Question for Australians

[quirkyquerty]

Genuine question- are you not frightened all the time of swimming and meeting a shark, cleaning and meeting a deadly spider, getting the bikes out of the shed and meeting a deadly snake and so on and so forth?

Or is that just certain parts of Australia? It fascinates me!

I love that. We have kangaroos everywhere, recently had an echidna on the back doorstep, had a blue tongue sunning itself in the front yard today. Lots of birds, a local wombat.

Going to go slightly against the grain here, but then I live in regional Queensland which is snake central! We see them every few months and when I say see I mean on the front porch, under my car, around the pool etc. you just adjust a little, our house is sprayed every year which keeps most spiders out, we don’t have a cat flap and make sure our lawn is mowed regularly. When I walk our dog I never let him go into long grass or run around on sand dunes.
We also have the local snake catchers number on the fridge. But the posters above are right, snakes don’t willingly stay near people, and will slither off pretty quickly.

I forgot to mention the possums. So many possums.

I live in Brisbane and spiders are very common, but they’re not dangerous. You just don’t shove your hands into dark spaces. I often see brown snakes at our local dog park but as long as you leave them alone they don’t want anything to do with us.
I swim between the flags at the beach and the rips are more dangerous than sharks.
It’s really not a dangerous place at all.

It's wonderful, isn't it? Lorikeets and king parrots are incredibly intelligent, they will learn very quickly where the sunflower seeds are, and keep calling for them. I've had wild lorikeets getting inside my kitchen, demanding food. LOL. They are extraordinary birds.

I swim between the flags at the beach and the rips are more dangerous than sharks.

So true

Melbourne here. I love to swim at the beaches. Beaches have a flagged patrolled area. I’ve never given a thought to sharks.
spiders I’m not keen on. But try to take them outside rather than kill.
have seen a few red backs.

Snakes are more scared of us than we are. Tiger snakes are quite common here, very venomous. But not a worry.
a bit more scared of Magpies swooping in nesting season.

True. I am more concerned with the possibility of a lurking blue ringed octopus than a shark.

The furthest north I’ve lived in Australia is Sydney, so quite safe really, although I was bitten by a white tail spider once, which wasn’t pleasant.
We’re in Melbourne now and have even less to think about. I’ve seen quite a few snakes outside the metropolitan area, but they’re not frightening. The closest I’ve come to being bitten by a snake was in a country park in the UK when my DD had to push me out of the way of an adder which had reared up at me. I was completely oblivious!
Im always aware of not tramping through grassland, always sticking to paths and I don’t really swim, so I’m not worried about snakes or sharks.
There’s so much wonderful and unique wildlife here, we’re very lucky.

Maybe if I was going for a bush walk I might be afraid of snakes but no walking down the city centre I’m not afraid of snakes. As for spiders well I’m in my late 40’s and have never seen a red back most spiders are harmless.

As for sharks well I am swimming in their water / home so if I go by shark oh well I stepped into the water.

Being swooped by a magpie or dealing with racist sexiest men is the biggest annoyance

No, I’m English but have lived here for 14 years. Rips worry me more in the sea than sharks. I’ve never seen a poisonous spider although we do get a lot of huntsmen in the house, but they don’t bother me. I’ve only seen a poisonous snake once when out jogging (we live inner city).

The only funny thing was when when our DDs started bush kinder at age 4 (Aussie forest school). They were given training on what to do if they saw a snake and all the teachers carried anti-snake venom in their first aid kits. I was freaking out but DH (who is Australian) didn’t bat an eyelid!

I'm in western Australia.
I hate snakes and live on acerage and we see 1-2 a year.
Spiders don't bother me as we don't get the deadly ones inside touch wood.

Sharks are rare. But two girls I went to school with both lost their partners in shark attacks :/ not nice.

But in all honesty prefer Australia and our weather than anywhere else

I know they exist but never seen one or given a thought to them.

I’ll bite but the love of god don’t understand the fascination with such stuff.

I live in a metro area but a ‘naice’ leafy suburb. So we get snakes in the yard but have never had one inside. Personally I hate the buggers but leave them alone. Have been used to them since a child though as we had an outhouse toilet on a bush property which snakes seemed to love. When I was young they were quickly dispatched (pretty much all of our parents back then were a milder version of Crocodile Dundee😂).

We also get spiders in the house, despite screened doors that self close and screens on windows, have had a few funnel webs here and there. They are easy as you thong them, they do put on a show and rear up though. I don’t like sprays and there has rarely been a spider I haven’t taken down with a thong when required. Obviously we don’t kill the ‘good’ spiders, they are relocated outside as necessary. We also get those bastardy skink lizards in the house frequently, they tend to die behind something as too hard to chase around to get out.

Sharks, I don’t worry at all at open surf beaches as long as they are patrolled, as they get you all out of the water if one is spotted. Used to be someone in a tower with binoculars but these days they use drones with really good results, works well. The odd surfer has an encounter but if you look at the number of surfers, clearly the odds are in your favour. I don’t swim at the harbour beaches though as the bull sharks are sly buggers and these beaches are typically not patrolled. I believe bull sharks are also harder to spot than the great whites at surf beaches (not sure if this is true though). So I will only swim in full netted areas for the harbour beaches but there are plenty of those, for this reason.

