You mean the Sydney Opera House, I presume. Oh well, cross that one off the list of internationally recognised Australian icons 
Hawaiian Dopers, 'fess up and check in! If it’s any consolation to the Aussie Dopers, back when I was living in Paradise, we seemed to have a tourist or two who had to get rescued from the volcanos on the Big Island about every other year.
Tourists! Can’t live with 'em; can’t make money off 'em if they’re dead. 
CJ
Veteran of 7 years in Hawaii’s Japanese Visitor Industry
(Who da haole?)
Oh screw! If it’s any consolation, I pictured it correctly in my mind.
Well, the ones they were able to find they did.
I was speaking to my brother who is working in the Top End at the moment. His flatmate has swum in the waterhole in question, with local indigenous as guides. They knew at the time there were crocs about, but went in anyway (cautiously). And during the daytime, which is probably a major factor.
I dunno, Princhester. If I’m up north in a waterhole/billabong and there are big signs warning me about the dangers of toothsome crocs, I wouldn’t be trusting daylight to get me out of trouble.
While most of the waterways are clear, they’re sneaky buggers, and could come up from under VERY QUICKLY without any notice, sunshine or not.
I think I’ll stick to the Fitzroy Baths… The only crocs there are the lecherous old blokes who leer at the pretty young things in their bikinis. And they can’t bite with their dentures out!
Oh great, Princhester! Now you’ve got me thinking of the one episode of Fear Factor where the challenge was to cross a small crocodile preserve. They proved it could be done, but I still didn’t like the look in some of the crocs eyes.
CJ
I wasn’t trying to suggest that swimming in such places is a good idea, Kambuckta. I was just reporting an anecdote.
But certainly from what I have heard, swimming in such places isn’t that uncommon. Doing so at night is.
Does anyone else “hear” kambuckta’s post in a Steve Irwin voice? Especially this part:
Crikey!
It’s the preventable platypus attacks that gall me.
Given the number of hours I spent as a youth trying to catch a glimpse of a platypus (setting up hides, hours of sitting very still etc) I really wonder how you go about getting bitten by one. It would *have/i] to involve capturing one and then attempting to handle it, I’d think.
Oh, and yes I do realise you were joking, spoke-
[sub]and yes I know they’re now not that hard to see at Eungella and various other places where they are a bit used to people, but man those things are seriously shy[/sub]
Now I’ll have youse all know that we Orstralyins don’t sound anything like that Irwin bloke. Geez mate, I dunno where you got that idea from…some of us are real sophis…sofis…sophist…ah stuff it…we’re real refined and all.
And we never, ever say ‘crikey’ when we see a croc up close…it is much more likely to be 'farking bloody hell, where the fuck did THAT bastard come from?'
Any reason why Austalia has so many venomous snakes ans spiders? I remember seeing that there are also poisonous trees (the leaves have venom-containing spines in them).
Did these species evolve because of special conditions? An Australian guy I knew told me that the funnel web spiders are quite common-they actually enter houses, and most people are bittn when reachind under counters, opening toolboxes, etc.
Nasty wildlife!
I don’t know if anyone else has been watching Steve Irwin the last couple of weekends, but I’ve enormously enjoyed watching the out-takes shows. I’m in awe of anyone who can get bitten by a goanna which refuses to let go and not utter a stronger expleteive than “shit”.
Does any other Aussie find it kind of funny that overseas people worry more about our spiders and land snakes (for which there are anti-venoms) than about our far more lethal sea creatures?
I can’t remember a single dunny or wash-house we had as a kid which didn’t get regularly invaded by red-backs. There were always plenty of trap-doors around too, but the only spiders which scared me were huntsmen - the bastards would always get into my bedroom and flatten themselves out on my ceiling above the doorway.
And it certainly wasn’t summer until you’d found the first red-bellied black in the dunny.
I suspect that many of us Aussies visiting colder, wetter climates make equally treacherous mistakes - it’s our familiarity with our own land which affords us a measure of protection (although every year some local idiot dies in the Outback or the mountains because they set off ill-equipped for a rugged journey).
We tend to read about mishaps in our own country and roll our eyes thinking “why didn’t they ask the locals”? I’d like to think we’d have enough to do that very thing ourselves when out of our native habitat.
This reminds me of the idiot who went swimming in a river in Florida. At dusk. With his dogs. In an area that he had often seen alligators in. He got bitten. It’s a lucky thing that his dogs weren’t eaten. People can be really stupid.
I’ve been waterskiing in canals in Florida and seen alligators in the water. It spooks me bad enough to get back into the boat at the next convenient alligator-free area.
As for poisonous things… growing up in Southern AZ you pretty much assume that most things are poisonous. I was 12 years old before I saw a snake in the wild that wasn’t a rattlesnake. I had to sweep black widows out of my window frames regularly. It was still pretty easy to avoid them. Seems like avoiding crocodiles would be pretty easy with about a ml of common sense. :rolleyes:
I grew up in an area in which the funnel-web spider burrows were at two or three to the square metre in our front and back yards. It was just something we lived with, and all of us kids had respect for these creatures drummed into us from when we were very small. Yet, as reprise said, the average Aussie would probably be an embarrassing liability in the wilds of a cold North American or European climate. I’d be paying a lot of attention to warnings given by locals.
“These Yanks don’t know shit. Everyone knows bears are cute and fluf…” <CHOMP>
:eek:
And THAT’S why no-one with an ounce of sanity would choose to live east of the Divide in NSW…(present company not excepted, of course… )
In all honesty, provided you remember to never step OVER a log, to keep your fingers/hands out of dark holes and rockpools, to never wear thongs in the bush and always wear gloves in the garden, to swim on a patrolled beach, to avoid billabongs in the north and swampy areas in the south, to inspect the tent before you climb into your sleeping bag, and to not attempt to befriend the possums and goannas, to train your cat to eat the huntsmen, to train your kids to swat the blowies, and to get a regular tetanus booster every few years, it’s really only the human wildlife you’ve got to watch out for in Oz. Especially the variety that inhabits Sydney…
That’s it, I’m never leaving my house again. Australia and the rest of the poisonous, icky, scary, spikey, scaly, bitey world will have to get by without me.
The image of kambuckta wearing a thong in the bush just about blew my mind until I realized:
thong [Oz] = flip-flop [Yank]
thong [Yank] = G-string [? Oz]
thong [US] = flipflops OR undies
thong != g-string.
Opal pulls out her handy diagram