I am offcially waging war against all arachnids because my hand has been forced; I maintain that they started it.

We're back in Adelaide after a fantastic trip to Queensland was rudely interupted by those in the animal kingdom that have absolutely no respect for personal space, and I think it's a damned liberty that I am going to have to continue to run away from these nasty creatures, even though I didn't do anything to them (least of all ambush them in nasty ways).

I shall now dictate to you my tale of woe and then you'll all be on my side. Our last night in the glorious Whitsundays was one of feasting (on all the food we had left over) and wallowing (in the humidity and the pool). We had headed to the BBQ spot to cook a delicious dinner of homemade burgers and corn on the cob and, naturally, we took the corn out of its packaging in order to cook it. Being a friend of the environment, my first instinct was to put said packaging in the bin. But here, apparently, was my weakeness, and the spindle arachnids of Queensland can smell a weakness at twenty paces. I strutted over to the wheelie bin and reached out my innocent little fingers to lift the lid using one of two handles... What I didn't realise was that a spiteful, nasty Huntsman spder was waiting to ambush me. He was hiding under the handle on the other side of the bin (probably in the hope that I would lift that one) and he was HUGE. I mean huge, like bigger than Howie's hand. He was also the ugliest, most horrid spider I have ever seen (I concede at this point that although I may dislike all spiders, some of them can be quite elegant-looking at least). But this lad was a monster. Brown and grey and hairy, with horrid legs and an evil, twisted smile (ok, I might be making that little bit up, but the rest of the descrption is true). Needless to say I ran away from the bin, wimpering. But the nasty thing hadn't finished with me and, despite my obvious distress, he continued to move around on the bin lid in a swift, jiggly fashion that made me run away back to our room and leave poor Howie to cook our dinner.

Adding to that insult the presence of a huge, horrid cockroach in the same area on the same night, I wasn't very happy.

Anyway, we left Queensland the next day, hopping on a boat to Hamilton Island and flying to Sydney. Once in Sydney, we discovered that the airport terminal is not a 24 hour one, which we had rather been banking on, seeing as we were only due to fly out to Adelaide the following morning. I can therefore attest that the Formula 1 at Sydney airport is not unpleasant, although the desk staff leave a lot to be desired. It is happily situated next to a Krispy Kreme that houses the doughnut factory for the Sydney area. We happily disposed of more than one freshly made glazed doughnut and we also got to watch the tennis.

Up at 5am, Howie caused a stir by getting to the security screening and realising he had left his i-phone in the hotel room, so had to run back to get it. He arrived back in the airport 30 mins before our plane was due to depart. I had a minor anxiety attack.

Back in South Australia, it's looking to be 40 degrees tomorrow, which is hotter than the blazes of hell. On the plus side, we're right near a gelato shop, so it's swings and roundabouts.