Flies in Australia - Kind of annoying!

Springtime in Perth brings with it many great things. Beautiful spring flowers in the park, cleaner homes and warmer weather.

Unfortunately it also brings with it Flies; and lots of them.

Apparently there are millions of flies that hang out in the deserts during the cooler winter months, then as the temperatures begin to increase and the little buggers start to feel a little hot under the collar they fly west towards the coast where it’s cooler.

Unfortunately, the coast is also where 98% of the Western Australia population live, including me.

These little critters aren’t the type that just land on your bread roll whilst eating out at a restaurant either. Flying 100’s of miles from the desert to the coast is obviously thirsty work as most seem to be moisture seekers.

This means they make a beeline for places such as the inside of your ear, your mouth, nostrils, or eyes. This obviously gets a tad annoying after a while.

If they land on your leg or hand they’ll happily just stand there for minutes on end rubbing their front legs together like some manic chef sharpening his calving knives before cutting into a big joint of meat. Read more

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Red-back Spiders sighted - time to reset the counter

Back in January I casually noted that you won’t find a red-back spider or similar deadly critter hidden around every corner.

Now we’re into October I thought I’d never get around to meeting anything that could potentially kill me and if I’m being honest I was acting a little to laid back when I was sweeping out the dead fly carcases from the shed in our new house with my hand!

Well, I can now safely say it’s time to reset the deadly creature encounter counter as yesterday I came face to face with my first Australia red-back spider.

We’ve still not moved into our new house yet as we’ve decided to get ducted air conditioning and a new alarm system fitted before we move in. We’ve still been doing the odd job here and there though and yesterday I was up there with Junior watering the plants and cleaning the swimming pool filter (which I can assure you will be the subject of many future entries).

So, I’m stood there looking at the cleaning instructions for the filter and junior comes running on over me.

“Daddy, daddy, come here. You need to look at this!”

Now, being a 4 year old Junior is very good at really ‘bigging up’ things that he’s seen. I remember once I was up to my eyes in flat packed furniture when Junior came running up to me as he had to show me something amazing and it turned out to be a ……. moth! Read more

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Great White Shark Closes Hillarys Boat Harbour

I love Hillarys boat Harbour, it has to go down as one of the nicest, cleanest, most children friendly beaches I’ve ever seen.

Well, it would be if there wasn’t a four meter long great white lurking in the water!

Fisheries officers spotted the shark after reports it had been attracted by A decaying 15-tonne whale carcass which had washed up on the beach and was finally removed yesterday.

Tony Cappelluti, a dude from the Fisheries office warned water users to be aware of the possibility of sharks in the area.

“The whale carcass had been there since the beginning of the week and because of that and the possibility of remnant residue, it is likely to provide an attractant to sharks at present,” he said.

“One of the key tips in our shark safety information is to avoid areas where animal waste is in the water.”

OK…. Animal waste + water = Sharks! Got it! Thanks for the tip Tony.

Aussie life, you just have to love it! I don’t think this would happen on the Leeds Liverpool Canal 

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Steamy nights and a trip down to Rockingham

It has been really steamy over the last couple of days. The thermometer has been hitting 42 degrees Celsius (107 F in old money) during the day and hasn’t been dropping below 24 C (75 F) during the night which has been pretty uncomfortable.

Still, I’m not complaining…!

The nights may be pretty uncomfortable but the days and evenings are great. Thinking back to what we were all doing this time last year makes a bloke really appreciate even the stickiest of weather.

As it was Labour Day yesterday (a public holiday here in Australia) we had a drive down to a little place called Rockingham.

Rockingham is a holiday resort city located about 47km south of Perth. It forms the southernmost border of the Perth metropolitan area and is a popular tourist spot due to its large population of wild seals, dolphins and penguins (yes, they have penguins in Western Australia).

It took us a little over an hour to get there from Kinross and I have to say what a lovely place Rockingham really is.

The most impressive thing for me was the quality of the beaches. The beaches in Rockingham really are quite fantastic; the water is calm and beautifully crystal clear.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that we now live only a mile or so from the Indian Ocean but when you see the turquoise blue and green hues of the ocean, lapping gently against a shoreline of squeaky clean golden sand it quickly dawns on you how lucky we really are.

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Yorkshire has pigeons Perth has parrots

These little guys still amaze me.

We went for a trip to Lake Joondalup which is about ten minutes drive from our new house in Kinross.

It’s quite a popular hang out for families and due to the size of the lake, and the fact that it’s now so close to our new house has been one of the places I’ve wanted to see for some time.

When we arrived we got out of the car and something caught my attention.

About 100 yards from the car park we could see a carpet of white birds hanging around under the shade of a tree near one of the barbeque areas and as we approached we realised that we were surrounded by parrots. The little dudes were pretty tame too and were happy to hang around whilst we took a seat to watch.

