Transcript of AE 1280 - The Goss: Woman & Kids Accidentally Swim with Huge Crocodile

Speaker1:
G'day you mob. Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smiseen, and we talk about the week's news weather locally Down Under here in Australia or Non-locally overseas in other parts of the world, okay. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising. And that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode guys. Smack the bird. And let's get into it.

Speaker1:
All right, dad. So if you had to be eaten by an animal and it was either a crocodile or a shark, which would you pick?

Speaker3:
Which colour rod do you choose to be hanged with?

Speaker1:
Well, the rope that's that's covered in really sharp knives that'll shred you to bits. Or the rope that has sort of blunter teeth that will just grab onto you and pull you under water until you drown.

Speaker3:
Can I take an orca?

Speaker1:
I don't know, I feel like I would take the shark as much as I have a phobia..

Speaker3:
The orca that would just rip me in half..

And just shakes..

Instantly. Yeah.

Like a seal.

Yeah.

Speaker1:
Yeah, it'd have to be a great white if you use, like, a gummy shark or something or something small, I'd be like, fuck, this is taking forever. Go for..

One piranha and..

That's it. Yeah. That's it. Would you. Would you prefer a hundred piranha or one?

Speaker3:
Yeah.

Speaker1:
Maybe one that is very accurate and knows how to get a kill instantly.

Speaker3:
Straight to the carotid.

Speaker1:
Yeah. So, um. Yeah, this was crazy. This story came up right. Wildlife researchers say a crocodile spotted in a north Queensland creek swimming hole. Creek swimming hole.

Yes.

So, billabong.

Yeah.

Might have been too scared to attack family.

Oh, no. Yeah.

Speaker1:
So this kind of scared the shit out of me and gave me all the more reason to never, ever go swimming in..

In Queensland.

Speaker3:
Well, in Northern Australia..

I know that.. anywhere.

Speaker1:
If there's water, I am out. And if it's more than a puddle. If I can't see the..

If I can't see the entire thing.

If I can't step over it, I'm out. Yeah. So there was a film, a video clip of, um, this woman swimming, I think, with her four kids, right. She had her four kids at this swimming hole. Um, just chilling out for the day, taking photos and, like, a GoPro filming herself and then only water. Only when they got home, they started looking at the footage, and they realised that at the bottom of the billabong, at the bottom of this, this, um, you know, body of water, there was the silhouette of a three metre crocodile. Just just chilling, just chilling. And she's just like, fuck that. We are never swimming at rolling Stone Creek in near Townsville ever again.

Speaker3:
I know.

Speaker1:
So do you want to give a bit of background here about like, I guess crocodiles in in Queensland where they're found and yeah, fresh water creeks like this and why they may not necessarily be as safe as you would assume.

Speaker3:
Yeah. Well..

And maybe why people..

We got.. There's two species of crocodiles in Australia. There's the Johnstons or freshwater crocodile. And then there's the estuarine crocodile, sometimes called the saltwater crocodile, and hence the nickname 'salty'.

Speaker1:
And 'freshie'!

Speaker3:
And freshie. Um, freshwater crocodiles are fish eaters.

Speaker1:
You'd be hard pressed to be killed by one of them.

Yeah. They could bite you, but they're not. They bite you to protect themselves.

If you picked one up. Yeah.

Because they want to grab and swallow. They're, they're not, you know, hoarders, which estuarine crocodiles are.

They're kind of cool, to pause you there. I've seen footage of them. I think one of the people I've had on the podcast, Ross MacGibbon, when we were chatting about photography, I think I saw a video from him where there was a crocodile. The Freshie seemed to just sit in water, usually flowing water where it's shallow and just have their mouths open facing upstream, where the water's gushing past their mouths and they just wait for the fish to go in.

Speaker3:
Comes in and they slam it closed.

Yeah, exactly. So they're kind of pretty conspicuous. And they're not going to, you know, hide at the bottom of a lake waiting for your toes to get close. And have a nip.

Speaker3:
And look, they I know we're talking about Queensland here, but they say in the, the Northern Territory up in the north of the Northern Territory, um, that if there are freshwater crocodiles in a body of water, it's safe to swim in.

Yeah, yeah.

Because the freshies are not going to be there if there's a salty or a, you know, an estuarine crocodile there, they'll just disappear.

Yep.

