The spiders they don't tell you about

When one moves to Australia, people in general (and Aussies in particular) like to make a big deal of the spider population down under. The first ones mentioned is usually the Huntsman spiders, mainly because they are very large and quite likely to move in with you. They are gentle giants, can be as big as your palm but are rather friendly or at least uninterested in human activity. The others to be mentioned would be your deadly ones - your Funnelweb, your Redback and your White-tail amongst others.

Now, what I find baffling is that nobody ever mentions the Golden Orb spiders. Baffling, because they are literally everywhere. They are huge, they make huge webs, and said webs line and hang above every sidewalk and path up and down the country. I saw my first one in Cairns in January, and thought it was very large and vary exotic. Little did I know that Golden Orb spider season had not yet started down in Sydney.

To put things into perspective - I have not seen a single deadly spider since arriving in Australia. I have seen two Huntsmen, one in a toilet in the rainforest in Queensland and one in the basement (he guards Dwayne's surfboard, and hopefully makes life miserable for some cockroaches. Anyone who's on my side against the roaches is my friend). But the orb spiders... If one takes a short walk, say to the shop or just around the block, one is bound to see at least five or six of them sitting in the centre of their enormous golden webs. They are EVERYWHERE. And they really are huge, legs extended they are easily the size of your palm. They have been observed catching birds and snakes in their enormous golden webs.

I am not a spider fan. I am not panicky about them, I don't mind them in my vicinity but I certainly don't want them anywhere ON me. These particular creatures have however caught my interest. They really are quite fascinating, especially the way they construct their amazing webs - do look up "golden silk orb-weaver" on Wikipedia!