There was obviously something interesting going on as the little guys chatted away to each other in their own little parrot way and even though I’ve mentioned previously that vocally, parrots can be a little on the loud side; at this more reasonable time of day it was pretty interesting to listen and watch how they interact with each other.

Some of the parrots even seemed happy to lie on their backs whilst playing with little twigs or eating the small pine cones that had fallen off the tree.

Before we came to live in Australia, I think its fair to say that I never really fully appreciated the size of the parrot population but now we are here I can honestly tell you that you will find parrots almost everywhere!.

Even in some parts of the Central Business District it’s not uncommon to find the odd Pink and Grey Galah hanging around in the upper branches of a tree.

The little guys in my photos (after a little research) are called Western Corella (please correct me if you’re a little more ornithological then I am) and are one of the more common Parrots that you’ll find in and around the parks and areas of greenery in Western Australia.

The born and bred Aussies don’t even blink an eye when a parrot fly’s overhead. Some parrots like the Rainbow Lorikeet are even classed as Vermin in some parts of Australia due to their extremely healthy appetite for fruit.

Me? I think they’re just great!

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Ten things I’ve noticed whilst living in Australia

It’s two months to the day that we arrived here in Sunny Perth so I thought I’d celebrate the occasion by writing about ten things that I’ve noticed about that fantastic country that we now live in.

I have a feeling that this will not be the last entry I make on this subject matter and as always, please feel free to make a comment:

1. There is not always a red-back or Funnel web spider hiding under your toilet seat.

Neither is there a deadly snake lurking in every crevice or around every corner waiting to jump out at you (that’s if snakes could jump).

We have seen redbacks and snakes and other spiders but in both instances these were safely secured behind glass at Perth zoo. When we see the real things out ‘in the wild’ you’ll read it here first.

2. Parrots are a damn sight louder at 6 am then sparrows and blackbirds.

I remember waking up to the ‘dawn chorus’ in the early hours of the morning back in the UK. Depending on my mood and whether or not I had a hangover it was sometimes a really nice way to wake up.

On the flip side, some UK birds, however much they might try, couldn’t quite grasp the concept of birdsong.

I’ve got to say though, by comparison, even the most annoying UK bird song is positively harmonious compared to the shrieks and squawks made by the local parrots first thing in the morning.

I’d love to be able to tune myself in to bird talk so I could understand what the hell these little guys were shouting to each other in their own little parrot ways.

At a rough estimate I think it would go something like:

Parrot 1: “hey Bruce that’s my branch”
Parrot 2: ‘bollocks to you its mine”
Parrot 1: “no it’s MY bloody branch”
Parrot 2: “look I’ve been here since last night it’s MY branch”
Parrot 1: “Bruce, I’m coming over it’s my branch”
Parrot 3: “is anyone sat on this branch?” etc.

Although a tad annoying, I’m sat here writing about the annoyance of Parrots squawking first thing in the morning. In hindsight it’s actually pretty damn cool.

3. All Aussies do not spend Christmas day on the beach

A very common misconception and if I’m being honest; until I got out here and spoke to ‘home grown’ Australians it was a view shared by me to.

In Perth some of the local Australians do go to the beach but this is normally in the evening (Cottesloe is a popular spot as it’s floodlit in the evening during the Christmas Period). This way they can enjoy the beach without the heat of the sun and without the risk of bumping into too many drunken Poms.

4. Aussies are the most compliant folks I have seen when it comes to crossing the road.

Folks living in Australia obey the green and red man at pedestrian crossings like their life depends on it (which probably explains the low number of road fatalities on roads where pedestrian crossings are located).

Many a time I have found myself stood at the side of a road, waiting to cross in Perth’s central business district with about 20 people on either side. There is not a car to be seen but the almighty red man god says ‘do not cross’ so everyone remains at the road side until the red man goes green.

I guess I shouldn’t really joke and I must say it certainly helps when it comes to teaching our four year old the ‘green cross code’ with so many obedient people around.

5. Trying to find a house to rent in Perth.

One of the most expensive cities in Australia aparantly and a damn sight harder then I originally thought it would be.

6. Traffic lights do indeed stay red for a very….very…..very long time.

I’d heard and read about this before I came out to Australia but its right, sitting in your car at a traffic light for 2 – 3 minutes isn’t unheard of down under. On the flip side, going the other direction the traffic lights stay green for a very….very….very long time. Worst case scenario is you get an opportunity to appreciate the scenery around you.

7. Australia daytime TV

I was going to write about how terrible Australian TV was as a whole but now we’ve been here for two months it’s almost bearable. Early morning TV (up to about 9:30am) is good for the Kids, Early evening TV isn’t that bad either.

Daytime TV on the other hand is absolutely terrible. Despite all this, at the end of the day if you need something to encourage you to go out and enjoy everything this beautiful country has to offer, then Australian TV is just that.

