I’ve booked a different trip for March and will give a bit more thought to Aus after I’m back from that. Meanwhile, all the possibilities (too much choice? so many variables!) are slowly marinating in the recesses of any grey matter I still have left.
Couple of other things on the domestic front happening too…but that is just normal life of course.
I’ve heard the same said about daddy long legs, but it’s apparently an urban myth.
OK, I’ll turn the billy down.
That’s my understanding, in some cases a female will knock off any male (sounds somewhat familiar) in range.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of venomous elapid snakes to dance with 
I think I’m right in saying that the British house spider is a wolf spider (I’ll check). Australia has more species of wolf spider than is decent, but most of them live in the back yard. The big ones that get indoors, however… you’re in the shower stark bllck naked and you look up reaching for the soap and there’s this big brown hairy 8-legged thing on the wall just above the shower head. You conclude it’s a huntsman and your blood pressure drops substantially… and then the thing shoots forward like the clappers. 8-O
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when i was in south east asia i only saw one spider (apparently harmless and was pointed out to us by our guide) it was the macaques that you had to watch those buggers ambush you. Even in the wilds (tourist wilds that is) of borneo where we were told not to wander off the elevated path because of crocs and a moody bull elephant it was those monkeys that were the worst
A few years ago we stopped at Mt Gambier on our way to Adelaide. 2nd night in the hotel and I went to open a new toilet roll left on the bathroom window, put my middle finger down the cardboard tube and felt something really sharp, withdrew digit from tube and clinging onto tip was a rather large cockroach 
Shook hand with much gusto, roach splattered against tiled wall but was still alive so was scooped into bog brush holder and despatched outside.
@Gateshead Should have chopped its head off, it would have died in a couple of weeks.
When I ran the squadron bar in Germany we had loads of cockroaches around. One night I put one into a pint glass with a military grade thunderflash. It went off, the glass exploded into a million fast moving shards, the cockroach shook its head, gave me the finger and scurried off! Bombproof little critters!
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What’s the drum, Franglias?
Lost me. What’s the drum?
And him going to Australia and doesn’t know what the drum is
What’s the story man
What’s happening man
Or if you were in ireland it’s What’s the bleeding story man
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I guessed that, but far from sure. First time I have heard it.
My partner in crime has a medical issue and is now not at all keen to go to Aus for a long trip. Apart from anything else a fortnight in India has just cost a small fortune in health insurance. A look at US insurance (stopping off en rte) almost caused a heart attack.
I am thinking of doing it solo, but am not sure about it.
I have a trip off roading in Portugal in pencil for Sept. After that it is summer for you so.. ? The Portugal date is not definite though.
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Northern Portugal is so under estimated by the sheep that all flock to the Algarve for Heinz baked beans and a full fry up English breakfast, the tourists won’t eat the foreign muck as they won’t try the Portuguese food,and not at least try to learn a few words of Portuguese.
Bacalau na brashe. Com arroz et ensalada mista et vinho verde, se faish favor.
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Can’t beat the cabbage soup, the cod fish cakes , Franchessina mega sandwich with spicy hot gravy, octopus, chicken livers and everything else delicious.
Caldo verde? With the bits of sausage.
And of course frango piri-piri everyone knows that now surely?
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I love their fried chicken, it’s everywhere all over Portugal, always ask for a Tango, a Super Bock or Sagres beer and the bar man will add some red fruit syrup called Groshela.
When I lived there I would drop the trailer in the TIR park or the warehouse if they were doing a live load all night then come back in the morning to collect it.
So I would stay with the Mrs at her Mum’s house for a shower and then the Mum would cook so much good food.
At about 02.00 am a car crashed outside the house and I ran out to see what was going and wearing just my pants.
A few days later the whole street and all the neighbours knew about a foreigner wearing pants in the street, news travels very fast in a close community.
Didn’t understand a word of that but then I have never been there save for 2 visits to the port of Lisbon on a ship, once as a passenger and once as a seafarer. Apart from that the nearest I got was just to the north at Vigo in Spain collecting a dog which was needed in Normandie.
But, until I spent the evening with a group of Portugese drivers in a French routier I always thought their language was little more than a dialect of Spanish. The view ended that night when, eating at the same table as half a dozen of them and before I had noted their reg. plates, I could have sworn that I was amongst a crowd of Ukrainians or Slovakians, their language sounded much more eastern than Latin. I once asked my neighbour here, who has Portuguese parents and of course speaks the language, to help me with some Spanish I was struggling with for some reason. His reply was emphatic ‘no, no, no, can’t understand a word of it.’. 