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The hazards of layout building in Australia


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Dont forget the ants!

Bull Ants (1in long) give a nasty nip and will attack anything especially humans. Also Jumping Jacks, a smaller ant (3/8 to 1/2 in) which as their name implies, when attacking they jump quite high and again, a nasty nip. Both of these ants plus many smaller varieties inhabit my garden.

 

Peter  

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Dangers to the modeller (especially the outdoor ones) in Australia:-

 

Drop Bears
Swooping Magpies

Snakes (all)

Spiders (as good as all - take no chances)

Scorpions

Crocodiles

Wombats

Possums

Camels (yes camels - there are more in Australia than any other country)

Kangaroos

Goannas

Echidnas

Cassowaries

Ostriches

Lizards 

Multipedes of all kinds

Bogans

Feral Sheilas

Fellow modellers

 

In all seriousness while most of the above have the potential to cause harm and can be fatal most of the time they're more scared of you than you of them.  Their instinct is usually to flee danger if they can.  A cornered snake will sometimes attack as will one defending its nest.  

 

I've had all manner of livestock in, on and around the layout over nearly 10 years now.  Spiders and ants in large numbers are there every day, mostly out of sight and mind.  I've had a skink (small native lizard) hitch a ride on the train and a huntsman spider as big as a freight van wrapping itself around said van.  I've had a train propel a mouse out of a tunnel against its will and have had constant territorial disputes with the local possum population over rights to build and maintain my scenery in tact.  Despite all manner of precautions blackbirds and wattle birds still get in and peck up the ballast, sometimes stealing the little people ash often leaving deposits for me to clear up.

 

A shed location will encourage spiders and possibly snakes as it's sheltered.  And in summer there are flies.  And flies.  And more flies .........

 

We learn never to go poking around in wood piles without protective gloves (because there's usually a red back spider and possibly a snake in there) and to be generally wary of wildlife.  80% of the World's venomous creatures live only in Australia and about 50% of our native wildlife is venomous though not necessarily lethal.

 

I've had close calls with giant goannas while riding the bike on old rail trails and have come face to face - literally - with a pair of (very rare) cassowaries which was indeed a privileged sighting.  Ironically the only place I've ever been bitten by a spider was back home in Cornwall!

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Dangers to the modeller (especially the outdoor ones) in Australia:-

 

Drop Bears

Swooping Magpies

Snakes (all)

Spiders (as good as all - take no chances)

Scorpions

Crocodiles

Wombats

Possums

Camels (yes camels - there are more in Australia than any other country)

Kangaroos

Goannas

Echidnas

Cassowaries

Ostriches

Lizards 

Multipedes of all kinds

Bogans

Feral Sheilas

Fellow modellers

 

In all seriousness while most of the above have the potential to cause harm and can be fatal most of the time they're more scared of you than you of them.  Their instinct is usually to flee danger if they can.  A cornered snake will sometimes attack as will one defending its nest.  

 

I've had all manner of livestock in, on and around the layout over nearly 10 years now.  Spiders and ants in large numbers are there every day, mostly out of sight and mind.  I've had a skink (small native lizard) hitch a ride on the train and a huntsman spider as big as a freight van wrapping itself around said van.  I've had a train propel a mouse out of a tunnel against its will and have had constant territorial disputes with the local possum population over rights to build and maintain my scenery in tact.  Despite all manner of precautions blackbirds and wattle birds still get in and peck up the ballast, sometimes stealing the little people ash often leaving deposits for me to clear up.

 

A shed location will encourage spiders and possibly snakes as it's sheltered.  And in summer there are flies.  And flies.  And more flies .........

 

We learn never to go poking around in wood piles without protective gloves (because there's usually a red back spider and possibly a snake in there) and to be generally wary of wildlife.  80% of the World's venomous creatures live only in Australia and about 50% of our native wildlife is venomous though not necessarily lethal.

 

I've had close calls with giant goannas while riding the bike on old rail trails and have come face to face - literally - with a pair of (very rare) cassowaries which was indeed a privileged sighting.  Ironically the only place I've ever been bitten by a spider was back home in Cornwall!

Rick, you could add:

 

Mozzies

 

Brush turkeys

 

Next-door's dog

 

Next-door's kids

 

Pollies

 

Gunzels

 

and there was a report in today's paper about feral pigs (up to 100 kg each) encroaching on the Sydney suburbs.

