The huntsman...

One of the more dangerous creatures we have here is the huntsman spider. Now they are not dangerous in the sense that they are poisonous, though they can give you a bit of a bite. They are dangerous for another reason, which I experienced personally the other day.

Now I am actually quite fond of huntsman spiders. They are rather large and move quickly and I have early memories of seeing the things on the wall of my bedroom. Most children would probably be scared, but I had a book of nursery rhymes, and in it Little Miss Muffet was being chased off by a very friendly looking spider. I guess so as not to give kids nightmares. So I have never been particularly worried by the things, and will go out of my way to put them outside if I find them in the house. They take care of cockroaches and other nasties anyway.

So the other day I'm driving home from work and I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. I look up and there sticking out from the sun visor is a couple of large arachnid legs. Theres a huntsman behind the sun visor.

Now huntsmen like to crawl into narrow warm spaces and they seem to find sun visors pretty irresistible. So picture this situation. You are driving down the road and turn towards the setting sun, momentarily blinded. You reach up and fold down the visor and a giant spider drops into your lap and starts crawling over your leg. Worse if you are wearing shorts or a miniskirt. You panic and start flailing at the spider, and drive into oncoming traffic or a lamp post!



It happens. Now I was lucky that I was driving south and I wasn't about to use the sunvisor. So I had time to pull over to the side of the road and get the thing out of my face. But I can truly understand how you could panic in this situation, and why huntsmen are considered to be dangerous!

The midwinter swim

So, Saturday is the shortest day of the year. And how best to celebrate the winter solstice than to start the day with a dawn swim. Its a bit of a tradition worldwide, though usually practiced in places that are substantially colder in midwinter: like to the point of having ice around. In Finland, swimming in midwinter is standard practice, though usually done in conjunction with sauna. But I digress.

Doug Jones (aka Junior) has organized the swim. Doug is a very fit 76 yr old, retired policeman and AFL player. Sunrise is 6:35am, so a few hardy souls meet at Canoe Point ten minutes early. One minor problem: the tide is way out so there is no water. We have a short trek up the beach to where there is a bit of sand and sea water. We leap in just as the sun is peeking above the horizon. The water is surprisingly warm, it has been clear and light winds for a few days. We stay in long enough for the sun to get above the horizon and out to warm up and drink some coffee.

A winter dawn swim is a bit of an anomaly here (only halfminds seem to participate), though you can swim year around in the warmth of the day. But surprisingly the beach is deserted, even on weekends. Children are playing video games or going to the pictures.

And that probably explains why Australia now ranks number one in the world in obesity rates.