If not, get eaten.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah. So, you know, back to the, the crocodiles in, in Queensland, they, they're called saltwater crocodiles because they live in saltwater but often in rivers, so in estuaries. So um, and they will swim a long way up during the wet season because in the north of Australia, they, you know, they, they don't have the typical temperate four seasons, uh, what we call summer down south, they call the wet season when it's two seasons long loan goes for 5 to 6 months. Um, and a lot of those wetlands, those estuarine wetlands flood, um, and so the crocodiles, particularly in the Northern Territory, um, places like Arnhem Land, Kakadu National Park and so on, they can go hundreds of kilometres upriver.

Yeah.

And and then as the dry, the rain stops, the dry season starts, the rivers start to dry up. Um, you end up with billabongs and a billabong. For those of you who don't know what it is, is really just a, um, a remnant piece of water. Um, after a flood.

Speaker1:
Yeah, it's an offshoot of a river. An offshoot of a river and..

That bend in a river and..

Speaker1:
Gets isolated and turn into, like a pond. It's..

Exactly.

A single standing bit of water.

And those crocodiles will stay there. Well, yeah. As long as there's food..

Unless they get cut off, they're not going to be like, Oh, time to go for a hike!

But they do. They will travel across land as well and they'll travel a fair distance across land. Uh, but typically they're, they would rather stay where there is food. Um, so.

Well, I imagine, I was going to pause you there and be like, what? What do you think is driving them up stream when there are floods? Because you would think floods are pushing the water out. Um, you know, coming down heavily. I guess during wet seasons it's just going to be everywhere's flooded. So they just spread out. But do you think it's just looking for more territory, looking for more food? Um, do that or is it just a kind of what would you say, like an osmotic kind of thing where they just, they just gradually move out?

Speaker3:
I think they'll just move around where there's water.

Speaker1:
So you don't think there's like a pressure that's pushing them upstream or anything like that? That as soon as it's available. It's just they naturally..

Speaker3:
Well, I think they'll also start looking around opportunistically, start looking around for different food sources.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. Because that's what I was wondering, because it is one of those tropes of if you go to northern Australia, the monsoon tropics, anywhere they have this sort of wet season, there's like you, if you're ever going to go swimming anywhere, climb a mountain and go in the lake or whatever is at the top, because that's the least likely to have been connected..

Speaker3:
You're at the top of a waterfall.

Yeah, exactly.

It's least likely to have ever been connected to the ocean where the salties, you know, are. Yeah.

Exactly.

Speaker1:
And they can get to. Anyway. So yeah, apparently rolling Stone Creek has never or at least, you know, it's not known to have crocodiles in it. It's said to be safe. It's said to be one of these freshwater, um, places that you can go swimming in. And it's funny because, yeah, you see in these photos, I can see on the screen here from the story that there are loads of other people there.

Speaker3:
And it's apparently a common swimming hole, just out of Townsville.

Speaker1:
It's so funny too, because someone was like, Why didn't they attack anyone? And it's, you know, the crocodile biologists get on and be like, Contrary to what a lot of people think, crocodiles aren't these big, brave animals that will take on anything in their environment. And it's like, Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. There, it's not about bravery or not. If they're hungry, they will. But if they're not hungry, then they'll be like, Pff, what do I care?

Speaker3:
Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker1:
And then I would imagine, I would imagine that the crocodile had no reason to eat. That was effectively why it didn't attack. And if it was hungry, it would have eaten. Yeah.

Speaker3:
And it's, it's probably gotten there overland.

Yeah.

Um, because my, I don't know the..

As opposed to what, by air?

Speaker3:
Geography of that particular thing is that it's I don't believe that's a flooded billabong. I think it's just a natural, you know, it'll be a flooded billabong, uh, from an occasional flood that comes down. Not a seasonal, you know, wetland.

Yeah.

Remnant. So, um, I suspect that crocodiles got there. Just wandering up country and going along a creek bed and going, Oh, this looks like a spot to be. Yeah, just hang out.

Speaker1:
That's just one of my biggest fears. But yeah, I showed you that video, right? If that is it is text and accent or something. The..

Yeah.

The guy on the video and he's just at a campground in Kakadu or something, and he was like, So here I am checking out, you know, the water. How do I, how do we know if it's safe to swim in, guys? How do we check it for crocodiles?

Put a drone up..