 

Thank goodness we live in the Lucky Country.

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Translation: Australian "Gunzel" is approximately the same as the UK "Gricer" - an enthusiast often of the frothing and less articulate, but mostly harmless, kind usually with a Eidetic memory for timetables, rosters and the numbers they've taken and where and when they were seen ;)  In Australia the term is used as one of mild disrespect as much as it is descriptive.  There are subspecies for each type of transport such as tram gunzels and bus gunzels; while the latter are sometimes referred to as "bunzels" (for which the UK equivalent is "crank") I have never heard the derivative "tunzel" or "trunzle" used for the tram-foamers.

 

Just as in the UK the terms are used as both nouns ("He's a gunzel") and verbs ("He's gunzelling the last trip to town").  On a recent census at least one such chap entered his occupation as "Gunzel" and the tasks performed as "Gunzelling".  I understand it wasn't queried.

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Dangers to the modeller (especially the outdoor ones) in Australia:-

 

Drop Bears

<snip>

 

 

We even have a special repellent cream to keep these particularly nasty creatures at bay:

 

post-11907-0-97910600-1402400379.jpg

(blurry because upsized from one of my avatar pics)

 

I believe that there has been a push to have it handed out to newly arrived international tourists at airports.

 

 

 

Matt.

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We even have a special repellent cream to keep these particularly nasty creatures at bay:

 

attachicon.gifDrop Bear Repellant.jpg

(blurry because upsized from one of my avatar pics)

 

I believe that there has been a push to have it handed out to newly arrived international tourists at airports.

 

 

 

Matt.

Vegemite will keep anything away! Good for greasing axles.

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I stay well clear of that part of the world....

An Aussie friend of mine who is an active RC aeroplane modeler, he says that if you place something by itself, it is "offered to the spiders"....

Everytime he was preparing the planes, he had to get them out of the fuselage etc. first, as he didn't want any surprises...

He started to put his planes in sealed plastic bags just to save time.

Edited by M Graff
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A snakes stomach fluids are extremely strong and acidic. An ex soldier friend of mine told me that when he did a stint in Belize the favourite trick of the squaddies was to kill a rat, stuff it with Alka Seltzer and throw it into the undergrowth were the snakes used to hang out, the snakes would swallow the rats and then explode when their stomach juices reacted with the Alka Seltzer.

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  • 1 month later...

post-19545-0-30853200-1406061445.jpg

 

This Pink Tongue Lizard has live at my place for over 12 years. He/she lives under the house in the winter time and in summer lives in an agricultural pipe near the garden shed where the photo was taken.

For those who don't know Pink Tongue Lizards are members of the Goanna family and are like Blue Tongues although smaller. They can climb but can't dig.

This one was cornered by me at the back door once and opened it's mouth and hissed at me. I bent over hissed back very loudly where upon it closed it's mouth and ran like the clappers.

It also startled a carpenter when he was doing some work inside the house with the front door open. It just wandered in to see what all the noise was.

I don't know if it's a she or he as I don't speak Goanna and he/she doesn't speak English.

I too get red back spiders but a quick squirt with household insecticide has them dead in a few minutes. Oddly they're called red backs but the red stripe is more orange than red and as they die it fades.

Female funnel webs are the most dangerous and when she mates with a male he has to get away very quickly otherwise she turns round and gives him a lethal bite then eats him. Hardly worth all the trouble of "courting" her in the first place. The difference between a male and female is that she has a glossy body and he has a matt one.

As for snakes I've never had one. But snakes will generally try to get out of your way. People only seem to get bitten when they pick up a stick and start jabbing at the snake who can't say "please don't do that as it hurts" so they bite in self defense and yes once warmed up they can move a hell of a lot faster than we can.    

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None of the creatures mentioned bother me except one. I like snakes, they are old and cool. Bugs and anything bigger are fine. Spiders though, just NO! Nothing on this planet should have 8 eyes and 8 legs, it's just wrong on so many levels!!

 

Annoyingly we have false widow spiders down here in Dorset, and for some reason they just love biting me! They aren't the deadly monsters the red-top press make them out to be, but they do give a pretty nasty nip and I've got more than 1 scar from a bite.