If you are from the UK, do you dare leave the house in fear of being a victim of knife crime🙄.

Red backs sometimes like to nest near the pool pump box as it's nice and dark, must also like the vibrations 😆
Ive only ever seen one snake ...a red bellied black. But it was my own fault for the encounter! I was out for a run and decided to take a short cut home through some long wet grass. He felt my footsteps before I saw him, slithered away. But I stepped back and didn't enter the grass anymore.

I had a huntsman spider and a garden orb spider once living in my car for a while. Totally harmless. They moved on after I vacuumed the carpets out on a clean up...

No I don't start the day worrying about snakes and spiders. You learn to be sensible and get your house sprayed.
You just don't walk into a dark shed like you might do in England going "oh where did I put that...let me just rustle about here in the dark with a tiny torch"

Australia is amazing!!
If you are wondering OP to come here... do it!!!
I would be more concerned living in the UK right now

Well said @HoppingPavlova
Every country has it's advantages and disadvantages. The Australian ones seem to be overplayed on here and the UK disadvantages ignored.

Believe it or not, any wildlife is not waiting to attack and bite the nearest human! And some areas have no more wildlife than you have at your house (ie, built up urban areas, high density apartment blocks etc). The thing I see the most of is birds, which is cool with me, as most of them are fun to watch.

No. We're aware and careful. I have more trouble with Magpie Larks (birds). There's one that lives in my yard & is my absolute nemesis (poos on my patio, taps on my windows grrrr).

Sharks you swim between the flags & avoid sharky fun food time at dawn & dusk & river mouths etc.

We pest spray our homes every year, keep yards tidy & lawns short. If hiking we watch where we're walking but mostly a snake will slither away.

Nope, not afraid of any of those things.

I don't surf, so I'm unlikely to meet a shark. People who do surf, are protected to a great extent by things like shark nets, drones / planes which go up and down the beaches checking for them, and the lifesavers who basically keep the beaches safe.

Spiders - I hardly ever see one unless I'm gardening. We get our homes sprayed every year by the pest control people so it's very unlikely that you'll see a spider inside.

Snakes - I've never seen one outside the zoo.

People who live in Oz are pretty knowledgeable about these things - schools educate kids about hazards like this so you sort of grow up knowing what to avoid . We don't walk around thinking we're going to be killed - I always think it's funny when people say they'd like to come here but they are scared of all the killer snakes / spiders/ sharks.

I once accidentally killed a blue tongue lizard in my backyard by treading on it. A rare time I was wearing shoes in the yard and still don’t understand how I didn’t notice it. It was quite a decent sized one too, and was completely squished in the middle in the shape of my shoe, poor thing (I am not a light person)☹️. I was gutted.

I think about sharks every time I swim because I live in an area that punches above its weight in attacks. Just don't go out too far, avoid dawn and dusk, and the risk is far less than the risk of dying in a car accident on the way home. Same with snakes, avoid long grass.

Funny part about coming to OZ from Europe it's that I never saw so many people, specially kids, being barefooted in homes and gardens in my life, specially with all the creepy crawlies.

I lived in Madrid, in an apartment where we all put on the slippers the moment we step out of bed, In Australia, we go barefooted even in the garden.

This country is unique LOL

We live in the bush so are very aware of snakes. We keep shovels by the doors in case we get a repeat offender that doesn't move on. Children wear knee high boots in long grass and you make a lot of noise when you go through the scrub.
DH met a big brown in the chook shed yesterday morning, it was still dark and he heard a noise behind him and a 6 footer was in the door way. He admitted a little bit of wee nearly came out. 😂
We have a beach shack and get tiger snakes there, them, I do not like as they will chase you.
You do get a bit 'jumpy' on a hot day and we always flip timber carefully. Redbacks are an issue this year, the little ones (children) know to leave them alone and the big ones squash them.

Sharks scare the crap out of me and I silently panic whenever mine are surfing and SUPing. I only paddle. Since Jaws I get nervous in the dam.

I've a python that lives in my roof space. I sometimes hear him moving at night when I lay in bed. I leave him alone because he will eat any rodents. Outdoor snakes..... generally, you wouldn't walk through long grass or bush like you would in the UK because you could be bitten. If you work somewhere snakey, you can wear shake gaters, I just always wear proper walking boots and long pants when walking in the bush. I wouldn't walk round the garden bare foot in case I trod on a snake.

I’ve been to Queensland 5 times, and I’ve seen snakes (brown snake) every time. One was 2 metres away from my daughter, a man quietly pointed it out to me and to move my daughter. I would not have spotted it otherwise. My FIL was bitten by a spider and passed out, but luckily MIL was home and could call am ambulance. But he was fine after that. I remember a magpie swooping down taking my daughter’s sandwich from her hands. Are those the ones that can impersonate voices like a baby crying..? They were a bit scary actually.