One of the main channels, channel 10 has a slogan ‘Sun all day, Ten all night’ so it looks like I’m not alone in my thinking

8. The benches in Perth’s CBD (city centre) should carry a health warning!

9. The local animal quarantine station used for pets flying into Perth is about 45 minutes drive from the airport.

In a country with so much spare land I’m still trying to get my head around why Byford Quarantine Station is so damn far away.

10. Australian supermarket check out attendants.

I’ve endured 20 odd years trying to pack bags at the local supermarket whilst the young, earring clad check out assistant tries their hardest to break the Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/Morrisons (delete as appropriate) ‘throw the shopping past the scanner in the fastest possible time’ record.

The check out experience at Australian supermarket is almost a positively relaxing experience. At the main supermarkets run by Woolworths (of all people) and Coles, the check out assistant does something amazing. Yep, they actually pack the shopping for you. That’s right, none of the half arsed ‘do you want any help with your packing?’ question you’ll often be begrudgingly asked back in the UK (if you’re lucky).

The checkouts here in Aus are designed so that the assistant scans the shopping; places the shopping expertly into a bag (grouping fresh, frozen and other stuff as appropriate) and then hands the full bag back to you before you pay.

Even more amazingly, they do this strange thing called…..speaking. Yes, they actually make the effort to talk to you about your day whilst cheerily packing your shopping for you. Amazing!

More observations to come, I have quite a few more up my sleave but I’ll save these for another day.

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Australian Spiders - Should I Worry?

Many people are worried about living in, or visiting, Australia all because of its poisonous spiders. Is there really a reason for you to be worried? Could you be killed after being bitten by a spider if you visit, or move to, Australia? Should the possibility stop you from going to Australia?

In case you did not know it, Australia has only two spiders that should be of a major concern for anyone visiting, or living there. The two spiders that you need to be most concerned with are the funnel-web spider and the red-back spider. These spiders have caused deaths in the past.

But, with a little common sense and caution these spiders are not the major concern that they used to be. There now is anti-venom for both and neither one has caused any reported deaths for many years.

Funnel-Web Spiders Where are they found?

These hazardous funnel web spiders are found most often in the Brisbane and Sydney area. There have been a few isolated funnel web spider bites in the Adelaide area. The are not usually found in Perth or Melbourne area.

How big are they? The females are usually bigger than males and they are most often found to be around 6 or 7 cm long when including their legs. If you put this into perspective you will realize that a female funnel web spider is found to be about the same width as the palm of a person’s hand.

The funnel web spider is not like the timid red-back spider. The funnel web spiders are aggressive creatures. They will not hesitate to attack if they feel that they have been provoked at all. What’s more, their venom is very quick acting and if they are not promptly treated their bite can end in a rapid death. This can happen within an hour so that quick action is a must.

Even though the funnel-web spiders are much more aggressive than the red-back spiders, their bites are not near as common because the funnel-web spiders are much bigger and so they are easy to see. As far as how many people fall prey to the funnel-web spider? The average seems to be around 5 or 6 bites requiring anti-venom treatment each year in Australia.

Some people wonder if funnel-web spiders can jump? No, they cannot jump. What they do is they back up when disturbed then they will bite you with a fast downward stroke. When they are provoked they may rush toward you aggressively, but they are not actually able to propel themselves up off the ground.

The funnel-web spider burrows holes in the ground. They are usually found in moist, shady areas like dense shrubs, rockeries, logs and in leaf debris..

Red-Back Spiders can be found in every area of Australia and is usually around 2 to 3 cm long including their legs. The red-back spider is a relative of the familiar black-widow spider. Red back spiders are Australia’s best-known spiders. They have songs written about them and they even have a brand of beer named after them.

Red back spiders flourish in populated areas. Every year there are hundreds of bites reported but fewer than 30 percent of them require the anti-venom treatment; for the most part only the female Red-back spiders will bite as the males are usually too small to.

The venom of the red-back spider is much slower acting than the funnel web spider and the anti-venom is quite effective. The majority of victims of red-back spider bites do not turn out to be ill. The possibility of death from a red-back spider bite is possible but it is quite rare. Since the anti-venom became available in 1956 there has not been any deaths from red-back spider bites. As far as how many people fall victim to the red-back spider? The average seems to be around 250 anti-venom treatments being administered every year in Australia.

The red-back spiders are usually shy and they will pretend to be dead rather than bite someone. They will usually only bite if they are forced into contact with someone that is putting on their gardening gloves, boots, shoes or similar clothing.

So, if you are contemplating visiting or moving to Australia do not let your worry about being bitten by a poisonous spider keep from going. With a little caution you should not need to worry about getting bit. But, if you are bitten a quick trip to the closest hospital should fix you right up.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Australia

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