Being an australian near sydney I don't worry about snakes much in my area, most deadly/more aggressive snakes live further north.

If I ever wake up with a snake at the bottom of my sleeping bag I can hopefully wiggle slowly out and get rid of it. That's probably the most likely scenario I could see happening. I have almost stepped on a red belly black snake hiking but it just froze (it's head was facing away from me) then when i went back near it to get footage it slowly went away.

*More than 20 people die each year in Australia from horse riding related accidents. Less than 2 a year die from a snakebite.*


As to spiders I don't fear spider bites in the bush, they don't go around hunting humans. I've killed over 10 red backs in my house and 1 funnel web that was in my running shoe !

Red backs seem pretty placid to me,we used to fight all kinds of spiders,red backs included vs ants and other creatures in an ice cream bucket when I as a kid. The only thing is I just keep eyes open/alert when I'm cleaning out the garage,or cleaning up outside for example.

Note no one has died from a bite since an anti venom program was introduced in 1956. Same for funnel webs.


I think that if I hiked in america like I do in australia I'd have to watch out for bears and mountain lions(or the like) in some areas. I think geez would I not be able to cook meat as it might attract a dangerous animal ?
Or would you always have to light a fire to keep them away ?
Would you always have to carry a gun during bear mating season etc ?

I'm sure american hikers are aware/used to precautions for their environment, just as us aussies are.

I am also from australia and would like to give you two thumbs up on your post! Im from the far north, and in some remote aboriginal communities i travel to there are reports of monsterous salt water crocodiles that are of unexplainable size, also RIP steve

OK, so I have an admission to make. I was rather a, lets say......sadistic.....child who would perform such experiments as blowing up Red Ants nests and putting ants in spiders webs...

Anyhoo, I remember I once put a Daddy Long Legs spider and a Redback in a lunchbox to watch the fun....and strike me dead the bloody Daddy Long Legs won! He literally just walked on top of the Redback and wrapped him up in about 6 seconds - the Redback didn't look like he knew what the hell was happening!

I have shot many a brown snake on my grandparents farm, one of them was a whopping 3 metres long! I've beheaded a few Red Belly Blacks, with a shovel, that used to stray to close to the house when we lived in the rural areas of Sydney. We once had a Diamond Python turn up there too, nice fella he was - about 4 metres long totally harmless so we kept the dogs away from him and shepherded him back into the bush behind our house.

I have to say, that even though we house some of the most deadly critters known to man, they are also extremely unique and beautiful in their own way. They are here to be respected, not feared. Common sense replaces fear here, if we feared our critters no-one would ever leave the house!!

Howdy

The ockerozweathermanejaylinz fantasy turducken, an invention of a possibly overwrought mind, brought to memory a blue throated helmet headed cassowary with red fleshy wattles drooping from the neck, that lived in the rain forest fringing a pioneer farmstead I once worked on at Upper Daradgee. At the southern end of the Wooroonooran National Park where Mount Bartle Frere, Queenslands highest, looms large beyond the other side of the valley forested ridge; where a thousand and one sulphur crested cockatoos were seen to overnight roost on the occasion of a migratory passover.
Lean rangy cattle brought in from dryer country further west were fattened on the lush grass growing in the steep, lone milky pine paddock valley, where ran a fast flowing cold water tributary of the North Johnstone River.
And sugar cane was grown on the hilltops.
As an able cane cutter I was employed on the sugar cane rather than with the fattening bullocks but I shared a barracks living quarter with the two stockmen, as cowboys are known in Australia.
Anyway, the cassowary, which can disembowel a man with one swipe of their powerful clawed feet if cornered, was occasionally to be seen crossing forest cleared open ground. at a distance.
Macadamia nuts are endemic to the forests in those parts and form part of the cassowary diet.

Two sugar cane varieties grown at Upper Daradgee were Badilla, with soft chocolate colored stems, much relished by raiding feral bush pigs, and Pindar, a blisteringly hard growing greeny grey purplish stemmed variety of cane not so attractive to marauding pigs.

They eat cassowary in New Guinea if they can catch 'em but how it compares with emu, as observed running wild in the arid whirling willy~willy country west of Mount Isa, I know not.

"My soul, do not seek immortal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible."
Pythian Odes bk 1, l. 109 Pindar, the Greek lyric poet.
If Ancient Greek sage Heraclitus is correct in his belief that our evolving consciousness is eternally recurring to perception as a sentient life lived forever and a day, then its okay by me!
Send her down, Hughie!
You're having a laugh surely, Hughie!
You'll have to excuse an old dingbat wordsmiths fond memory reminiscence of a now distant, bit of a larrikin nong, youth.
Having been dingbat nong educated to such charming names by battler Sheilas of my knowing at a na na na na ~~~~ jig, and a gig, in the Down Under land where the Queen of Sheba sun orchid blooms: seen and unseen; scene upon scene, flickering through the dingbat camera and projector that is a cricket & batman memory manacled so metaphysical.
Like when eating a rats coffin at the races, to put a dubious meat pie down spin on the upchuck googly, and illustrate the sidewalk with a technicolor yawn, or a pavement pizza, or even a curbside quiche, following a liquid laugh to make you chunder chuckle all over again.

Wouldn't mind trying a vanilla milkshake at Bondi Beach again, to tell, at another googly ball, the dinkum Taronga Park dimwit koala thirsty truth.

Does the nulla~nulla nulify the waddy walloper, is the evolved at a revolve nincompoop dunderhead, irony wood shillelagh, hug andor ugh, c him panzee beauyesbeau, Zarathrustra apeman bona fide 2009 dawn question, to gobbledegook, gobbledegook, flobbergob & buggerlugs ignore!

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
The box jellyfish is more abundant in the northern territory. In Darwin you can only swim in 3 months of the year, due to this. North Queensland has a bigger problem with the tiny Irukandji jellyfish as it is small enough to swim through stinger nets

There also the red back spider which isnt as venemous as the funnel web but can kill

The Irukandji is one creature that really scares me, something that small and virtually invisible with the power to kill any human with the long tiny tentacles is amazing. I wonder if we have the shrimp that has the super sonic claw shockwave attack down here also. As deadly as creatures get, I think the deadliest of all would have to be humans.

Also, when it comes to insects and arachnids, I find that I always seem to find new creatures everywhere, just how many species of these bugs do we have?

[edit on 23-10-2009 by Xenus]

One word.. greenies =)