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| Australia |
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| Language
Difficulties |
Shortly
after arriving in Canberra in January 1987, I was invited for 'evening tea' at the home of Paul Heathersay and
his wife. Paul, a geologist working for
GeoPeko, was pursuing a Ph.D. at Australian
National University (ANU). Never to
turn down an invitation, I accepted and
navigated my way through Canberra's suburbs.
I ate my evening meal earlier expecting a cup of tea and possibly some
pastry. To my surprise, a full course meal
had been prepared including Australian
delicasies like pavlova
and lamingtons.
In Australia, the evening meal is 'dinner' or 'tea'. I really got confused when the midday meal, 'lunch', was called 'dinner'. In May 1987, I was
leading a group of five male second year
students on a field mapping exercise at
Gulaga (Mt. Dromedary) in Gulaga
National Park on the southeast coast
of New South Wales. One of the students
asked me for a 'rubber'. With a look of
apprehension, I asked, "There are six guys
here, what are you going to do with a rubber?"
There was a bit of nervous laughter until
one of the students pointed to an eraser
head on a pencil and all I could say was
"Oh". I proceeded to explain what a 'rubber' was in American English. Over the next four
years, I developed a taste for vegemite, got use to living without central heat, did my shopping before the stores closed at 5pm, and learned to drive on the left.
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| "A
Lot of Things Can Kill You in Australia" |
| Australians
like to scare foreigners with stories about
Australia's dangerous creatures. Paul Heathersay
would say "Steve, they're a lot of things
that can kill you in Australia. Take killer
koalas for example." But seriously folks,
the
Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis)
is responsible for most of the snakebite
deaths in Australia. Clearing tin, wood,
and rubbish and walking in tall grass takes
on a new meaning when faced with abdominal
pain and nausea/vomiting, coagulopathy,
progressive nerve and muscle paralysis,
respiratory and circulatory failure, and
death. Sure, I have been told that these
snakes are shy and placid and that there
is more of a chance of death by lightning
strike, but having the second
deadliest terrestrial snake in the world
in your garden is not a matter to be taken
lightly. Then, there are the spiders.
Living in my garden rubbish were Redback
spiders (Latrodectus hasseltti), a close
relative of the Black Widow. I have been
told that most of the time the bite feels
like a mild sting, but I never intentionally
placed my hand in the spider's mouth to
find out. The Redback is a pussycat compared
to the
Sydney Funnel-web Spider (Atrax robustus).
Picture a 6-7 cm female spider rearing up
on its hind legs exposing a set of massive
fangs. This spider grips its victim and
bites repeatedly. And the venom of the male
is five times as toxic as the female. Bite
symptoms begin with unbearable pain, twitching,
salivation, severe hypertension, more twitching,
vomiting, unconsciousness and uncontrolled
twitching, and death. Now I knew why my
colleagues in the field always lifted the
outdoor toilet seat before plunking down.
I visited the Kimberley shortly after a
Salt-water Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus)
devoured a 24-year old American model named
Ginger, who was swimming near the mouth
of the Prince Regent River. At many take-outs
and restaurants, I would invariably be asked
if I wanted a little "ginger" with my meat
pie. My closest encounter with Australia's
dangerous creatures came in December 1987
during a trip sponsored by Australian National
University's Department
of Earth & Marine Science to Heron
Island in the Great Barrier Reef. Find out more at the 'Great
White Shark' (Carcharodon carcharias) image
to the left. |
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