Category Archives: Road travel

Since arriving home at the end of January I’ve found many reasons to postpone writing. Where to start after such a long gap between posts?
On October 11, 2019 we began ‘Travels in South-East Australia’ which included joyous reunions with friends, visiting a fabulous variety of wonderful landscapes in parts of Victoria and NSW, observing numerous special birds and sharing precious times with many family members.

As we departed Victoria towards the end of November the summer’s catastrophic fires were just starting to make a serious impact. Our route north along the NSW coast was disrupted by a road closure at Bateman’s Bay and planned visits to National Park areas were impossible. The days were often so smoky we didn’t venture far from camp. It was devastating to know that these horrendous fires were consuming so much of our natural landscape as well as threatening people and their homes. It was a minor inconvenience to our travel plans compared to what others have suffered and continue to suffer.

Our family Christmas in SE Qld, which for me was a grand highlight, was all the more relaxing when rain fell on Christmas Eve. Some water in the house tanks took pressure off the household restrictions and you could almost hear the crispy-dry bushland which surrounded us sighing with relief.

After spending our last ‘holiday’ week on the Atherton tablelands walking, bird watching and catching up with friends, we eventually made it home at the end of January. Never before have I experienced such a sense of relief at returning home. Allen didn’t quite share my emotion then, but since we are now all coping with travel restrictions as we come to grips with the Covid 19 pandemic we have both been feeling very grateful for our haven in the wet tropics.

Recently we have noticed there are many types of spider in great numbers around the house, in the garden and in the orchard. A Dome-web Orb-weaver in a garden near the house has been catching my attention each morning as palm flowers falling from above have decorated the web. The angle of the morning sun lights the web perfectly so it looks like fairy lights.

 Above the horizontal domed web there is a ‘retreat’ for the spider which does not appear to be particularly well formed in this example. Cyrtophora cylindroides belongs to the orb-web spiders, Araneidae although it does not build an orb-web. While tent-spiders are reasonably common from sub-tropical to tropical regions this accidentally decorated tent-like web is certainly eye catching.

Argiope picta looked glorious with the morning sun lighting the web perfectly. When I walked past the following morning it had disappeared!

My reference for spider information is “A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia” by Robert Whyte and Greg Anderson. An excellent CSIRO publication that I would highly recommend.