Seeing as few people out there have an understanding of 'down under,' the following is a brief guide to the great southern land and gives a few hints for those who might visit one day.
A few facts 1st:
Australia is the world's 6th largest country and it's largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent, the only continent that is also a country. It was the 1st continent conquered by the sea and also the last. It is the only nation that begun its' life as a prison. It is the home to the world's largest living thing... The Great Barrier Reef and the worlds largest and most striking monolith, Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock. Australia has more things that can kill you than any other nation.... if you are not pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you can be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, burnt by the bush fires that ravage the land every Summer, carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible rip currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking desert. It is a tough place and there is nowhere in the world like it. 95% of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, exists nowhere else. Australia is the dryest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically agressive of all the inhabited continents. Only Antarctica is more hostile to life. It has a population of approx' 20 million. The people are immensely likeable - cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging. Their sense of humour is as dry as the land. Their cities are clean and safe and nearly always built near the coast. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent, the beer cold, their wines are voted the best in the world, their sportsmen and women are universally known as the greatest and the sun nearly always shines.
The Guide.
Beer:
What better way to start the guide! American beer is generally as weak as pee and twice as yellow. As a useful rule of thumb, Australian beer is about three times stronger than American beer. I have seen too many tourists fall over and hurt themselves due to a failure to understand this. Note to those within the USA who indulge in drinking the Aussie beer of Fosters... it is brewed in Canada.
Coat of Arms:
The Kangaroo and Emu were chosen to adorn the Australian coat of arms because neither animal can move backwards. While visiting Australia please consider engaging the unique pleasure of dining on both the animals depicted in our national Coat of Arms. Emu and Kangaroo are both served in some resturants. The only Australians I know who eat kangaroo are my cats.
Crocodiles and sharks:
Whilst visiting Australia, and only if you want to, you can encounter a crocodile. Personally I have avoided the experience. The same goes for sharks. American tourists might take comfort in that crocodiles seem to prefer eating Germans. There is no explaination as to why, but one might consider they prefer tougher meat. Sharks will attack and eat anyone, regardless of race, and very often do. Retribution comes in the form of 'fish and chip' shops were one can purchase shark meat for consumption. Aussie's eat more shark meat than any other nation.
Crocodile Dundee:
A prank played on Americans by a cynical, larrikin Australian. The only place that you will see anything that looks remotely like Mick Dundee will be in an Oxford St, Sydney gay bar. The odds that your 'urban Mick' has recently discovered botox and collects Barbra Streisand cd's are high.
Drop Bears:
Members of the family of marsupials commonly gathered under the colloquial name 'dropbears,' the Andayan Marsupis (Burra Bunda). Often a source of controversy, drop bears are seldom discussed in tourist guides. Drop bears are not a species as such but a range of small nocturnal marsupials related to the koala, that hunt by dropping from trees and clinging to their prey while feeding on whatever flesh they can bite at. Only seven documented attacks on humans occurred in the twentieth century. No attacks were fatal. Locals exaggerate their prominence and ferocity to scare tourists.
Hats with Corks:
A method of simultaneously ripping-off and marking out tourists for further exploitation. If you visit, do not under any circumstances wear one. You will look like a dorky tourist and be treated much the same.
Hitchhiking:
A great way to meet serial killers. Try it in South Australia, a state with unusually high figures for serial killings. American visitors might take comfort that serial killers seem to prefer serial killing Europeans. The French are usually the most vunerable. Perhaps they are more gullible than the rest.
Howard, John, The Prime Minister:
A wee temorous beastie. An Australian purgative. Should not be used for small children.
Indigenous population:
The indigenous population of Australia have survived colonisation and attempted genocide with dignity and a sense of humour intact. Australian Aboriginals, known as The Koori, remain the most systematically disadvantaged group in Australia. Wherever in your travels here, you have the chance to hear the Aboriginal point of view, seize at it!
Irwin, Steve:
An idiot savant who worked out exactly how to manipulate the world's fantasies about Australia. Probably clinically insane. No-one in Australia really uses the word "crikey."
Hello/goodbye:
Lit: 'good-day'...Australians use the contraction 'g'day' to say hello; the word is never ever used to say goodbye. Goodbye is 'hooroo' or 'ooroo' in (it is believed) local indigenous Koori dialect.
Mate:
The oft used word for 'friend.' It has no sexual connotations and is used by both males and females in regards to each other, family pets and complete strangers. Mate is higly useful word when we can't recall someones name.
No worries:
Because there just isn't!
Koala:
A foul smelling, bad tempered marsupial. Note that koalas are not bears and should not be called koala bears. Scientists believe that koalas get a psychoactive side-effect from their gum leaf diet and spend their lives perpetually stoned. Do not underestimate the likelihood that this animal will urinate on you. Federal politicians and the Japanese with the camera are their favourite target.
New Zealand:
A place the Gods made so that Australians have someone to feel superior to. Viewed mostly as a convenient Pacific Ocean 'wind-break' for the east coast of Australia.
