We are in Bowen, Queensland. A small town on the north east coast recently made famous by of two things: The Baz Luhrmann film AUSTRALIA was filmed here in 2006 AND as of a few days ago, bird eating spiders have strolled into town due to excess rain.
This was brought to my attention by my mother before anyone in the town said 'boo' about spiders. In fact, I seem to be the only one talking about them.
"How high can they jump?"
"Do they have a sense of vengeance?"
"Are they cuddly?"
"If I capture the baby will the parents come looking?"
"Is their thread compatible with my Singer?"
But all the australians seem to want to know is if they're edible.
It's like 'Salem's Lot but instead of vampires sucking your blood, it's spiders. And instead of blood, it's boredom. Nicolas swears one was on his leg when he fell asleep in the park a week ago. I'm not too sure.
To give you an example we found a fried fruit bat on an electric line that I can only assume killed itself. We, of course, tried for thirty minutes to knock it down with a tube of sunscreen before succeeding with a coconut. After which, we poked it with a stick for about ten minutes.
This is the most exciting thing to happen in Bowen, Queensland thus far... Not just for Nicolas and I, but for the entire population of 8,000 people.
Here's a few photos of the journey so far.
This last one is of Deb and guy she referred to as her fag-bangle. Deb, a townsville local, was nice enough to let us camp in her front yard for a few days. Click the photos and they should get bigger!
