It was a wonderful spring afternoon in the early 1980s and I had decided to take my Sako .222 for a walk without my hat on the farm in the Hunter Valley. I thought I might see a fox or a feral cat if I was lucky, with a chance of a wild dog coming out of the surrounding bush to harass one of the calves. But it would most likely be one or two rabbits that I would bag.
I was walking on the track near the soil erosion at one of the bends in the creek and the biggest, hairiest spider fell out of one of the gum trees and landed on my head. Instinctively, I quickly brushed it off with my left
