Our Little Jaunt

Australian spiders we have gazed at in abject horror

Now don’t get me wrong. We want visitors. We really do. Which is why, if you think that this post may put you off Australia for life, you should never have clicked on it in the first place.

When I look back at one of our first ever blog posts, I laugh in the face of the broom-wielding antics which took place in order to dispose of an arachnid the size of your finger nail. We should have nurtured that little fella, kept it as a pet, perhaps. The rehabilitation it would have offered us may have at least in part prepared us for the RHINOS of spiders that we have since encountered.

It’s always a good one, never fails. You can be skipping along happily in the sunshine, chatting away, throw a casual glance to your left and be confronted with Aragog’s meaner, older brother. It’s like a car crash. You just can’t tear your eyes away. It takes about three minutes for your brain to even compute that something that large can just be hanging there, on a tiny thread without breaking it. Ready to scare the living shit out of you.

Equally, they’re pretty fascinating. Providing of course that there is at least 3 metres , an ouzi or a pane of glass between you and them.

We have been very fortunate I think to not have had one in the flat yet – the closest we’ve come to this is the little guy I snapped sheltering from the rain on the outside of our back door when I was off work sick. It was a Hunstman which are the good spiders. Yeah. Define ‘good’…..

We’ve been lucky thus far as we have not come across this fella – the Sydney Funnel Web. Only the males are able to do any damage but they are extremely poisonous spiders. Here is how to treat a Funnel Web Spider’s Bite.

Bear one thing in mind. These spiders’ webs are like the Forth Bridge. I believe that, given a favourable breeze, they could actually span entire villages. So when you are strolling merrily along a quiet, tree-lined Sydney street, take a glance upwards.

I can guarantee you’ll be walking in the middle of the road once you do. Enjoy the gallery………….

[View with PicLens]

Tags: Australia, Australian nature, dangerous animals, Sydney, Wildlife

Mind the Gap

When I first arrived, I thought that I would spend the next twelve months living in abject fear of being eaten / bitten / generally subjected to nasty surprises by the plethora of beasties that Australia has to offer. But after only a week, ladies and gents, with a blatant disregard for my own personal safety (and that of my arse), I no longer check under the toilet seat for spiders before I sit. I know. I live a truly crazy existence. I will be grasping nettles with my bare hands, next.

The rite of passage came on Wednesday afternoon when, nonchalantly moving around the kitchen, I came face to face with a cockroach. And it wasn’t wielding an axe or generally acting suspiciously and so kept my cool and I did what any self respecting, independent female would do – I called A to remove it. But it made me think. If that’s the worst that it’s ever going to get in the suburbs of Sydney (and there’s not much worse than your cockroach, let’s be honest), then it’s all going to be okay. I guess if I started to get bored and wanted to move it up a gear, I could stick my pinky in the nearest funnel web’s house or failing that, just do the Sydney Bridge climb.

And talking of the Sydney Bridge climb, I’d been quite up for it until yesterday on the underground when I faced my first escalator and almost adopted the brace position as the moving stairs pulled me close to the edge of the sheer drop. I’ve never been one for heights to be honest. But on the plus side, I successfully fought the instinct to curl up in the foetal position and wail for my mother so it may be that the bridge climb idea lives to see another day. My biggest fear is that I’ll just freeze and stand rooted to the spot, legs shaking Bambi style, before having to be winched off the top like some upmarket 21^st century version of ”Flying Doctors”.

One thing that has struck me about Australian men is that on the whole, they’re not as macho as I’d anticipated. In fact only today in Supré, (in my mind a god-awful Hades crammed with cheap Chinese-made threads, most of which are either a) so awful even Pat Butcher wouldn’t be seen dead in them or b) I’d be hard pushed to get my left thigh into), a strapping young man flanked by two blonde lovelies was holding a baby pink lacy vest top up to his manly chest and asking them in all seriousness if they thought it was his colour. I promise, he wasn’t joking.

For the most part in Sydney, the boys mince around the city in skin tight jeans with silly hair (like Antipodean Russell Brands, if you will) – a far cry from the stereotypical butch, surly, beer swilling, stubbled, crocodile-wrestling, shark tooth sporting men I had somehow expected. I find it quite refreshing, if I’m honest.

The area we’re living in, Darlinghurst, near to King’s Cross, is well known for its colourful inhabitants. We saw a Thai lady boy in a bar on our first afternoon (but to be honest, we saw dancing hippos that afternoon too – that’s what 38 hours without sleep can do to you.). I imagine that as we get further North, the men will become more like Crocodile Dundee.

Last night at our friends’ place in Kirribilli, we got on to the topic of the rich and poor over here. There are some strange areas around the city where a ‘Millionaires Row’ will be flanked by virtual ghettos and the difference between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is stark.

Apparently, Russell Crowe lives in a $14 million penthouse in Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharfe. Just metres down the road though, the area changes for the worse and local drunks frequently cause a great deal of trouble. Usually, though, the police will just move Russell on and tell him to go home to his palace.

But seriously, it’s an interesting concept. Woolloomooloo (1.5 km from Sydney’s CBD) used to be an area associated with great poverty but is now an up and coming area with new money coming in – which is a very positive thing as clearly it creates a precedent for similar areas. I guess this is something I will come back to in the future once I’ve spent a bit more time here.

Over and out.

Tags: Australia, dangerous animals, Sydney, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Wooloomooloo

Christmas and Critters

A Very Random Christmas Bus at Sydney Central Station

The strangest thing about being in a hot Western country at Christmas time is seeing effigies of Santa Claus in a heavy velvet red and white suit. Poor bugger must be sweating like a dying badger. A hat with dangling corks, a pair of shorts and sunglasses would be so much more appropriate. And 12 ‘roos to pull his sleigh.

Anyway, enough of my random thoughts.

Last night, we went to Shtbox (Surry Hills Twitter Beer Oclock Xchange) at The Clock on Crown Street in Surry Hills. The evening is an opportunity for new media types to get together and have a beer and do some networking. Most people I met there had job titles I’d never even heard of. Our primary reason for going was to meet a long-standing internet buddy of mine (we’ve been chatting online for 11 years) which was cool, if a bit strange. He introduced us to a good crowd and I spent the more generous portion of the evening chatting to two young men who delighted in subjecting me to a run down of all the things that want to kill me in this country. So that’s most things, then.

V's Mosquito Bitten Toe

I’m leaving tomorrow. That is, if the red back spider or cassowary (a bird which can disembowel you – who knew?) don’t get me as I step onto the plane. I have already had my own run in with the local wildlife, in the form of a mosquito as I previously mentioned. My left foot middle toe is currently being loaned out to Sydney airport traffic control as a landing signal for incoming aircraft. It is a veritable beacon of itchy swelling and currently resembles the kind of sausage you would find on a cocktail stick at a child’s party.

The possum in Baz Luhrmann's Garden

On the positive side, I met a possum yesterday evening, to which I pretty much lost my heart. I know, I know, they get in your loft and nest in your wedding dress and such like and probably cause untold havoc to your insulation – but they’re so damn CUTE. Just look at his widdle nose….. of course, tear your face off soon as look at you if you were to go within a metre radius of it but from a distance – so cute.

I digress… so last night was the real beginning of our Sydney social scene and it rather feels like we’ve so much to fit in and so little time in which to do it. It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it. Sigh……

Tags: Australia, Christmas, dangerous animals, shtbox, Sydney, sydney social scene