A lot of people want to travel to Australia to see its splendid natural beauty before they die, which is quite convenient when you consider how many things there can kill you.

The continent is well-known as the home for some of the most dangerous living creatures on the planet, including huge crocodiles, venomous snakes, and insects so large they might carry you away.

One man recently encountered such a creature on his own front porch, and it’s a wonder that he managed to avoid burning his house down as a result. For most people, what he saw would only appear in their worst nightmares.

A spider roughly the size of dinner plate had created a web just outside the man’s front door.

This spider was so large that it almost seemed unreal, yet any Australian will tell you that such a creature is an everyday encounter in the outback.

This particular spider was a Golden Silk Orb-Weaver, one of the larger spiders in the country. Fortunately for this man, the Orb-Weaver is completely non-poisonous.

They have been known to bite humans when threatened, and their size alone should be enough to make you want to avoid that, venomous or not.

It’s hard to see such a spider without wondering why it needs to exist in the first place. Does the size of spider make a difference if it has to use webbing to catch prey? Or is it simply a problem of a lack of smaller prey items in the outback, so everything is just bigger in general? In either case, this man isn’t likely to forget his encounter any time soon.