Wildlife
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………….
Fings wot we have done for free in Sydney
Because we got a bit behind on the whole updating thing due to our internet being down for a while, I thought I would talk about some of the interesting things we’ve done due to winning competitions online and just by being in the right place at the right time.
So far we have done the following for free (in no particular order);
Seen A Prophet by Jaques Audiard at the Oxford St Palace Verona Cinema courtesy of 2SER (radio station)
Been to see ‘Bliss’ at the Opera House courtesy of Opera Australia
Been to Good Vibes Festival at Centennial Park (won by Andrew, through Smirnoff Australia)
Enjoyed an ‘After Dark Tour’ around Mitchell Library on Maquarie Street courtesy of 702 Weekends (radio programme)
Listened to a book reading by Irvine Welsh (he was awesome) / local bands at the Oxford Arts Factory, courtesy of Sydney Time Out
Seen Skii Harvey at Slide on Oxford St and JJ Whitehead at the Comedy Store as comps, as I was reviewing them for Trespass Magazine (shameless plug!)
We have also finally been up the Sydney Tower which was a parting gift to us from Andrew’s friend Baron Baker and his lovely missus Lou. We were lucky enough to see a rainbow over the city whilst we were up there. We don’t recommend OzTrek necessarily – I finally thought I’d turned into my father (who could get motion sickness on a escalator) as we were jolted around rather a lot and rather unnecessarily.
A few weekends ago we went for a sunny jaunt around Sydney Fish Market – which is always an assault on the – and ate some scrumptious seafood.
Only this Saturday afternoon, we ambled down to Centennial Park with a picnic to help one of our friends celebrate her 40th birthday. I went for a wander with my camera and some fizzy wine.
These are the tip of the iceberg. We have also been to loads of free events that we’ve mentioned in previous posts, New Year’s celebrations, Australia Day, Paddy’s Celebration etc. There’s loads to do in this city, ‘bored’ is not an adjective we’ve used since we arrived. ‘Knackered’, yes, ‘bored’, no.
I have uploaded a few pics of some of our various outings. I’ll let you guess which was taken where. Think of it as a sort of fantastic quiz, with no prize.
By the way, we’re entering loads of competitions and winning a shed load of experiences. We’re not sure if it’s that no one in Sydney can be bothered, or that we’re just very lucky but we’re not arguing! Volunteering to write reviews is a great way to see some fantastic acts for free, too.
Aeroplanes and arachnids
Our less-than-comfortable-but-nevertheless-successful journey thus far (Manchester – Sydney via Dubai with Emirates). We’re now sat in our new “Studio Apartment” in Darlinghurst, Sydney, can of bug spray in one hand and laptop in the other…
Before travelling, we naturally asked friends, family and colleagues for advice and tips on surviving the journey. Most people cheerfully said ‘Oh it’s fine! You’ll be so excited about getting there, you won’t even notice’.
Now ‘fine’ may be an appropriate adjective. But only if you have just been released having been incarcerated in an airless Thai jail for 5 years, or have been subject of some illegal week-long sleep deprivation experiment by a group of ruthless scientists.
In my world, ‘fine’ would be a picnic by a lake or a day spent walking in the country – not the borderline torture to which we have just subjected ourselves. ‘Fine’ would imply ‘painless’ or even ‘pleasant’ but quite honestly, the journey here would have to rate fairly low on my list of pleasurable life experiences – nestled somewhere between ’smear test’ and ‘wisdom tooth extraction’.
As you may have gathered, we didn’t enjoy the journey all that much. As anyone who has ever tried to eat on a plane whilst sandwiched between two big men will know, elbows hurt. Add that to the fact that my 6 ft 4 husband spent the first few hours of the second leg with his own knees up around his ears and the fact that our body clocks meant that we were heaving when offered lamb curry for breakfast, it might be said that we have had better days.
Dubai airport, about which we had heard great things, was just a little bit of a let down. I had a shower (just for something to do) and the Thai shower attendant treated me to an eclectic medley of songs – ranging from Abba to Elayne Page with a little bit of The King slipped in there for good measure. Having said that, each sounded like the last - a kin to somebody ice skating on glass.
On the way from Dubai to Sydney,I watched a stomach-turning movie about intensive chicken farming which seemed rather appropriate.
Having moaned about all this, it has to be said that the flight was as good as it was ever going to be. It is, by its very nature, just unpleasant.
Moving on….. we arrived at the flat about half 8 Sydney time and it’s perfect – even better than we thought it would be. We’re unpacked, been for a rekkie, opened bank accounts, got Aussie SIM cards and managed to buy a few groceries – we are proud.
We have seen (and destroyed) our first Aussie spider and it’s all a bit of a biology lesson. After referring to the Collins SAS Survival Guide and then double checking with this, we concluded that the little critter was harmless. Well it certainly is now…. and you can never be too careful. It’s us against them.
Every time I go to the loo successfully, (gingerly peering under the toilet seat before I plonk my arse) I sort of feel like I’ve cheated death. A mini triumph for humankind.
Thus far, however, it is ‘Mosquitos 1, Victoria 0′, or it was until I squashed the little bastard…..I have a wheal on my back the size of a small country but hey, anyone who knows me will know that I am very tasty….
Right, going back to bed. My zombie brain is kicking in again……
Recent Updates
- Friends and their loveliness
- A Day in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, NSW
- A Weekend in Leura in the Blue Mountains, NSW
- Australian spiders we have gazed at in abject horror
- Weekend in the Australian Blue Mountains
- Free Ben and Jerrys In Manly, Sydney – April 20th 2010
- Mitchell Library After Dark Tour
- MGMT at Virgin Mobile Metro Theatre Sydney
- Fings wot we have done for free in Sydney
- St Patrick’s Day in Sydney, Australia – Sun 21st March