It’s hard to effectively describe the character of the next place we stayed at. To delineate the spookiness of the house shed with words such as eerie and ghostly or rustic and bucolic would be doing it an injustice. Two caravans within close proximity to each other, joined and enclosed in whatever materials were close to hand at the time, it seemed were built around a centre piece chimney made of cement and aluminium, unused for fire in a long while, and now housing a number of insects. The house had been empty for some months and nature had moved in. We were shown around and cob webs were curtained apart as we were told how to turn on various makeshift light switches. After wiping the cobwebs from the sofa I was to sleep on I explored the corners of the sofa bed and found a number of unidentified insects hiding away, no doubt until the light would be turned out, biding their time to jump out onto my face. I plucked all that I could see crawling on my bedding off and then turned off the light for a night of much needed sleep. 
In the darkness shadows took on shapes of things which could triumph over good, the room became alive with the night time activities of all things nocturnal, holding so much potential for nightmarish endeavours. Croaks, shuffles, splatters, swooshes of wings, crawling, slithering, banging, rustling, crackling, crunching and all number of ghoolish onomatopeias filled the room. With a bed sheet over my ears and tucked over my feet, I tried to seek out the source of all the noise, my eyes wide open in opaque darkness. 
At this point I had been in dire need of the toilet for quite some hours and I just had to go. I had put off the trip to the bathroom, which was only a few meters away, as long as I could, and now necessity had triumphed over fear. With heroism to be compared to the jumpiness of the cook in Tom and Jerry who lunges onto the nearest piece of furniture to lift her petticoat away from Jerry, I slowly opened the door of the bathroom, simultaneously disrupting a number of large moths and spiders, scarper, flutter, scuttle into nooks and crannies away from the door, closer to where my bum would soon be hovering over the toilet bowl for fear of sitting down due to what may be lurking beneath the seat. I bent down to walk under the long forgotten webs, completely covered in half gnawed winged things, and like a floating supernatural being, I hovered over the bowl, a bowl stained with the feet of frogs, with one eye fixed firmly on the giant huntsman spider chewing on a giant moth and the other eye on the spider to my left sitting in a dusty web. Hoping beyond hope that no one was outside to see my floating ass through the gaping hole caused by the collapsed panel in the wall, I kept my eye firmly on the wildlife around me and not on the outside portal. I yelped as something made a huge noise just on the other side of the hole, seeing something dark pass by the opening, it turned out to be a scrub turkey.
I washed up quicker than I ever have done, backing out of the room slowly and making my way quickly back to the safety of my sheet. At this point Gareth, in one of the caravans next door, did an appropriate amount of giggling, winding me up, calling me a bloody Shiela, chuckling to himself at the palava I was making.
On returning back to bed I thought to myself ‘stop being such a wuss, nothing is going to kill you Anne. Oh, hang on……that sentence doesn’t really hold true here……erm….well you can’t be scared of the night in the bush or you’ll never sleep'. I lay there looking at the frog splattered on what was left of the window pane and stared at it. I laughed at how funny it looked, it was really rather a cute fellow. As soon as I really looked at all the creepy crawlies around me in detail the shed changed in make-up to something more pleasing. I looked at the webs over my head and watched a hump bummed spider mending her intricate home. She was carefully making a star shaped pod to lay her eggs in. I wondered how spiders know how to make webs, do they watch other spiders and copy them or are they born with the knowledge they need? I remember an article I read once about the effects of drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy on the patterns of webs and I lay there in amazement at what was around me.
A huntsman spider inthe sink
At this point I had been in dire need of the toilet for quite some hours and I just had to go. I had put off the trip to the bathroom, which was only a few meters away, as long as I could, and now necessity had triumphed over fear. With heroism to be compared to the jumpiness of the cook in Tom and Jerry who lunges onto the nearest piece of furniture to lift her petticoat away from Jerry, I slowly opened the door of the bathroom, simultaneously disrupting a number of large moths and spiders, scarper, flutter, scuttle into nooks and crannies away from the door, closer to where my bum would soon be hovering over the toilet bowl for fear of sitting down due to what may be lurking beneath the seat. I bent down to walk under the long forgotten webs, completely covered in half gnawed winged things, and like a floating supernatural being, I hovered over the bowl, a bowl stained with the feet of frogs, with one eye fixed firmly on the giant huntsman spider chewing on a giant moth and the other eye on the spider to my left sitting in a dusty web. Hoping beyond hope that no one was outside to see my floating ass through the gaping hole caused by the collapsed panel in the wall, I kept my eye firmly on the wildlife around me and not on the outside portal. I yelped as something made a huge noise just on the other side of the hole, seeing something dark pass by the opening, it turned out to be a scrub turkey.