And some, no, some guys standing next to it with the head of a bull. Like it's obviously been a cow that's been butchered, a water buffalo or whatever, and he just chucks it in the water. And the moment it touches the surface of the water, this like three metre croc just, just explodes out. And you're just like, he's like, Well, I think that's how we know, boys! He's just like, again, just fuck that. Like, no way. But it's insane, right? Because they have these salties, probably all crocodilians, but salties I know have, um, sensory glands, right, in the surface of their skin.

Yeah.

Typically all over, all over their body. But I imagine it's probably heavily around the face and the nose. And they get, they just sit under the water and they can be under there for hours without surfacing. And they just wait to feel any kind of vibration that they would be able to tell is a disruption of the surface, where an animal has come like a kangaroo to the edge of the water to drink, and they just explode out and grab onto the head and drag them into the water.

Yeah. Like, I think that's, that's actually probably the answer to, to that previous question about why do, in floods, why do they go up river.

Speaker1:
They're just looking for the edge of the water.

They're just continuing to stay along the edges because they're not going to find other than a flood that's washed, you know, land animals into the water.

Yeah.

Um, they're not going to find much by hanging around.

Speaker1:
In the deepest part.

In the deepest, in the, you know, in the middle of, you know, certainly places up in Northern Territory, um, um, in the wet season, those rivers can be 20, 30km across.

Yeah.

Because it's just flood plain.

Yeah.

And along the edges, there's not a lot of point in just sitting out in the middle of a floodplain. You want to be on the edge, so.

Speaker1:
Well, they're weird animals too, right? Because they have to surface to eat. Because they, when they're swallowing, if they, they can't do it underwater because they would swallow the water.

Yeah.

And and they would drown. And so that was one of those things where I think I've heard again, this is probably just a myth, but if you ever have your arm in their mouth and you get bitten and you can, for whatever reason, punch it down their throat, just open their throat up and they have to let go because they'll otherwise just fill up with water.

Yeah.

You know, the same with like punching them in the eyes. Although, you know, easier said than done.

Speaker3:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker1:
But what do you, what do you think like, because this article was saying, um, that the Department of Environment and Sciences went spotlighting the next night, and they ended up finding three large crocodiles downstream of that swimming spot. One was three metres, which they suspect was this one, and there were another two that were four metres each. I think a lot of people, especially those from Victoria where we don't have crocs, would be like, kill them, get rid of them, take them out of the like, get move them out. It's like make it safe for humans. But how do you feel about, um, stuff like that with large predators in their in their environment?

Well, it's in their..

Speaker3:
Should we be doing that same thing..

The same thing that we have down here with whenever there's a shark attack. And they get people out there, Oh, we got to kill the shark, you know? Why?

Yeah.

It's, firstly..

.. taste for human blood.

Firstly, how do you know it's that shark? Until you've killed it and opened it up? You don't know that it's.

Well, you keep killing them until you find it. Yeah.

Exactly. Um, and, you know, it's their environment. We're, we're effectively. And, you know, you can say, well, you know, you could be completely anthropomorphic about it, that is, you know, human centred around it and say 'it's our right to go surfing' or 'it's our right to swim in water holes'. So anything that's in there, it is. But anything that's in there, we're going to stop it so that we can do it safely..

Sterilise the environment.

Yeah. Well that's right. But you know, at the same time, you know, this is part of the you start to remove top predators and you start to change the whole ecology.

Speaker1:
Well that's, you've got to decide, right. Yeah. But that's a reason I sort of just don't go um, ocean swimming, you know, because it's that's why I've never been attacked by a shark.

Yeah.

Because I just don't. I just avoid it like the plague, you know? You know, also why I've never been attacked by a crocodile. Yes, because I tend to avoid the monsoon tropics. And definitely the water.

Don't go swimming in.

Speaker1:
You've got a bath in your hotel room. What the fuck, guys? Like..

You've got a pool on your hotel.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, then I sent you some footage, too. Of the dog.

The dog?

Apparently, it was a wild dog. Or a stray dog. Like..

It looks like a border collie.

Speaker1:
But hanging out in northern Queensland, I think, to just near the water's edge. And this crocodile is just swimming up and down, cruising up and down, watching, stalking it and waiting for his spot. I think it's funny because that's that's the thing that freaks me out. Um, when I was doing the turtle research up on Raine Island, there was the potential for crocs to be out there in the Great Barrier Reef. So this is northern Queensland. Um, you know, but..