Poisonous:
A word variously used to describe the tone of the Federal Senate and the spider that just crawled up your leg. Australia is home to the most venomous beasties of any continent. Visitors are unusually attracted to things that might hurt them, which in an Australian context is practically everything. Of the top 20 deadliest snakes on the planet, 18 are Australian, the taipan being the most seriously lethal. The taipan carries a venom 50 times more deadly than that of the cobra or the black mamba, it's nearest challangers. Other deadly snakes include, but are not limited to, the Australian brown snake, the tiger snake, yellow-bellied sea snake, the western brown, Daintree green tree snakes, desert death adders, and the Point Darwin sea snake. We are also home the most venomous creature in the known universe, the boxed jelly fish. The sting from the boxed jelly fish, Portuguese man-of-war, marine stingers or 'blueies' as we call them, is said to have no pain that compares to it, even... being burnt alive. It is the most absolute wretched abject agony known to man. There is also the small but fearsome blue-ringed octopus, the elegant but irritable numb ray and the loathsome stone-fish which injects the hapless sufferer with a mytoxin bearing the molecular weight of 150,000. Firefish are easier to spot, but no less harmful. There is even a poisonous jelly fish called a snootie. Never pick up an innocuous harmless looking coneshell from a beach, as tourists are wont to do, because the creature living inside can kill you. The mosquito's are big enough to bbq, with some varieties carrying toxins and the paralysis tick is the most lethal of it's type in the world. The most poisonous spider in the world is Australia's funnel-web spider with a venom that is highly toxic and fast acting. A nip from one of these black hairy bastards will leave you bouncing around in the grip of seizures of incomparable liveliness, turn you blue and promptly kill you. Also highly poisonous and sometimes deadly are the red-back, mouse spiders, wolf spiders, white-tails, the huntsman, and the reclusive fiddleback. No-one knows incidentally, why Aussie spiders are so extravagantly toxic; injecting victims with enough venom to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. One can find a complete list in 'The Things That Can Kill You Horribly In Australia,' Volumes 1 to 106,78.
Queen Elizabeth II:
Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain is also the Queen of Australia. Many people are baffled by this weak-kneed monarchism but it persists despite efforts to become a republic. All I can say is that it baffles me also. In operation, the Queen has no role in Australian democracy other than a ceremonial role delegated to Governor-Generals and state Governors. According to the literal word of our constitution she has the power of an absolute dictator. Most Australians tend to ignore her.
ANZAC's:
Lit: Australia New Zealand Army Corps. The most respected and venerated people in Australia (and New Zealand) and includes all armed forces. These people are sacred. Vetrans of WW1, WW2, Korean and Vietnamese Wars. ANZAC Day is a national holiday, holds far more weight that Australia Day (January 26th) and is respected on April 25th.
Savage Garden:
I'm sorry, really.
Russell Crowe:
A drunken arrogant knuckle dragging thug who took acting lessons. Can handle a sword quite well.
Heath Ledger:
Lovable, fiesty, indomitable Aussie actor 'bloke' who steps in when film makers want a younger Mel Gibson.
Mel Gibson:
We're over him.
Nicole Kidman:
At least the poor girl can wear high heels again now she's not with Tom anymore.
Seppo/Septic:
Note for Americans... 'Seppo' is short for septic tank which is rhyming slang for 'yank'. If you are called a 'seppo' or a 'septic' it is probably affectionate. If it isn't, you'll know. All Americans, regardless of being from either north or south are generic 'seppos.'
Shrimp:
In Australian English slang - a shrimp is a very small person. If you want a prawn have a bloody prawn. Throwing a shrimp on the barbie would probably be considered an assault in all states.
Swimming:
Note to the USA... Despite being so much bigger and richer than us, your swimmers will never beat our swimmers. Ian Thorpe (the Thorpedo) is considered a god - a rightly so.
Thong: In Australian English a thong is an item of footwear. Although we have come to understand what Americans mean by 'thong' we know that those things are really called 'g-strings.' The English call this type of footwear 'flip-flops' - which says quite a lot about the English.
Uluru:
Uluru is the traditional, more respectful (and official) name for what is more commonly known as Ayers Rock. It is a site of immense wonder and a spiritually humbling place to experience. You will not know Australia until you visit Uluru. Nothing that you have seen will prepare you for the profundity of Uluru. If you consider visiting, make the effort to find and talk with the traditional custodians of Uluru. If you are really resourceful the local owners will take you on tours to places that most tourists don't see. The custodians will tell you the creation time stories about how the rock came to be. The Aboriginal elders ask that people respect their wishes that the rock not be climbed. The hard truth is that many tourists a year die in their efforts to clamber up and down. The custodians are left with much ceremonial work to do to 'clean up.'
With thanks to Bill Bryson from 'Down Under.' Transworld Publishers, London. Copyright 2000, ISBN 0385 40817X.
Previously posted in AW Anon.
