Would love to visit Australia - I can only imagine that the plane time over there could only be described as hellish. (motion sickness - so all plane time is hellish for me - and that’s a long freaking way!)
However, when I fantasize about moving to some other country (cause somehow everything would be “better” if I did that) Australia always loses out to Canada because of the scary insects, spiders, etc.
Yeah, I’m much more disturbed about the sheer length of time involved in actually getting there than anything that might or might not bite/sting/whatever me after arrival.
It’s just fun to joke about every bit of wildlife there being weird in some fashion and how all the TV specials, having wrung every last drop of cute out of kangaroos and koalas, now seem hell-bent on making Australia appear to drip with venom from every surface.
I’m just curious, how much do you think it would cost to fly there from NYC?
or where could I look it up online
Pretty much the only thing stopping me from visiting Australia is money/time. Well, money/time and the fact that I don’t have a passport, and might go more than mildly insane if I couldn’t smoke for however long it takes to fly to Australia. Critters are no problem.
Australia looks way too interesting to be scared of wildlife. Komodo on the other hand… (Douglas Adams speaks. Starts about 15:10 in).
Hey , I’d love to visit except I’m in the “too much money” and “too much time in a plane” crowd.
Although, if I could travel there I would be a little leery of those drop bears I have heard about.
Lewis Black has a great skit on this. “You would think if I fly nineteen hours to another country they would at least have the common courtesy to speak a different language!”
I want to go, but the cost and the time are prohibitive as others have said, and there’s so many other places on my list first (like Europe!..or even other parts of the US).
To continue on with Mr. Black’s quotes…“If you guys really cared, you’d jump off your island and push it closer.” 
I’ve heard that you can protect yourself if you rub vegemite (whatever the hell THAT is) in your hair before going for a hike.
The wildlife in Australia doesn’t scare me. I don’t like to drive on vacation (especially if the signs aren’t in English or they drive on the left side of the road), so I tend not to go to places with a lot of wildlife, anyway.
The farmers armed with kangaroo-hide whips, on the other hand…
I’m a veteran of the long car trips my parents love (and I… well, don’t), so that doesn’t bother me. 23 hours from Maryland to Florida, no different language (well, they do have bilingual English and Spanish signs some places), no different culture. Flying to Australia’s way better than that (and doesn’t take as long), at least.
ETA, for the young 'uns: This was in the days before iPods and Game Boys. Long car trips sucked then. At least I had a Walkman- car trips must have sucked unimaginably before those, for people who get carsick and can’t read in the car (like me). At least I can read on a plane, and nobody is going to make me drive.
According to Wikipedia, Australia is moving towards North America, at about 67 mm per year. They’d like to speed the process up, but the Pacific Plate in in the way. But, at 67 mm per year, it will take only about 180 million years for Australia to reach North America. Just be patient.
Buy me a plane ticket and I’m there. It’s a loooooooong trip, but I’d love to do it. There’s this little matter of money, though.
I visited Australia a year ago, and was a little disappointed in the lack of opportunities to interact with native wildlife in the wild, as opposed to wildlife parks and zoos. Most of the critters are either nocturnal, or secretive, or rare, or all three.
There were plenty of flies in the Outback, but they weren’t venomous, just annoying.
Well, I’ve already been to New Zealand. Which I know is a totally different thing, but in my head, going to Australia seems a bit redundant. Given the cost, there are many, many other places to go to first before I get down to Australia.
I’m not worried about the dingoes.
As a white South African currently living in the United States I concur with the distance and lack of a different culture complaint. It is really, really far away, and while I am sure I would enjoy a visit there are places that are much closer, and much more different than my “normal”. These places offer more for the cost, and push Australia far down the list.
Hell, the exotic wildlife would actually be a draw for me (kangaroos and platypuses especially). The Sydney Opera House, the government buildings in Canberra, anything to do with Breaker Morant, the Outback and Ayers Rock would also be on my to-see list. But it’s a very loooooooong way away and too expensive to get there, from what I’ve heard. Someday, I hope - my parents visited in the Eighties and had a great time.
I just did a quick search on Travelocity.com. NYC to Sydney - Sometime between Feb and June 2010
Tickets start at about $1000.
I picked a 2 week period starting in the end of March, and tickets started in the $1400 range. Travel time is someplace around 24 hrs, each way.
As for the OP. When I can get about 3 weeks of time off, and a couple thousand dollars, I’m coming for a visit. I figure with the travel time and the cost, anything much under 3 weeks isn’t worth the trip. Danger from animals isn’t any kind of concern.
Don’t mind the poisonous insects or the cheating umpires. Can’t come, the High Commission is unlikely to give me a visa.
I’m a big arachnophobic and it was definitely something I thought about before visiting - went for the first time last autumn. Saying to my wife we’re not going to our friend’s wedding in Sydney because of the spiders was obviously never going to happen, mind.
We hired a camper and toured NSW - great trip. Some trepidation involved going to the dunny in out-of-the-way campsites, but no spiders of note were sighted - thanks be to God.
I don’t care about your local fauna but I’m unlikely to go because of the cost. It’s not like you offer free babysitting while I’m there.
I’ve seen all 692 episodes of Prisoner (Prisoner: Cell Block H) plus I own all the albums by Darren Hayes, including the Savage Garden years, and I’ve watched every episode of Rove Live on YouTube.
So I am ready to go…
Then again, one must wonder why Helen Reddy, Olivia Newton-John, The Bee Gees and Darren Hayes no longer live there.
Hmmm