Speaker3:
This is like 50km offshore.

That was less likely. But when we were, when we were going out there via boat, we stopped at some other islands and they were tracks and stuff, and you were just like, Oh, okay. And I think it may not have been Raine Island, but I remember hearing a story from one of the, um, one of the guys up there saying that there was a night where because when we're doing turtle research, what we would do typically, at least on Raine Island, would be that every night that turtles are coming up on the beach during breeding season, you would come out, you know, go out of your boat, get a small boat to the to the shore, get on shore, and then a line of you from..

Walk around the island..

From across the beach, effectively. Just walk around the island and count every turtle to your left, right. So the whole way around. So then you get an idea of okay, at any one point in time during the night, there are this many turtles on the beach, so we can make inference of there are this many..

How long they stay up..

Yeah. That's it. And we can get an idea of how big their population is. But there was apparently a time where they went to a certain island that was renowned for having crocs nearby, and that the guy closest to the water's edge had to have a gun, a rifle, because and he's like, you would be walking along there and you would see crocodile eyes in the water and it would follow you the whole way around the island. It would just be slowly waiting for you to go anywhere near the water.

They do that. That's. Yeah. Again, they're reptiles. So and reptiles being, you know, what is commonly called cold blooded, uh, means they've got very slow metabolism, so they don't need to eat very often.

Yeah.

And it means, that means that they can stalk their prey. They can sit in a waterhole and watch the same kangaroo or cow or buffalo or human or dog come there. Oh, they come here at dusk every night to this spot.

Yeah.

I'll just watch that for weeks and then go. Yep, I'm absolutely certain. So I'm just going to sit there tonight, wait for them to come down and do exactly what I know they're going to do and bam!

Speaker1:
Yeah. I remember watching a doco back in the day about, I think it would have been one of those huge reticulated pythons.

Yeah.

I think, I think it was a reticulated python. Are they the ones that are in Africa? I'm not sure. But anyway, it was one of these massive pythons.

Sou th East Asian.

Speaker3:
Okay. Yeah. And it was sitting in a body of water, a small pond, and it just sat there at the bottom and it would just lift its head every now and then to, to breathe. And this thing was massive, right. Like it could have eaten, you know, a small human. Yeah. And it just sat there for weeks. And the people filming the doco were like, every day we would just come and set up all of the cameras and just watch. And, um, one day a deer came and it just fucked it up. Like, just instantly out of the water, grabbed it, killed it, ate it, and then it was apparently sweet for six months.

Yeah.

It would just sit there digesting in the water. It would just hang out and just eat that. That's how long one deer, it just got it down and it's like, well, for the next half year I'm good. Yeah.

Speaker3:
Exactly right.

Speaker1:
But yeah, I don't know. It's it's funny that so many people coming to Australia freak out about the animals. Spiders. I'm okay with snakes, I'm okay with, you know, um, blooming octopi, all those other deadly animals. But it's just sharks and crocodiles. You give them respect and you just stay out of there.

Well, at least, that was the. I mean, you're the friends from Canada. I won't name them, um, friends from Canada who we met when they were in, uh, at Deakin University with your mum. For on sabbatical from a university in Canada. And we were at their place. Um, and you and your sister just ran out into the backyard to go to the swimming pool across the grass. And they're going, Sure you put shoes on to go into the backyard. Yeah. What are you talking about? All the spiders and scorpions and stuff out there. And you go, What do you mean?

Not just walking around on the surface of the grass..

But they wouldn't come camping with us. They were too scared of the snakes and the spiders and. Yeah. And I made the joke then and go, Yeah, look, our things might bite you. But in Canada, things eat you. Cougars and bears.

I never got that right. And it's, it's funny, this article was saying the people that generally get attacked and eaten or killed by crocodiles are locals who live there because they get complacent.

And they do the same.

They take up the ground again. Yeah. And well, and they just like, it'll never happen to me. Yeah, it'll be fine.

Speaker3:
It's that and the and the the silly tourist who doesn't believe the sign or takes no notice and just goes swimming where they shouldn't.

