Australia be crazy. My wife and I spent five weeks there in late 2012-early 2013. She was my girlfriend at the time. I proposed during the New Year fireworks in Sydney.
We traveled from Sydney all the way up to Cairns on a Greyhound bus, stopping at about a dozen places along the way. Then flew down to Melbourne and then back to Sydney for the trip home.
We saw a dingo from a distance and once almost walked face-first into a giant huntsman spider in a forest. Then at Airlie Beach, we decided to take a walk through the forest and were chased by a swarm of giant insects/bugs. Once we got out of the forest and onto the beach, we breathed a sign of relief. The bugs didn't follow us out into the open. Except right there in front of us was a giant "Beware of Crocs" sign. Fun times.
I have followed some Australian writers on Medium and Subtack, and they have greatly relieved me of many of the stereotypical views I used to have about it. And I am glad for that.
Besides, you have to love a country that uses words like "jackaroo" (the equivalent to "greenhorn" or "city slicker") in conversations.
As cringe-worthy as Crocodile Dundee was, it opened our eyes (Gen Xers in the US) to some of these charming (and just generally odd) turns of phrase. I'm not sure how you can hear a dialect like this and not be instantly intrigued.
Thank you, Andrew! I thoroughly enjoyed this piece! I'm terrified of all spiders and was very jumpy when I went to Brisbane a few years ago. My Australian friend couldn't understand why as we have moose in Sweden, which he thought was a very scary prospect. And yes, moose can be both aggressive and dangerous, but I have yet to find one of them sneaking up on me in the shower.
It's so funny and interesting what our brains tell us to be afraid of! I think I want to zoom in more on that aspect of this piece, maybe take it over to another domain of some kind. Horror movies are interesting for exactly this reason: I try to figure out why the creepy ones make the hairs on my neck stand up so much, and it's tough to pin it down!
The blue ring octopus is my favorite Aussassin. Its bite is sometimes painless, but its venom is deadly. Same stuff as puffer fish venom, I think.
I'm stealing "Aussassin."
Australia be crazy. My wife and I spent five weeks there in late 2012-early 2013. She was my girlfriend at the time. I proposed during the New Year fireworks in Sydney.
We traveled from Sydney all the way up to Cairns on a Greyhound bus, stopping at about a dozen places along the way. Then flew down to Melbourne and then back to Sydney for the trip home.
We saw a dingo from a distance and once almost walked face-first into a giant huntsman spider in a forest. Then at Airlie Beach, we decided to take a walk through the forest and were chased by a swarm of giant insects/bugs. Once we got out of the forest and onto the beach, we breathed a sign of relief. The bugs didn't follow us out into the open. Except right there in front of us was a giant "Beware of Crocs" sign. Fun times.
Those are good memories! I mean, bad/good, but you know what I mean.
Gah! You are not convincing me the stunning beauty is worth the 🕷️ and 🐍!
Feels like a lot of that beauty can be captured from afar, if you catch my drift!
The reason why deaths are so low is that we have anti venom now. And yes I am deathly afraid of spiders and snakes.
You forgot the Aussies’ killer sense of humor.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KCGUNpzjD6M&si=Oes78gIXbw1OcqYH
"Visually, it looks very like a koala."
But so dangerous 😂
Check out the australian venomous caterpillars...
Scary-ish, but check out Brazil's caterpillar mortality rate!
And now for something really scary in Australia:
https://youtu.be/XKvuUDBHipE?feature=shared
I haven't gone yet, but this article has only made me want to go more! ;)
Same! Now looking forward to visiting even more, especially with all the fearmongering debunked.
I have followed some Australian writers on Medium and Subtack, and they have greatly relieved me of many of the stereotypical views I used to have about it. And I am glad for that.
Besides, you have to love a country that uses words like "jackaroo" (the equivalent to "greenhorn" or "city slicker") in conversations.
As cringe-worthy as Crocodile Dundee was, it opened our eyes (Gen Xers in the US) to some of these charming (and just generally odd) turns of phrase. I'm not sure how you can hear a dialect like this and not be instantly intrigued.
Thank you, Andrew! I thoroughly enjoyed this piece! I'm terrified of all spiders and was very jumpy when I went to Brisbane a few years ago. My Australian friend couldn't understand why as we have moose in Sweden, which he thought was a very scary prospect. And yes, moose can be both aggressive and dangerous, but I have yet to find one of them sneaking up on me in the shower.
It's so funny and interesting what our brains tell us to be afraid of! I think I want to zoom in more on that aspect of this piece, maybe take it over to another domain of some kind. Horror movies are interesting for exactly this reason: I try to figure out why the creepy ones make the hairs on my neck stand up so much, and it's tough to pin it down!
https://youtu.be/XKvuUDBHipE?feature=shared