Every once in a while there's a report in our local newspapers of a black panther roaming the Blue Mountains where I live. Sometimes the reports come from areas hundreds of kilometres apart on the same night. No panther could do that, but a bunyip could. They teleport.
Bunyips are supernatural water creatures that were well known to the aboriginal people before the European invasion. They're very dangerous and it was a right of passage for boys to be sent into the wilderness overnight. If they survived and returned to their homes next morning they were deemed to be men.
Some, when they arrived back, were horribly changed. It was that change that led wise men to gaze with awe upon the white settlers who arrived in tall ships. They thought they were aborigines who had survived a bunyip encounter and whose fear had leached the natural brown from their skins.
A related and equally strange story.. when my daughter was little.. I read her a story about the bunyip, I think at the time the story must have been a light fluffy version of the bunyip cos I thought it was *cute* and from that moment on I nicknamed my daughter Bunyip or Bunny for short... LOl.. hmm do you think I was really insulting her all these years and meaning she is a scary monster? Ahh come to think of it.. maybe that's more how she is these days :P
Cabbage white butterfly.. honestly they are a nightmare.. you can cover your crops and plant companion plants to try to disguise.. but they still come and lay their eggs on your cabbages and brassicas..
Even worse... they have a fondness for nasturtiums - I grow them in a basket by my front door.. and the cabbage white's just won't leave them alone.. just a few caterpillars can devastate the whole basket in a day..
Benedict Arnold 