Speaker1:
Yeah, but it's funny because reading that I was like, it feels like it's the opposite. It would be the opposite in the US. Because you do, I remember going there with you when we went up to the Rockies and seeing, uh, black bears with cubs walking along the side of the road, and you would get all these tourists, just stop their cars, get out and try and go out and take photos of it, like walk up to it and you're just like, This is probably the most dangerous bear at the most dangerous..

And if it's got cubs, it's a female.

Yeah. You're, if you, if it sees you as a threat, it doesn't. It's not hungry. It doesn't give a shit. It's going to neutralise you.

Exactly. I know.

It's you're going to get got, mate.

And it's crazy.

You would just be like, What are you doing getting out of the car, walking up to these things?

Speaker3:
I remember in, um, another time that your mum and I were in, in the Rockies, um, with your grandparents and we we I spotted a grizzly bear.

Yeah.

And other people had spotted it, so there was about three cars lined up on the side of..

Speaker1:
Me just locking the car door.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And it's sliding down the chair..

Speaker3:
And, you know, we were just we were waiting our turn. So 2 or 3 cars would, you know, they'd stop, wind the windows down, watch the bear where it was. And it was like 40 or 50..

Damn, you psychos!

Speaker3:
40 or 50m into the, into the forest so you could see it, and then you'd move on, you'd move up, you'd have your turn. And as it came to be our turn, this van of, you know, people move a van, seven seater sort of van pulled in front of us. And this family just got out and started walking into the to the forest to get closer to the bear. And I remember opening the car door and stepping out and yelling at the guy, saying. Just get back in your car. Mhm. Um, you've got no idea how fast these animals can move. And you might be fine. Your kids are gone. Yes. And and he just turned to me and yelled..

Speaker1:
Doing it yourself is one thing. Doing it with your children..

Speaker3:
I know, and he just yelled at me. I've got a right for my children to see this animal.

Speaker1:
Okay.

Speaker3:
Okay!

Speaker1:
Dad just turns the news on. I'll see you shortly!

Speaker3:
Turn the phone on and watch. Yeah.

'Cause I'm about to make money with this video! Yeah.

Speaker3:
Just ridiculous.

Speaker1:
Oh my God, yeah, it blows my mind.

Speaker3:
And that's the thing, is that people don't. Yeah, yeah. We understand the world understands sharks. They don't understand crocodiles. Mhm. Uh and I think that's the danger. You know far many more people get killed for by crocodiles in Australia than sharks.

I think it's about parity, isn't it?

Speaker3:
Uh, killed. Not attacked. Yeah. More people get attacked, I think by. Yeah.

Speaker1:
Well, that's the thing. It's probably harder to survive a crocodile attack because they just grab you and they're not pulling pieces off.

Speaker3:
No.

They grab you and pull you into the water and that's it. And go down.

Speaker3:
Um, yeah, but but bears, people just think, Oh, you know, bears' fine. Yeah. They're eating berries and leaves and.

Yeah. And opportunistically killing large mammals.

Speaker3:
Exactly.

Speaker1:
Especially that's, especially the dumb ones..

Speaker3:
And that's the thing is that, I mean, you've been to the Canadian Rockies and you've seen the bear proof bins. Yeah. That they have in, you know, car parks and camping grounds.

And you're like, they need that amount of metal.

They need that amount of steel to stop them getting rummaging around in rubbish bins.

'Cause they can open a car like a can.

Speaker3:
Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing people, you know, there's signs everywhere saying don't leave food in your cars unless they're in a refrigerated thing and sealed up or whatever, because bears will see it and smell it.

Yeah.

And a grizzly bear will just rip the door open to get to it.

Speaker1:
Yeah. He's like, this is a minor inconvenience.

Exactly.

Jeez.

Speaker3:
Where's the handle here?

Speaker1:
.. plastic wrapping on this. You know, Mars bar is really hard to get through. Just open..

Speaker3:
So people just don't understand the threat.

Speaker1:
Have you seen that, um. That thing, Kel found it a while back. Um, my wife Kel, right. She sent me that video of this, um, these people sitting on a deck. And I think it's a black bear just comes up and is like, sniffing through the deck, looking at them. And this little girl is like, Can I pet that dog? In this southern accent? And her mum's just like, No. And then she says something like, if not friend, why look like friend?

Yeah.

Just let her pet the dog.

Well, yeah. Your aunt, my sister, who lives in Canada, she has black bears in their backyard.

