[johnny]

Today I drove 160 km-night...noticed a piece of thread on one arm...the another...then maybe a daddy long legs on my hair...till i brushed it off from my neck 2 hours later-dawn...a large st andrews cross spider

have before twice had huntsman spiders in the car....one on my head whilst negotiating to pull over to let it off on the pacific hwy...another at 100km /hr going to penrith......

anyone else had unusual gerald durrell experiences in the car?

 

[labrat]

Was trying to brush a huntsman out the back door with a rolled up paper once and it jumped from the floor and landed on my neck - about a meter leap with terrifying accuracy. So I've been a bit jumpy with them since.

Driving a Datsun 1200 home from TAFE one night some time later I became aware of a full size huntsman on the driver's window just a few inches from my face.
Reflexes took over. Locked up all 4 wheels.
By the time the car came to a stop at 45 degrees in the middle of the road I already had the handbrake on and the seatbelt undone. I then launched out of the seat to the left, flicking the left door handle on the way to execute a perfect dive roll onto the road.
Note, no girlie screams, just pure cool James Bond style action (or is that Jackie Chan?).

Then grabbed the street directory and smacked it a couple of times to show it who was really in charge.
He was a tough beggar though - he didn't seem to be hurt at all and I last saw him trying to hitch a lift up Murray Road.

 

[kayakone]

Hiya Johnny.

I was driving pre-dawn long time ago to go paddling, at 100 km/hr on the highway, when a large spider dropped off the car ceiling and landed right on my face.

In a millisecond, in a rare flash of brilliance, I knew it had to be a huntsman. I said to myself (and the huntsman), "That's a big huntsman." I kept the car stable and on road, while the 'Zed terrifying beasty' slowly crawled off my face to restore full vision.

Some more Arachnophobic persons may well have crashed.

 

[Dodge]

Some more Arachnophobic persons may well have crashed.

Similar to Trev.

Driving a backhoe along a main road on the GC some years ago at maybe 15km/ph, close to end of school time and in heavy traffic, it started to spit rain and sky was very black, so reached behind and took out a rain coat from a bag on the back deck and put it on while still moving along.

A few moments later a spider stepped from hat brim to my nose, and like Trev in a millesecond new it was a big huntsman.

I am not a spider fan, so in another millesecond had nearly shit myself, a further millesecond was slamming on the 2 wheel tractor brakes and dropped the front bucket to the road to create friction to improve the stopping rate as I was bailing out, and crash stopped 13 tons of hoe in about it's own length.

Within a few seconds of the spider touching my face, I was standing on the road alongside the machine stripped to my waist, looking for the hairy bastard, and telling the cranky mothers behind to get stuffed as they were abusing me for holding up the school kid collecting.

2 x small buckets being carried had unloaded from the front bucket as I dropped it so had to be loaded again, so was stationary for about 5 minutes before I resumed travelling to make the cars behind happy again, although I still wasn't having not found the spider.

 

[crag]

try flipping down the visor on a full face helmet with spider on inside,nearly released from all orifices,had to learn how to breath again while resisting the urge to cry like a little girl.I hate spiders.

 

[Daveyak]

.

 

[scoman]

Before Mrs Scoman became Mrs Scoman, she would regularly travel the 15km from my place to her family home of an evening. One night when she was about half way between my place and hers a huntsman appeared on her side of the windscreen. She half crashed half pulled over to the side of the road and threw herself from the car. Unfortunately her mobile was flat and it was a fairly lonely stretch of road. So she began walking back to my place.

A car full of young men pulled over and she asked if she could borrow a mobile to make a call. They wouldn't help and drove off (top chaps). So she walked over 5km to the servo and rang me.

When I got to the car the spider had not moved and was quickly dispatched and she continued on her way.

Needless to say my wife does not like spiders. She has also made her father drive home from a holiday (4 hour round trip) to kill one.

 

[Dkay]

A few years ago my daughter and I were in her car, a new Mazda 3, I was driving, when we pulled up in the drive way to the house a large huntsman ran across the windscreen and in through the open door, daughter screamed jumped from the car and ran inside. End of story...Oh no... she refused to get back into the car until the spider was out, but wanted proof that I had got it out of the car. Now I thought that giving her a while to get over it and she will forget and she will be fine to drive it again, Oh no 2 days later still had not got into the car and still refused on the grounds that it may attack her when she was driving. Solution was a little thinking outside the square, searched high and low in garage and sheds till I found a dead huntsman, planted into the boot then called her out as I picked out of the "dead spider" from the boot which I had just killed after a major battle and threw it into the bin. She started driving her car again straight away. Still to this day I haven't disclosed the ruse. Saying she is terrified of spiders in an understatement !

 

[HAWKEYE3]

Driving along the Bruce Highway in the Burdekin and at another time in Mackay, I drove through a swarm of bees attracted by the sugar cane flowers. Each time a couple came through the vents. Just opened the windows and allowed them to escape.

One time a mate's dad put his hand out the window to signal a right turn and a bird shat on his hand. (circa 1959)

Ian

 

[kayakone]

Poor Zed. He must be having a bad time with this thread.