 

Mark

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attachicon.gifflowers and lizard 002.JPG

 

This Pink Tongue Lizard has live at my place for over 12 years. He/she lives under the house in the winter time and in summer lives in an agricultural pipe near the garden shed where the photo was taken.

For those who don't know Pink Tongue Lizards are members of the Goanna family and are like Blue Tongues although smaller. They can climb but can't dig.

This one was cornered by me at the back door once and opened it's mouth and hissed at me. I bent over hissed back very loudly where upon it closed it's mouth and ran like the clappers.

It also startled a carpenter when he was doing some work inside the house with the front door open. It just wandered in to see what all the noise was.

I don't know if it's a she or he as I don't speak Goanna and he/she doesn't speak English.

I too get red back spiders but a quick squirt with household insecticide has them dead in a few minutes. Oddly they're called red backs but the red stripe is more orange than red and as they die it fades.

Female funnel webs are the most dangerous and when she mates with a male he has to get away very quickly otherwise she turns round and gives him a lethal bite then eats him. Hardly worth all the trouble of "courting" her in the first place. The difference between a male and female is that she has a glossy body and he has a matt one.

As for snakes I've never had one. But snakes will generally try to get out of your way. People only seem to get bitten when they pick up a stick and start jabbing at the snake who can't say "please don't do that as it hurts" so they bite in self defense and yes once warmed up they can move a hell of a lot faster than we can.    

We have lots of snakes here in Inman Valley South Australia(11 sightings in November alone), mostly Red Bellied Blacks and a number of Eastern Browns, both venomous, particularly the Browns but as faulcon said they get out your way generally. Also lots of Redbacks again unless you touch them they are quite harmless, I am far more concerned for my dog than anything else. My sister-in-law had a place in NSW where there were lots of Funnel Webs, she was never bitten though(come to think of it, if she had been it would probably have been the spider that would have died!!!........oops sorry Bronwyn) :triniti:

Mike

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Just today running some trains as although it was chilly it was fine. I saw a baby pink tongue sunning itself or warming up and inflating. Went indoors to grab the camera but it had disappeared when I got back........damn.

In the photo of the adult pink tongue that's it's warmed and ready to go form. When it first emerges it's as flat as a tack. It can move but only slowly, just like most of us first thing in the morning.

I also have loads of Skink lizards and once saw one that had caught a Bogon Moth. For those who don't know they are as big as an adults hand. I say caught but the moth was still walking as the lizard held on tight to a wing tip.

Edited by faulcon1
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We even have a special repellent cream to keep these particularly nasty creatures at bay:

 

attachicon.gifDrop Bear Repellant.jpg

(blurry because upsized from one of my avatar pics)

 

I believe that there has been a push to have it handed out to newly arrived international tourists at airports.

 

 

 

Matt.

I saw on the telly someone giving Vegemite to Asian tourists and didn't they turn their noses up at it. I think they may have put on a biscuit far too thickly for a first time taster. Us true aussies can handle a good thick dose of Vegemite. 

Edited by faulcon1
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Just today running some trains as although it was chilly it was fine. I saw a baby pink tongue sunning itself or warming up and inflating. Went indoors to grab the camera but it had disappeared when I got back........damn.

 

Well just now on the 27/7/14 I went out to the garden shed and warming up in the sun was a little lizard. A junior version of the adult. Unlike us lizards don't 'baby' their young. They give birth and the babies are on their own.

post-19545-0-17455900-1406431354.jpg

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If you thought this was just a joke .......

 

P1010020-1.jpg

 

then take a look at this .......

 

P8280017.jpg

 

Yes, that is a OO-scale van and no, that isn't a fully-grown spider.

 

Hail has been known to interrupt local bus services and cause some slight damage to the road surface as well .......

 

DSCN6474_zps5639eeb1.jpg

 

Fare evaders can expect to face consequences - the one looks to have donated his tail to a local cat ......

 

090064_zps0ec4309c.jpg

 

And enforcement comes in all shapes and sizes ......

 

120484_zpse6a08b3a.jpg

 

"You must not travel without a valid cricket"

 

120482_zps8beec220.jpg

 

Yes, there are some interesting hazards to layout building in Australia!

 

120483_zps8c601d9d.jpg

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Rick don't let the PTV see that one... it will give them ideas..... no that they need any. 

 

I think all the body slamming done by the in one of the Youtube clips had the required action  :O

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