain off and empty the collecting bag, job done.
The festive season has been and gone and as the train rattles through the rain, yes rain, the pen and paper scribble away at what’s just passed us. Queensland was the destination for Santa this year and after a short flight to Brisbane on which the kids were convinced they’d get to watch movies, have several meals and a couple of sleeps we took to the Bruce Highway in all its splendid double-carriageway glory. At least until just after the Queensland zoo turn off where it dropped down to a slower single carriage way affair. Still not a comfortable experience but steady. Someone in a high place obviously had a soft spot for poor Steve Irwin as there is now a highway named after the Crocodile Hunter, although I’m not sure who the heroic Bruce was to lend his name to the snaking highway that leads north and soon turns into something that would rate as a B class road elsewhere. The last available rental people carrier in Gladstone was a welcome way to transport the constantly chattering tribe of children and my poor Uncle had his name all but worn out as the kids learnt they could get hours of conversation from him. A fag at a roadhouse never felt so good.
The roadhouses were friendly as ever and the grub pretty good and the weather stayed dry and kind as we swept past the cane fields around Bundaberg, famous for its rum distillery. Shortly after that we pulled up at Six Palms, Gladstone; my cousin’s beautiful Queenslander style house which was to be our base for the next five days. And we were afforded the type of warm hospitality only families can share, they had generously converted the downstairs hobby room into a bedroom fit for five and Riley had given over his room for our older daughter, although she did have to share it with a myriad of radio control models and a lovely set of billet wheels for the orange EH Holden under restoration, under the house. Something which prompted Ted to refer to us “living downstairs with the hot rods”. Within a very short space of time we had slipped into the even more relaxed way of life in QLD and naturally there was something cold from the fridge to wash away the dust from our throats after hours in the saddle.
This year Santa did not arrive on a magical sleigh drawn through the night sky by a troop of cheery reindeer only to spirit down the chimney, leaving behind a sack of goodies with just enough time to take a single bite from his cookie. Instead he drew up outside the verandah in a Holden Ute of all things. But it was Santa, because we could tell from the heap of glittering wrapped boxes stacked up to the roll bar in the back. And then we knew it was him for sure as he climbed out for he’s a solid kind of guy, and of course he has a white beard. And when it was time the other guy (probably his helper, but we’ll call him Pete) took his chair in the centre of the room, gathered all the children round and began to hand out the pressies. The children were in awe of this Santa which was a good thing as the day before when we took them for photos with the Good Man at his grotto they were scared witless by the thought of having to sit on the knee of some ho-ho-ho chanting lunatic in a bright red coat. Santa was very kind to them all this year bringing gifts of Lego, Barbie, Robo-Raptors, Doodle Doug, Care Bears and pull along school buses. The grown-ups did alright too with a ship’s telegraph (now permanently set to “all stop currently in dry dock”), car stereos, cameras, a guitar and the name plate off the Flying Scotsman, not to mention the pen that is writing the draft of this!
The much talked about Aussie Christmas dinner was a first for us in the form of a seafood extravaganza. Moreton Bay bugs, sand crab and some of the biggest red spot prawns straight out of the ocean, accompanied by cold meats and salads for the traditionalists among us it made for a perfect way to top up the tummies under the shade of the verandah. There was also the obligatory something cold in a glass to compliment such delicious food. What a refreshing change from immobilizing oneself with heaps of dry old turkey, mounds of chestnut stuffing, brussel sprouts and roast spuds, mind you a roast spud wouldn’t have been out of place here. For the afternoon’s activities some unavoidable toy play and a couple more cold glasses helped the prawns go down, while later The Incredibles calmed the kids for a while and the day was rounded off on the beach at Tannum Sands just as the sun was setting. Funny thing was I didn’t miss the Queen’s speech (at our side of the world it hadn’t actually happened but I didn’t miss it all the same).
Boxing Day saw us early on the beach again so as to avoid the searing Queensland sun as it really is dangerous up there to be out in the sun without protection for anything but ten minutes. All the littlies had a ball and it never ceases to amaze and delight me just how much fun can be generated by digging a hole in the sand and attempting to fill it with water from the surf. Why does it always run away by the time you’ve got back from a perilous trip to the sea with a bucketful of water? Naturally it wasn’t just any old hole but a proper castle of mediaeval proportions with a moat and foot high walls but that may have something to do with the fact that I helped build it. Lunch was spent round at Uncle’s house which is currently undergoing some much needed landscaping, thankfully the pool is still serviceable and was enjoyed to the full by all to cool off in. Some of the littlies having their first dips and getting used to the fact that the steps forming the shallow part don’t extend all the way round and that if you step off them it gets so deep that swimming is required! Somebody had the not very bright idea of moving the barbeque off the cooler front porch to the back of the house in the shady but still air. Once up to speed it must’ve been hotter than the engine room of a Townsville tug on duty at midday. Still the cook’s used to that and a steady flow of cold amber fluid and nicotine kept him going! Just as well as the bugs were even more delicious off the barby and by late afternoon everyone had started to wind down. Only the dogs Rocket and Sheba managed a falling out deciding to have a “blue” in the lounge right in front of the kids. Show-stopper is a mild understatement! But they’re friends again now.
We can’t thank the family in QLD enough for their hospitality, it was no mean feat to more or less give your house over to the little cyclone of people tearing round and round the four sided verandah on bikes and cars, the never ending stream of demands from a small army, the company of grown-ups, some time to socialize with teenage friends across the internet and of course Ted and Scarlett say thanks to Jack too whose life was suddenly thrown into chaos as one toy after another got played with to the full. All too soon we were packing bags into the car and setting off for Brizzy to catch a flight back to Sydney. And it was raining, all the way home.
“Excuse me Daddy…” was all we heard for 600 kilometers…