Speaker1:
I just never get how flippant they are about that. But then they freak out about spiders. You're just like, at least you can see a spider coming, right? Like you just don't touch it. Get out of its way. Leave it alone. You'll be fine. The people who get bitten..

Use gloves when you're digging the garden. Yeah.

Empty your shoes out. Yeah, exactly. And it's like a tiny little area around Sydney where you get the funnel webs. And everywhere else it's redbacks and that's it, you know? And redbacks have only killed one person in the last like 50 years.

Speaker3:
And redbacks are not, you know..

Speaker1:
Chasing you down.

Speaker3:
They're not chasing you. They're not aggressive. Um, and they're small and their fangs are small. Their their venom is deadly, but their fangs are small. So.

Yeah, if you. If you get them on, you just give them the palm of your hand and you should be okay.

Exactly.

Don't give them the tongue! Yeah.

Speaker4:
Yeah.

Speaker1:
So anyway. Yeah. Crocodiles not good, not good. But to put it in perspective, it's funny, isn't it, that crocodiles probably kill 1 or 2 people a year. And it's something like, I think horses kill dozens. Yeah, typically. Or at least interactions with horses. Where you're probably falling off them or driving into them.

Speaker3:
Well, yeah, it's that old gag. What's the most dangerous sport in the world?

I don't know.

Speaker1:
Lawn bowls?

No. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's how you, how you're measuring it.

Speaker3:
More people die playing lawn bowls than any other sport! Well, rock fishing, I don't say that. I wouldn't call it a sport. I call it a recreation. That's the most dangerous recreation in the world. And that's just because people are idiots. But..

Man, I saw a video the other day. For some reason you're on Facebook. It's the algorithm, right? And you watch one spearfishing video.

Speaker3:
Watch, what shit that you don't want to watch for algorithm?

Speaker1:
I find myself doing the doom scrolling thing all the time where I get on and I'm just like, all right, time to decompress and just, you know, what's coming up today.

Speaker3:
Click on one thing.

Don't even have to click! You just hover on it for slightly too long. Or and I watched, there was someone spearfishing and I was just like, Oh cool.

Speaker3:
Heaven forbid buying a fishing line or, you know, they've been buying fishing tackle.

That's it. I've got to get in the water. But then after that, it was like every video that I was seeing was spear fishing, spear fishing, spear fishing. And there were these people that were like, um, you know, the caption was like the most dangerous version of spear fishing. And you're like, always some arsehole has to take it to the next level. And effectively what they do is go where there's loads and loads of sharks and then spearfish and you're just like, you guys are fucking idiots. Like and so and they're like, you're just like, you see these guys killing these large fish and then trying to sort of pull them in and grab onto them. Whilst there are all these reef sharks and other things having a frenzy around them. And you're just like, this is just turning yourself into bait. Like..

Pretty much!

A shark doesn't know. He doesn't care. He can just smell blood. And he's like, There's food. Yeah, but I was just like, why? Why guys? Why?

Why? Because they get clicks on social media.

Speaker1:
And those those women, there's a few women, those influencers who do the whole swimming with great whites and tiger sharks. And do the whole if they come towards you, you just, just, just put your hand out and lift their nose up and they go into whatever it is, torpor or whatever, you know, the tonic state and they, they turn around and leave you alone and you're just like, Guys, why? Why are you just really, you really want to be on the news? Like, like you really? How many? You have to make one mistake. They have to just keep trying and eventually they'll get you, you know, like, you've got to be right every single time. Anyway. Random, random stuff. But yeah. Dangerous animals. What animal? What would you say to people coming to Australia if they, if they did have a genuine fear of animals or whatever, would there be any advice that you would give them if they're going camping? I guess it's sort of harder when you think about the entire country, but..

Yeah. Well.

Speaker1:
Is there anything that they should genuinely..

So, it's so different depending where you are. If you're in North Queensland it's just don't be near water.

Yeah.

Don't camp right next to waterholes or the beach and those sort of things. So um, and that's the crocodiles thing. But if you're just talking about, you know, where we are in the state of Victoria, you go camping out in the bush here.

Yeah.

The by far the biggest threat are snakes.

Speaker1:
And other people.

Well, yeah.

Ivan Milat.

Yeah, well. Idiots or a danger..

Serial killers. Yeah. Probably more..