I washed up quicker than I ever have done, backing out of the room slowly and making my way quickly back to the safety of my sheet. At this point Gareth, in one of the caravans next door, did an appropriate amount of giggling, winding me up, calling me a bloody Shiela, chuckling to himself at the palava I was making.On returning back to bed I thought to myself ‘stop being such a wuss, nothing is going to kill you Anne. Oh, hang on……that sentence doesn’t really hold true here……erm….well you can’t be scared of the night in the bush or you’ll never sleep'. I lay there looking at the frog splattered on what was left of the window pane and stared at it. I laughed at how funny it looked, it was really rather a cute fellow. As soon as I really looked at all the creepy crawlies around me in detail the shed changed in make-up to something more pleasing. I looked at the webs over my head and watched a hump bummed spider mending her intricate home. She was carefully making a star shaped pod to lay her eggs in. I wondered how spiders know how to make webs, do they watch other spiders and copy them or are they born with the knowledge they need? I remember an article I read once about the effects of drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy on the patterns of webs and I lay there in amazement at what was around me.
A huntsman spider inthe sink That nature is so well designed to cope with its environment in a beautifully inspiring manner, that, given the chance, nature can take over a house in a matter of weeks to make it look like it hasn’t been lived in since the days of Hansel and Gretel is a curious thing to witness. I began to feel at ease in my bed. The shed took on a pleasingly comfortable cottage feel, rather as how I imagine Snow White found the dwarfs cottage just before she cleaned it. I fell asleep into a pleasing dream filled slumber and woke up the next day in a great mood, ready to take on Airlie Beach.
The house belonged to Cate, who lives on Percy Island but was back to sort through some of her old things in her previous home. She is a Pommie ex-pat of high moral values, a 7th day eventist, an Airlie Beach Advisor and our new found friend. We were invited to her house to use as a base as we spent time on the Esplanade in Airlie on her suggestion. She gave us great advice and just like a fairy god mother it seemed that she made all our wishes come true. The most noticeable effect of her religion meant that she would not work on the Sabbath, which for her means Saturday. However, we are not eventists and we were up early to make sure we were at market in time to try on the costumes we were to model for the day to pay for our trip out to the reef.
Cate donated very generously to Book Aid in St Helens Creek and offered her home to us as a base for further fund raising. Yet again, based solely on trust and goodwill, at first a stranger and now a friend comes to our aid and helps us out. We wanted to return the generous spirit and asked if there was anything we could do for her. She insisted that there wasn’t, after a little pushing we found out that she had had a problem with her drainage and her place was getting flooded everytime the rains came.
Digging Ditches. No job too dirty for us we set to work, shovel in hand to pick at the hard dirt around the caravans. To say that this job wasn’t easy would be like saying learning Japanese takes a little studying. We dug with all our might into the rocky earth and loaded barrows and buckets full of earth to be moved elsewhere. I think it is now time to tell you about our arch enemies, the March fly.
March flies or Horse flies are ferocious biters. As with most biting flies, it is only the females that bite as they need blood to produce the next generation. They use their strong, piercing mouthparts like a needle to extract blood from their mammal hosts.
These disgusting big, fat, chunky flies are a nuisance. March flies are ferocious biters, their blade like mouth parts cause no little pain as they insert their sucking tool into flesh like a needle to extract their wanton fill.
They are quite slow moving for a fly but still fast enough to buzz around you for hours and slowly drain you drip by drop of your blood. They seem to work in teams. One of them pierces through your clothes and takes a suck. You do the very unattractive dance known as the ‘get the f*** off me you f***ing, get arggg, bugger off, you f***ing, get it, quick swat it’, of which contains moves which largely have you flailing your arms and legs around wildly and lunging yourself into nearby objects. 
