Ladybird, Ladybird...

When staying at Lyndon's parents house the other night and enjoying the lovely warm evening, Monet and I were playing (?) in the backyard.  She was busy riding the trike they have available for the grandchildren to use, when she spotted a Ladybird in the grass.  

It ends up there were more than one.

Dozens in fact.

Monet collected as many as she could, happily placing them in the trike's 'bucket' and rode around, taking them on a little ride until they flew off to their homes... 

So in her Nanna and Poppy's garden there are many Ladybirds to be found.  At her Grandma and Grandad's garden there are little fairies to be found.  Including this big one...

Gee she looks happy doesn't she?  *smirk*

In other news, guess who gets to spend the weekend in Melbourne (with friends) beginning tomorrow, without a little somebody???  Meeeeeee......yippeeeeeeee.......

Did You Know Cockroaches Can Fly?

(If you don't like creepy-crawlies, I will warn you that this post contains photos of 3)

Well, did you? I know they have wings and stuff but I didn't actually know that they used those wings to fly, dammit!! And how I found out? By spraying one which was on my laundry wall. It flew at me. AT ME. Now, if you don't live in the tropics of Queensland, you probably don't have any idea about the size of these cockroaches.

Queensland is famous for the Big Pineapple. The Big Mango. The Big Marlin Fish. Up the road we have a Big Peanut and there is a Big Banana with a Big Green Tree Frog on the road down to Innisvale. They like things big in this neck of the woods. Actaully, all around Australia you'll find 'big' things. Basically if an area is famous for something, usually produce, they'll biggify it into a tourist attraction, such as - Merino Sheep, Lobsters, Banana, Trout Fish, the list goes on. (Maybe some of my fellow Aussie readers could list more...) So to say that the Cockroaches up here are big is not an understatement.

Here's a photo of one found lurking outside downstairs.

It is about the size of close to 50 cent pieces. Big. *shudder*

Even the little lizards (skinks) are big around here. This one we spied while going to the pool the other day. Lucky this one (who was not even remotely scared of us!) was heading towards our next door neighbours storage shed and not ours (though I'm sure they hibernate in there too!)

Even the bugs around here are big. I don't have any photos of them to show you. But the noise they make are loud to suit their size. We even have Rhino-type gigantic Bugs up here, which have a horn-like growth between their eyes. *shudder again*

We have huge Orb spiders too. There was one in the Mango tree at Playgoup recently. It scared the bejeesus out of me when I spied it above our heads when I was pushing Monet on the swing.

Here is a photo taken on the walking track to Josephine falls, of an Orb spider. She'd be beautiful if she was not a spider.


So, did you know that Cockroaches fly? You'll be glad that the Cockroach didn't last long after flying full force at me. After I screamed and told Monet that Mummy was okay (just) I got the Cockroach back. Big time.

And did you know that Cockroaches can survive in a man-sized work shoe, with a man-size foot in it, and for that foot, in that shoe, could drive 20-odd kilometers to work and the cockroach could survive? You better ask Lyndon about that one. *shudder*

(Just in case you think that my house must be filthy to have Cockroaches inhabit my home, it isn't!! This is the Wet Tropics for you. You won't see a Roach for ages and then BAM, you see them. I think we might have to have the Pest Controler come around for a spray v. v. soon.)

Boxing Jellies

Living in North Queensland is wonderful.

Except for floods, non-stop rain, cyclone warnings, crocodiles, box jelly-fish....

Box jelly-fish roam the waters of north Queensland and across the top end, to Broome, in Western Australia. They migrate down to the warm waters usually in October and hang around till April or so. During that time, people are advised not to enter the water (as tempting as the ocean may seem!) and only to swim in the patrolled 'Stinger net Enclosures'. They are patrolled by volunteered Surf-Life Saving operators and the huge nets are like 20 square meters or so, reaching from the shoreline into the water. They 'supposedly' stop the jelly fish from entering the water making it a safe place to swim in. These jelly fish are amongst the most dangerous animal (?) to roam the seas, believe it or not. Their tentacles can be as long as 100 metres all up! How amazing is that? I thought so anyway because that's a lot of metres!!!

I spied this this pole the other day after we took a stroll along one of Cairns Northern Beaches...

If you didn't come from this part of the world, you'd find this a little weird wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? A bottle of vinegar? Supposedly if you are stung by one of these jelly fish, the vinegar soothes the pain and helps get the tentacles off too (if they are still entangles around your legs/arms etc.,). Lovely hey. But you see these bottles of vinegar along most of the beaches around here so I don't think they are so weird (now!)

What would I see in your part of the world that I would think was a little weird?