On Sunday night we all gathered around the fire again and watched the spectacular light show we were getting from the sheet lightning in the distance. We had all battened down the hatches in preparation for the rain we fully expected but fortunately it never came. A cool change had blown through earlier and we had a much more comfortable night than the muggy Saturday night we had all suffered through.
As I was supervising the boys bedtime ritual of tooth brushing, pyjamas and a book the man of the house found an angry scorpion trundling through the leaves at the bottom of our steps, tail up. That is something we have never found when camping before. We get them at home and I always use gloves when I get wood from the shed for that very reason (that and sleeping wasps and redbacks) but I have never seen one when camping before. We caught it in a container for the boys to see before releasing it at a safe distance from being squashed by our boots.
We had seen lots of critters this weekend and there were spiders
everywhere. Number 2 son had a baby Orb Weaving spider colonize the leg of his chair overnight and had gently removed it with a stick. He was very glad it was such a tiny one and not one of the gigantic ones from the trees around us. It had put in a sterling effort for its size though as the web was everywhere.
Once the boys were tucked up and the dishes done I was ready for bed myself so I went out to the loo. Whenever I go into the shower tent we have the toilet in I always shine the torch around in case a spider has moved in. I want to get it out before it drops on my lap while I am indisposed! I shone my torch around as usual and saw that it was clear and stepped inside. Once in I realized that there were far more webs around the roof than I would expect for an empty tent. I turned to have a better look and shone the light right onto an big Orb Weaver right over my shoulder ..eeek! I am not really that scared of spiders and generally deal with them on my own but when I am trapped in a small space in the dark with a big spider between me and the half zipped-up door it is not beneath me to call for help…. The man of the house quickly came out to see what I was going on about and held the door flap open for me so I could leap outside without a spider jumping on my head. Once he stopped laughing at me he got a long stick and got it out of my tent so I could go in peace.
On Monday morning we packed up, always a slower process than packing to go away, and I was pleased to see the man of the house do the jump away and girly scream when he found his very own Orb Weaver nestled into an unexpected corner when he was taking the camper down.
It was a very buggy weekend, we were all bitten to death by mozzies, there were March flies everywhere and everywhere we turned there were spiders. We even had a lovely looking caterpillar that wouldn’t leave our shoe box alone and had to be removed with a stick twice.
We did bugger all on the weekend and spent most of the time just lazing around the camp. Nevertheless, we all came home completely worn out and were in bed early on Monday night. Funny how it always seems to work that way. Whenever you stay home and work all weekend in the garden you are tired but if you go camping and do nothing you come home exhausted.