You wait for them to pierce you and just as they are lodged in your skin you wipe them out with a quick splat. Sometimes this can be a messy event, especially if they have just been feeding. The real problems occur however after you kill one. This causes some kind of alluring incentive for all neighbouring flies to come spiralling out of the skies to dive bomb you and go in for full attack. I am currently sat here laughing as two of these unpleasant fellas are circling Gareths legs and he is doing the sit down version of the swat dance.
For the duration of our trench digging we were inundated with March fies. It was a test, of which we all nearly failed. But, the hole was dug and the lovely Cate now has drainage.
The house belonged to Cate, who lives on Percy Island but was back to sort through some of her old things in her previous home. She is a Pommie ex-pat of high moral values, a 7th day eventist, an Airlie Beach Advisor and our new found friend. We were invited to her house to use as a base as we spent time on the Esplanade in Airlie on her suggestion. She gave us great advice and just like a fairy god mother it seemed that she made all our wishes come true. The most noticeable effect of her religion meant that she would not work on the Sabbath, which for her means Saturday. However, we are not eventists and we were up early to make sure we were at market in time to try on the costumes we were to model for the day to pay for our trip out to the reef.
Cate donated very generously to Book Aid in St Helens Creek and offered her home to us as a base for further fund raising. Yet again, based solely on trust and goodwill, at first a stranger and now a friend comes to our aid and helps us out. We wanted to return the generous spirit and asked if there was anything we could do for her. She insisted that there wasn’t, after a little pushing we found out that she had had a problem with her drainage and her place was getting flooded everytime the rains came.
Digging Ditches. No job too dirty for us we set to work, shovel in hand to pick at the hard dirt around the caravans. To say that this job wasn’t easy would be like saying learning Japanese takes a little studying. We dug with all our might into the rocky earth and loaded barrows and buckets full of earth to be moved elsewhere. I think it is now time to tell you about our arch enemies, the March fly.
March flies or Horse flies are ferocious biters. As with most biting flies, it is only the females that bite as they need blood to produce the next generation. They use their strong, piercing mouthparts like a needle to extract blood from their mammal hosts.
These disgusting big, fat, chunky flies are a nuisance. March flies are ferocious biters, their blade like mouth parts cause no little pain as they insert their sucking tool into flesh like a needle to extract their wanton fill.
They are quite slow moving for a fly but still fast enough to buzz around you for hours and slowly drain you drip by drop of your blood. They seem to work in teams. One of them pierces through your clothes and takes a suck. You do the very unattractive dance known as the ‘get the f*** off me you f***ing, get arggg, bugger off, you f***ing, get it, quick swat it’, of which contains moves which largely have you flailing your arms and legs around wildly and lunging yourself into nearby objects. 
You wait for them to pierce you and just as they are lodged in your skin you wipe them out with a quick splat. Sometimes this can be a messy event, especially if they have just been feeding. The real problems occur however after you kill one. This causes some kind of alluring incentive for all neighbouring flies to come spiralling out of the skies to dive bomb you and go in for full attack. I am currently sat here laughing as two of these unpleasant fellas are circling Gareths legs and he is doing the sit down version of the swat dance.For the duration of our trench digging we were inundated with March fies. It was a test, of which we all nearly failed. But, the hole was dug and the lovely Cate now has drainage.
We leaned a great deal from Cate about Percy Island, her home, and we were invited to come and visit her on completion of the trip. To read more about Percy Island please follow this link
On our departure, we all hugged and Cate looked at the message on our trailer “On a Mission From God”, a line from the Blues Brothers film. Well, that makes sense she said, I knew you were good people, and I assume that it is the Christian God you refer to. We said nothing but smiled and were yet again a little sad to say good bye to another great person. Our mission is a secular one, but reference to God on the trailer can be interpreted in any way you wish. At the moment, with all the amazing things nature is providing us with, to learn about and to document pictorally, I like to think of the reference to God as to nature, our environment and to all the unbelievable creatures it houses.
Thank for everything Cate Morris.
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Cate hides the reference to the pagan festival Halloween on Phil's shirt
Thank for everything Cate Morris.
Back to Cheeky Homepage
Cate hides the reference to the pagan festival Halloween on Phil's shirt
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