Oh yeah, I believe it. I was always a little creeped out of spiders until I lived in Australia for a time. There you just have to get used to them, they are everywhere and much bigger than here. Some are poisonious, pretty much all bite.
And I was in Melbourne and surrounding area, the southern (and coldest) part of Australia. Those pictures were taken in Queensland. Much more tropical, jungle like in some areas actually. Amazing creatures there, but big ass bugs too.
But I found out just how docile spiders really are. They are so amazingly gentle and peaceful. You can pick them up, move them, heck inspect them and play with them. It takes a lot to piss them off and even if you do they are far more likely to run away than try to attack.
And they obviously do a great service keeping the local bird, I mean bug population down...
