I’m sure the bush fires and their devastating consequences have been well-covered in the news in Europe. So I don’t need to explain that here. Just because some people where asking – Sydney has not been affected by the fires.

The cute side of the bush fires are those images and videos popping up of Koalas feeding on water. They are usually very shy and it’s rare to see them in the wild, that’s why it’s amazing to see them coming so close to people now. And I guess the pictures have been taken up gladly by Australians, since they “provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation” as the Daily Mail writes.

(The sources of the images are unknown to me, since I received them through e-mail.)

My ex-housemate Daniel recently found this interesting creature on his pillow (!) and was nice enough to share his discovery with me. Apparently it was a Huntsman spider, which is also sometimes called Australian tarantula. It is not deadly though, but its bite can be quite painful. And apart from that it really isn’t that beautiful; nothing you would like to find on your pillow.

If you really want to see it, go for it and click here. If you plan to visit me and suffer from Arachnophobia you shouldn’t. And no: it’s not dead, it just pretends to be. And Daniel didn’t kill it, he relocated it to the garden.

OK, I admit, I don’t like spiders, especially not the ones of that size. I had a similar one in my hut when I stayed at Gokarna beach in India. Here, I luckily haven’t found any strange animals in my room yet, or at least no strange animals that were larger than 1cm. The only (rather big) cockroaches I found in my house so far were one in the kitchen and one in the stairway. That might change, when I start traveling, but luckily I have an agreement with Michele – she’ll take care of the spiders and I’ll handle the snakes :)