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!

A python…?? 😳

I am far more afraid of skin cancers, tbh. I buy Korean sunscreens because they feel MUUUUUCH nicer and wear hats and carry a UV reflective umbrella (also has a secondary effect of repelling my teenagers - winning!). I live in Brisbane. Due to the explosion in population and building bloody everywhere, we simply don’t have the trees like we used to. We once used to find frogs gronking their little throats out on the windows and emerald green tree snakes winding their harmless ways up the trees. My parents lived in the bush and had a carpet python in their ceiling which they rarely saw, but also never had mice or rats. We had possums, (the Aussie ones are cute, unlike their American contemporaries) Pygmy gliders (utterly adorable) and sugar gliders, as well as bandicoots and echidnas bumbling around the place. Now we don’t have the trees or the animals and it’s hot as fuck, the weather has changed and people are asking why. Geniuses. I am not a beach person, so sharks don’t affect my life. I will move away to the mountains in Victoria. In Australia we do do have poisonous snakes , but there are only a few “aggressive” varieties that are likely to go after you. Most snakes run away when they hear you stomping around.

Oh yeah - black and white birds like magpies, butcher birds and peewees are psychopaths in the springtime. Even my 60kg dog won’t go outside and wee on the lawn unless we’re watching her back. (Tbf, she’s an arsehole and chases them for the rest of the year.)

There are somewhere in the region of 40 species of shark in British waters. Adder and grass snake are widespread across Britain. If a false widow spider stings you, you'll know it.

Oh, and to give you a bit of perspective re Soggypigeon’s post, Queensland is bigger than Western Europe. It’s a really big place with diverse climates and landscapes, from quite large multicultural cities (Brisbane), Beach meccas a-la Florida (Gold Coast & Sunshine Coast) and there is desert, mountain ranges and lush, tropical rain forest as well as the famous Great Barrier Reef, depending on where she’s talking about.

I have lived in Australia for 21 years and the only snakes I see are in the zoo! Never seen anything bigger than a money spider and I don’t swim far enough out for sharks to be a worry.

I live near bush but stay away from the tracks in summer.

@PretzelKnot I know it sounds like silly questions, I wasn't trying to be silly, genuinely was interested!

I'm not going to lie, one of the few things that makes the commute in my nearest city bearable is watching the cyclists getting chased and attacked by magpies when driving through some of our parkland areas. 😁

I grew up close to Port Lincoln in the south where there have been a few shark attacks and i have a thing about swimming in those waters. Locally though we dont really go deep enough to bother them.

I have the local snake catchers card on the fridge in case but never had to use them. We have had more and more sightings of snakes in town over the last few years but people are just more aware - checking under slides in parks etc.

@HoppingPavlova I know it was a stupid question but I don't know any Australians to ask in real life.

And yes, I keep my wits about me regarding knife crime in uk lol

I'm not going to lie, one of the few things that makes the commute in my nearest city bearable is watching the cyclists getting chased and attacked by magpies when driving through some of our parkland areas.

😂😂😂

Oh the visuals....

Never been attacked by a magpie but was by a crow. I always give them a wide berth in spring time. ....if I see them. Bastard crow appeared out of nowhere.

Right have thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread, thank you, and apologies again for what was clearly a ridiculous question lol.

In my defence I have watched a lot of episodes of 'Steve Bagshaw Deadly 60' and so my view has clearly been skewed I shan't embarrass myself further by asking about blue ringed octopus lol

Thank you!

I now need to look up videos of swooping magpies

Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville, Gold Coast, Noosa, Fraser Island and many smaller places outside of those areas. It really is huge!

And Blue Mountain and a place at the very north which I have now forgotten the name of but it was a rain forest with lots of bats! 😂

Not Australian but married to one and have been there several times.

We tend to go in the Spring when its less spidery, but going end of a wet summer the fuckers were EVERYWHERE.

I also didnt like going more than calf height into the sea and preferred the natural pools but DH more confident and not so scared.

I felt like I was on high alert before I sat on grass, or went near a tree or pulled out any boxes in the house. DH is afraid of spiders but much more complacent than me as he knows how 'likely' the threats are if that make sense?

I've a python that lives in my roof space. I sometimes hear him moving at night when I lay in bed

^

😰😰

I remember my first time in Sydney looking up into a tree and seeing a bat the size of a small dog looking down at me. I thought they were fascinating!

Nope I'm in Brisbane i have redbacks in my backyard. I can't help it, its their home( apart from getting the pest control man in) plus if you do get bitten which I never have there are anti venoms for them but you won't die if you get bitten.
I had an almost 2 meter red belly black snake cross into my path on my walk a few weeks ago and it didn't do anything and a baby brown snake hanging in my shed but it scurried off to the neighbours yard luckily!
And I don't go far enough out into the water to meet a shark

Can't live life in fear especially when humans have taken over their habitat, these animals need to find somewhere to live 😊

I'm actually more afraid of the giant cockroaches and huntsmans that are chilling in the middle of the living room during night as I come out for a midnight snack acting like they pay rent in my house 🤣

We have all sorts of nasties in USA, we just get on with life including wilderness hikes if we fancy. Mountain lions, various size bears, rattlers, great white sharks, alligators, tarantulas, iguanas (salmonella & who knows what else carriers), chipmunks with rabies, aggressive moose, salt water crocs, skunks (you won't laugh if you were sprayed by one), mozzies the size of sparrows carrying pathogens like West Nile virus, black widow spiders, brown recluse spiders... And then there's the vegetation to watch out for: zillions of cacti, poison wood/ivy/oak...

Some were shockingly big. 😂 I remember walking in a forest and out came a huge iguana, I’d never heard of them nor seen them before..

I'm from Perth and have to say I love our spiders. (Except the redbacks, but haven't seen one of them for years.) We have some beautiful Golden Orbs in the garden with enormous webs, and occasionally get a huntsman in the house, who the kids call Hunter and treat a bit like a pet, although I'm sure it's not the same spider every time. He might be up on the kitchen ceiling when they leave for school and then they will try and find him again when they get home, and again before bed or in the morning. It's a bit like that Elf thing that some people do before Christmas.

The magpie swooping can be a bit alarming, but you just keep your head down and wave your arms around and get away from their tree quickly. But they are lovely when it's not nesting season. DD (age 8) has tamed one of our local 'pies to take food from her hand.

I will admit to being a bit cautious regarding sharks, but that is because the number of attacks seems to be increasing each year, as well as the number of beach closures following sharks being sighted close to shore. Having said that, it hasn't stopped me swimming in the sea. Just not at dawn/dusk, especially on calm, overcast days.

My parents have brown snakes in their backyard (most dangerous to dogs really). Sharks off all coasts, just dont go out too deep. White tailed spiders and red backed spiders are common, you just squash them. Bats - everywhere, not dangerous. The thing that freaked me out recently though was when my daughter said they saw a red bellied black snake on camp (in Victoria). Most snakes are more scared of us than we are of them though.

Mainland tiger snake, eastern brown snake, and Red-bellied Black Snake are rather common sunning themselves on the golf course where I lived.

An estuary and wetlands.

We were well advised to keep our grass very short and not to leave any piles of wood, etc. lying around.

The super fast and aggressive one is the eastern brown snake.
I avoided them!

All 3 are very poisonous.

Funny though, I always felt far more unsafe in London than ive ever felt anywhere in Aus. It's just what you are used to, I guess.

And the plovers ! Aggressive things