Pemberton Insect Bonanza

Our campsite beside a lovely, gurgling creek in Pemberton, SW Western Australia, yielded a treasure: our first sighting of a member of the peacock spider species. These brightly coloured spiders, only 3mm in size, tricky to find,  have become Internet stars for their salsa-like mating dances.

Bull ants, renowned for their size, bite and bulldog tenacity, foraged next to the camper but left us alone as long as we didn't provoke them!

The creek also hosted lots of different spiders, each with an interesting lifestyle, plus beetles, sawfly grubs, and vinegar and crane flies.

Apart from bugging in camp, we went for a walk to the Gloucester Tree which can be climbed (53 metres on tricky rungs) and used to serve as a fire lookout in the karri tree forests.