 

[bruus]

I can't count the amount of times I've had spiders in the car as I've been driving. I've never had a problem with them, often they just go off somewhere else but sometimes i'll pull over and put them in the bush somewhere. I guess I was lucky enough to grow up in bushy kinds of places where the windows and doors weren't great so I often spent my nights with big huntsman spiders and similar in my room as I went to sleep. I would sometimes have a snake to step over that decided the door mat was a nice place to sleep. Although to be honest i'm not as comfortable with them now as I was back then because I don't see them as often. Except for a recent trip with scoman where I went through a few branches down a creek to find roughly 30 spiders suddenly taking safety on my kayak and body. I do have another mate who can't stand them though and enjoy the memory of him screaming like a girl when I threw a dead spider onto his lap and then wouldn't speak to me for a week.

 

[labrat]

The funny thing is we have had many huntsmans in the house and are quite happy with them staying up around ceiling level catching insects. We kind of adopt them as temporary residents and refer to them as Henry. They only get put out if they start to come down and get into unexpected places.

By the way Bruus, Trev and Richo the term

... big huntsman ...

is a tautology unless referring to a baby one (and you don't see them very often) 'cos let's face it, if it's a huntsman, it's big.

Now that we've cleared that up normal programming can resume.

 

[Dodge]

The funny thing is we have had many huntsmans in the house and are quite happy with them staying up around ceiling level catching insects. We kind of adopt them as temporary residents and refer to them as Henry.

Bob I too can live with Henry being on the ceiling.

But when you eyeball one at 10mm distance he looks more like Henry.

However considering the speed my spider, sunnies and cap got swiped off my head, with hindsight suspect that this Henry did not enjoy our brief meeting either.

 

[Junglefisher]

The funny thing is we have had many huntsmans in the house and are quite happy with them staying up around ceiling level catching insects. We kind of adopt them as temporary residents and refer to them as Henry. They only get put out if they start to come down and get into unexpected places.

Sheesh, don't you know anything? It's Charlie!
I've had a few spiders in the car, never bothered me really.
Mum crashed a car when a bee got under her sunglass lense.
Mate freaked his girlfriend out when he flipped down her sunvisor and a 3-4" hunstman was sitting on it. We all thought he did it on purpose. Was very funny.
Same mate got a grasshopper embedded in his elbow at 110kmh resting his arm on the window sill.

 

[koich]

I opened the fuel flap at the servo the other day and a huntsman ran up my arm.

I looked like a right knob.

 

[Junglefisher]

Yeah huntsman spiders frequently, but then I live in the bush. Get 'em in the house with the firewood and I pick them up in a cloth and put them outside.

Sorry, not car related but I was making the bed one morning and a red-back walked out from under my pillow! Another time I had a centipede walk over my face while I was sleeping.....woke up in a hurry! We get small scorpions inside too for the same reason....they all get put outside unharmed.

You learn to live with things here.

Indeed. We used to get an invasion of millions of giant (about 3" long) millepedes every year. They'd get into the house and die by the thousands.
We also used to get Australian Tarantulas (bird eating spiders) but only the males when they were looking for females.
Golden orb weavers bigger than my hand loved to make webs near our outside lights.
Stick insects up to 12" long would come inside if we left the doors open.
Big centipedes were common following heavy rain - they were the only insect I was worried about.

 

[john316]

have had the huntsman experience while driving at night and first noticed when it was hanging spredeagled on a single strand an inch in front of my eyes. another one bit me on the soft part of my arm when I was driving on the farm and had my arm out the window - it had been camped on the glass inside the door

On the bike I have had a few - a wasp hit my chin and then went down inside my jacket and shirt resulting in 13 stings before I could pull over and strip to the waist. an enduring memory of a Tassie holiday in 1973.
- At Gunnedah I scored a parrot on the chest that then proceeded to slide up into the bottom of a full face helmet, fortunately the beard gave me some small protection from its attempts to chew my chin.
- assorted other insect misadventures including bee stings to the face and a beetle that hit my knee with enough force for it's head to penetrate my jeans and several mm under the skin... ended up more painful than the bee sting.

I think I must be the worlds luckiest biker as I have also had an encounter with a kangaroo... hit the roo with enough speed to kill the beastie but I did not damage the motorbike nor did I come of the machine...

cheers

John

 

[scoman]

Was at work one morning when i felt a pain of sorts around the underside of my scrotum. I was loading timbers on a truck at the time and put it down to pinching as i was moving around, squatting and the like.

Over the next few hours i got sick to the point of vomiting and severe dizzy spells. I left work and drove home which was over 200km, stopping for a rest twice and even at the Boonah hospital, where they gave me some anti nausea meds.

When i got home and stripped down for a shower i discovered a squashed spider in my jocks. It was about the size of a 20 c coin including legs and looked a bit like a huntsman. As i was feeling a lot better I didn't worry too much about it at the time........

However my son who was born a year later seems to have some special powers............

 

[labrat]

We get small scorpions inside too

You can keep them Digger - they've got more sharp bits than a Madonna stage costume.

Scoman, didn't you wonder at any stage why you had 'nads like cricket balls?

 

[Barrabundy]

I was asked to do some old guy a favour. He was a long term tenant moving out and he had a cat he wanted put down. Being young and eager to please I sat it in my lap to drive it out the back to take care of it. After i got up to about 40kph it decided to impersonate a very angry fly in a bottle.....needless to say I did an emergency stop and let it escape!

And yes I know I've just set myself up for some.