I posted this a while back on the A4UForum “Real World” section. I just wanted to include it here because it documents what was probably the most frightening experience of my life during our current travels in Australia… and it gives a bit of an idea of my personality 
……………………….
I feel I need to share the out of body experience I had recently whilst trying to perform the simple but essential task of checking myself for grey hairs in the mirror on the passenger side of our van. I’m only just able to talk about this you understand.
Those of you who know me really, really, well will no doubt be aware that my reaction to arachnids is somewhat spectacular. I feel like I’m trying to breathe underwater whenever I see even a teeny tiny one a few feet away.
Anyhoo. Back to the van. So we’re driving along at a merry old 100kph and I become concerned about grey hairs. “I’ll just check the mirror in the sun shade” I thought. I then spent a good 30 seconds having a good old look at the progress of my 6 grey hairs. “Not bad”, I thought. “Phew, I’m still young.”
It was then I brought my attention back to the road. In doing so I focused away from my head and saw…
THIS.
.
.
.
WAAHHHHH!!! I Screamed.
“What is it?” Screamed back my poor boyfriend as he struggled to keep the van on the road.
“Unnngggghhhh” I said as I unbuckled my seatbelt and made for the back of the van. Realising I couldn’t get into the back of the van I then proclaimed “For F**K sake stop the F**king van. Woooaaaaggghhhhhh… Spider…”
“What? Where?” He said, whilst failing to stop the van.
“ON THE F**king mirror, now stop this VAAANNNN!!”.
“Oh.” He says. “Aye, Right enough. That is a bit of a cracker”
“LET ME OUUUUTTTT!!!!”
So we stopped and He insists on taking that picture before calmly popping the spider at the side of the road whilst I frighten passing lorry drivers with the look on my terrified face.
Could I sleep that night? Could I fizz.
The worst thing? That’s a small one. Its quite common to find them tucked up behind your sun visor. Bigger ones will quite merrily drop onto your lap as you drive along.
I love Australia…..
May 12th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Hahah I bet your not the only one to have that reaction to our friendly inhabitants . They wont eat much anyway. I live in a semi-rural part of Australia (WA) and spiders are like flies. There every where.
Any Way Kristy Great Blog and welcome to Australia. I hope you enjoy your travel.
Ajay.
May 12th, 2007 at 7:35 am
What? Oh no! We’re headed towards Western Australia in the next few weeks. Argghhhh!!
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 am
Loved WA. Unfortunaly we just spotted one redback and we only had to “dispose” one wolfspider out of our room. Next time when my girl and i will travel a 15.000 km trip down under i hope to see some more of the beautyfull nature (and spiders off course) of Oz
.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
Now that is just one gross story. It is one of my biggest fears,a spider in the car whilst driving at speed.
My wife and I found a large rain spider inside the door of our new car a few years back (we live in South Africa). If it had not been for a neigbour. That car would probably sill be standing outside our front gate…useless!
July 18th, 2008 at 12:49 am
The Huntsmans are an incredible spider. They’re one of Australia’s “Old World” spiders ( fangs pointing down instead of inward pincers). Some things I’ve learned about them is that they choose to never jump although they can fall very gracefully using their legs as a parachute. They’re incredibly fast and have very little use, if any, for their spinners. Cars seem to be the worst place you can find them though because most times they’re very timid and, nearly all times, will only be running towards you out of accidental directions. Knowing all this doesn’t help at all though. If one is coming, my skin and skeleton will be trying to leap away in different directions while my brain works out which ear it will most like to escape through.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I would have had the same reaction as you!
Spiders scare the living poo out of me, but Australia is such a fascinating place. :]
December 16th, 2008 at 11:59 am
[...] “Oh, for feck sake. Not this again.” [...]
June 5th, 2009 at 4:00 am
I was just doing some searching on the web to find out about poisonous spiders in Ontario, I’m deathly afraid of spiders and have anxiety attacks when I see even the smallest spiders, my skin is crawling right now from all the images I’ve seen and I can’t stop looking around me at the walls, ceiling and floors. I have a friend in Austrailia and I definitely will no be visiting after reading this. I would not come home alive.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I just came home and we did have big thunderstorms today, I live in NSW Australia..and found two huge hunstman spiders in my kitchen as big as my hand!!! I freaked out! I’m Aussie born and bred but god I hate spiders..I am also nota fan of killing an animal but all i could do was spray and spray, I couldnt even pick them up when they finally stopped moving..currently on the floor they are..Im waiting for my friend to come round tomorrow to get them..I’ll just tiptoe around them for now…
March 26th, 2010 at 2:03 am
Fun times Kirsty!
I live in Sydneys West, New South Wales in Australia and i have nicknamed this Huntsman i have in my car (It’s been there for approximately 4 months) It’s a ‘Flatback spider’. One day i opened my sun visor mirror cover to find a flat, dead huntsman fall on my lap on one of Sydney’s M4 motorway at 110 Km/ph (I don’t think i have ever braked so hard on the breakdown lane). The spider had gotten inside my sun visor mirror cover and i must have slammed up the sun visor one day and now he’s inprinted in my mirror.
Be glad it wasn’t something more vicious!
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:47 am
wow that is huge, i live in South Australia but havent seen a spider that big. the biggest spider i have seen is a redback and that scared the living daylights out of me