Australia, Good and Bad

Post Reply New Topic

Well Im giving them, because they are better than yours.

The Last Continent confused me greatly. Stupid drop bears.

bad link

Last edited by BazzaMcKenzie on 30 Jan 2008, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They don't show.

Brown snakes are deadly. I could have been killed by one.

Do you guys have anything like water moccasins, rattlers, cobras, black mambas, pythons, anacondas, vipers, etcetera, do you have snakes similar to American snakes or are they all completely different?

Those are Koalas, I believe. Some Terry Pratchett novels (like Pyramids or The Last Continent) require at least two read throughs to understand.

I believe the rattler is cute and cuddly compared to the western taipan.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipan
There are some pythons and other non-venomous snakes, but not in the wild in Victoria (I think). Most common are Brown snakes, tiger snakes, black snakes, copperheads (google search them. To look for Australian sites only, in the search box type site:.au). The black snake does not have very strong venom and is territorial. It will kill tiger snakes (one of the nastiest types here) so most people I know don't mind black snakes being around. Tiger snakes can be aggressive but its fairly uncommon to come across them. Unless you go into their habitat you won't see any.

For example, I spent most of today walking along a creek with tussocks and scrub and then in a stubble paddock with my dog. I was a bit cautious because I expected snakes to be about, but I didn't see any.

I've seen a few wild snakes before. I saw some a couple of times out on my grandmother's farm at Bauple, and had the s**t scared out of me when I spotted one, while I was rummaging through the strelitzia to find some frogs (no, really!). I also saw a few carpet pythons, and shed skin was fairly common to find. Much more recently, I found a snake in my pool, and, not knowing whether it was alive, dead, or a rubber toy, I used the prongs of a citronella lamp to prod it. It immediately darted into the depths of the pool, and I beat a hasty retreat. Haven't seen one since that day.

I've come across some snakes in suburban WA. There was a dugite in the vacant lot next to the flat I lived in perth. Had one or two snakes in the yard every summer in Albany (neighbour kept chooks, they attract snakes), some harmless looking small black ones and in my last summer there, I had a tiger snake in the backyard - very nasty looking and one of my dogs was trailing it, slowly. It went into a neighbours yard so I went round to tell them and the kids answered the door (their mum was out) so they told me "It's ok, we're aboriginal!" (you can tell) and wanted to know exactly where it was! yum!

Now I'm in Tasmania and they reckon all the snakes are poisonous in this state. ugh.

I'm not aboriginal, but Me Too! Yum
i hear they taste like chicken!
what a pity it's illegal
KFS

Kentucky Fried Panda

For wanna-be Australians this is the Australia Day long weekend here. ugh. A sellabrayshun of the nayshun. A flag waving day, a hokey public 'honours' list of nonentitites and inoffensive types is announced. Anyone see that send up of Australian of the Year on the ABC last year? said it all really.

Might be something like the 4th July in the US. Don't know what the Brits do as a national day.

What's the history of this day?

History? well history is an argument about what happened so the abos call it 'invasion day'.

I don't know, some bureaucrat or politician probably invented it in ooooh I'd guess the early to mid 20th century to foster nationalism or something. Most countries have a national day as a holiday.

HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA DAY - LINK

Anniversary of the "First Fleet" landing in Botany Bay (now Sydney). IMHO its not really relevant outside Sydney.

The anniversary of Federation (the actual establishment of Australia as a nation) is 1st January.