A bloke and his family were on holidays and went to Mexico for a
week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought a one-metre high, rare and
expensive cactus there. On arrival back home Australian Customs
said it must be quarantined for three months.
He finally got his cactus home, planted it in his backyard, and
over time it grew to about two metres. One evening while watering
his garden after a warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light
spray. He was amazed to see the plant shiver all over, he gave it
another spray and it shivered again. He was puzzled so he rang the
council who put him on to the state gardens people.
After a few transfers he got the state's foremost cactus expert
who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered? etc.
Finally he asked the most disturbing question. "Is your family in
the house?" The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out
of the house NOW, get on to the front nature strip and wait for me,
I will be there in 20 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, two fire trucks, two police cars and an
ambulance
came screaming around the corner. A fireman got out and asked "Are
you the bloke with the cactus?" I am, he said. A guy jumped out of
the fire truck wearing what looked like a space suit, a breathing
cylinder and mask attached to what looked like a scuba backpack
with a large hose attached. He headed for the backyard and turned a
flame-thrower on the cactus spraying it up and down. After a few
minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood smoking and
spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens were
well and truly scorched.
Just then the cactus expert appeared and laid a calming hand on
the bloke's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?" he says. "Let me
show you" says the cactus man. He went over to the cactus and
picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely hollow and
filled with tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about
the size of two hand spans.
The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of
cactus and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full size.
When full size they release themselves. The cactus just explodes
and about 1500 dinner plate sized hairy spiders are flung from it,
dispersing everywhere. They had been ready to pop.
I know the story above is not true but it certainly sounds good
for this location.
Cactus gardens was always a pit stop on our way south to
Adelaide in the 60’s and 70’s. You can only drive so
far with five kids in the car. We used to have a lot of fun running
that energy off in the maze. It is all closed up now. Hell of a lot
of interesting specimens though. Watch out for spiders.
The cache does have a theme. Little green men, LGM’s,
should be the only swaps. Take your time you will see them all the
time.
