Garden Orb spiders (Backobourkia heroine) are very common garden spiders, especially around large trees at night when they come out to build their webs. Their scare-factor is high as the webs can span large distances across paths, easily walked into in twilight or the dark. The spider itself is not aggressive and not normally seen during the day.
Backobourkia heroine - Garden Orb Weaver Spider
The image above is of the same spider – front and back. She had spun her web in a normally shaded spot that receives brief winter sunlight in the late afternoon. The left hand image with the sun acting as a back-light indicates how translucent those long, solid looking legs and thorax really are.