Australia is known for beautiful coasts and an amazing wilderness that impresses residents and travellers from all over the word. I should know as I live here and work here as a blogger for Auspost travel. Unfortunately, a huge variety of deadly animal life makes enjoying Australia’s splendid environment a bit difficult. Read on to find out what Australian animal eclipses the huge variety of venomous death delivery engines to scare me the most.
The Australian Coast Want To Kill You
When I think of the ocean I imagine quiet beaches and fun activities like surfing and swimming. This is because I don’t swim in Australia. The oceans and coastal areas of Australia are swarming with animal life both great and small that seems to be there with the sole purpose of keeping terrorized land based life stuck on the continent.
Salt water crocodiles with an average length of 13 feet and an assumed thirst for blood assure anyone interested in getting to the ocean that dinosaurs are alive and well. For those that get past this net of destruction, the box jellyfish waits in the northeastern waters to kill anyone they can get near with a sting that is fatal in just three hours. Those that take a southern approach out of the country risk the ire of the Irukandji jellyfish, which has the same thirst for blood that its northern relative displays. Don’t even get me started on the sharks!
Australia’s Interior Also Wants You Dead
If you love spending time in the great outdoors, you’ll love exploring the beautiful scenery of Australia. Well, you’ll love exploring nature right up until it kills you. Australia is host to several varieties of spiders and snakes that want nothing more than to make sure they can compete legitimately with jellyfish for body count.
Both the red back spider and the funnel web spider are ready to poison anyone foolish enough to put their hand or foot down somewhere they didn’t check first, and the brown snake and tiger snake are waiting in the wings to make sure anyone who escapes the spiders doesn’t escape the continent. The only good news about the snake and spider venom Australia has to offer is that you have to go out of the cities to find it.
What Scares Me The Most? The Australian Magpie
Snakes and spiders are in the outback wilderness. Crocodiles, sharks and jellyfish are at the coast. I can deal with that as I am a city person. Magpies scare me the most because they are everywhere – and they are birds so they can fly. We have magpies where I live and they don’t do much except flit from light post to light post looking like little flocks of pigeons that decided to put on jackets and stay off the ground.
Australian magpies are generally living the same lifestyle I see outside my window with one huge exception: Magpies swoop. Apparently the stress of living in a place as deadly as Australia has warped the magpie into a swooping defensive powerhouse that reigns terror from the sky on anyone unlucky enough to venture within 100 feet or so of its nesting spot.
Australian magpies are known for dive bombing the back of your head while you do innocent urban activities like walking and riding a bike. Locals are at the point now where they’ll wear bike helmets covered in cables and spikes just to ward off these tiny dive-bombing death birds. Australian magpies are a protected species, so they’re untouchable and have a free license to swoop!.
Since the magpies are everywhere, they are almost guaranteed to make a run at you while you try to go about your daily activities at least once. At least the spiders, snakes, and water life stays in an out of the way habitat. Magpies are everywhere, and they attack as soon as you turn away. Or it’s a personal thing, that magpies have a personal thing against me, and me only.
Disclaimer: No magpie was hurt in the making of this blog post.
This was a very interesting post to read, we almost never think of these kind of dangerous situations when we travel. Danger is in every part of the world, when it comes to animals is better to be well informed about the dangerous ones and the region where they can be found. I knew about the crocodiles, I thought there were some dangerous insects, but had no idea about the magpies, now I know.
Very amusing. I enjoyed this one. I think that most Australians can attest to this hehe. Cheers Tim