Speaker3:
There are more of them in Melbourne than there are out in the bush. Um, that snakes are by far the biggest problem you will have. But the chance of even seeing a snake is minimal.

Speaker1:
Well, you have to go looking and..

You've got to go looking..

.. stuff up.

And that's. And that's the thing is. Wear solid footwear, preferably ankle boots.

Don't go walking through long grass.

Speaker3:
Don't walk through long grass. At all. Um. And that's, that's even if there were never snakes there, you wouldn't walk through long grass because you never know what you're going to stand on. You fall in a rabbit hole or a wombat hole or something. You break your..

.. step on a sharp stick.

Yeah, exactly. So, so from that animal's point of the other one is, um, ants are far more. You're far more likely to get bitten by an ant than you are by a..

Well, I've had that pleasure..

Spider. Yeah. Uh, bull ants. And, you know, jumping..

Jumping jacks. Goddamn!

Uh, bull ants hurt like shit. But as far as I know, there aren't many people who get an allergic reaction to bull ants.

Don't know that. But jumping jacks..

Jumping jacks are bastards.

Speaker3:
Have, uh, their venom has a, you know, a allergen in it. An allergen in it that you people, you know, anaphylactic shock.

Speaker1:
They're the little ones that have, like, these twitching antenna and red fangs.

Red fangs and they're also a sort of gunmetal blue.

Yeah.

Flat blue.

Speaker1:
And they jump.

Speaker3:
And they do. They jump.

Bastards jump like jumping spiders. They just fling themselves. So I remember there was we got that story right of me in the front yard at Kallista. We grew up in the mountains in near Dandenong and the Dandenong Ranges. And I remember there being a, um, jumping jack nest in the front yard. And for whatever reason, I decided one day to poke it to get the hose and shove the nozzle down the, um, the front of it and then just turn it on whilst standing near it.

Yeah.

And um, managed to spray a bunch of them on my leg, right. And just getting fucked up by these jumping jacks. And I think I had such a, uh, inflammatory response that I couldn't put shoes on for a few days, right.

Yeah, you just blow up.

Yeah. My foot was was awful. And it was itchy from memory, too, but I had as well. When I remember walking down the street that we used to live on. And they would because it was on a steep hill, you would be walking down the nature strip, and every time you got to someone's driveway, the driveway would obviously be horizontal, but the hill was coming down, so there would be this kind of like drop off, drop off in the in the earth. So I sat down to sort of scoot over the edge to get into the driveway, to then keep walking down and sat on a bullet nest.

Yeah.

And I remember getting stung on the arse and then using my hand to be like, Whoa, did I just sit on something sharp? And then it was on my hand, stinging my hand and, um, yeah, again, it was what I imagine a bee sting is like.

Speaker3:
Yeah. So ants are the biggest problem. Yeah. So just when you're camping, don't try and set up a tent at night. Um, so because you make it during the day and just check out other ant nests around and like most ants are not going to be biting you and hurting you. A few will be, but they're..

Speaker1:
Jumping jacks. They'll come out and F you up. Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaker3:
But most other ants are just annoying, so don't be too afraid about the bitey ones. It's more just look for ants and go, no, we don't need to be here. And you can't miss an ant nest.

Well, yeah, they tend to be, um, like a little mountain, right?

Yeah.

A little mountain.

Speaker3:
Yeah. But even if they're not mounds, they're. You can tell because the, um, often the grain size of the, the sand or whatever is increased because they've dug their things out.

Yeah.

And and even if it's flat, you'll also see if you're there during the day, there'll be lots of ants coming and going. So it's pretty obvious. Yeah. Oh, what are all these ants here? It must be an ant nest or something.

Speaker1:
And just give him an offering, right. Just make a little altar and give an offering to the gods.

Speaker4:
Move somewhere else.

Speaker3:
Distract them.

So, yeah, snakes and ants, I think, are the big problems.

Yeah.

You know, if you're in, in and around Sydney or there are spiders, that will give you a hard time, but yeah, but again, you're not. If you're camping, you're not going to be out digging in the ground in your bare hands. Well that's it. People in their own gardens that are more of a problem where they go gardening without, you know, proper gloves..

Or leaving your shoes and stuff out and not..

Well, that's shaking them out. Shake your shoes out. And often people will do that. If they're in a small tent, they'll leave their shoes out at night, that's it.

Speaker1:
Put them inside the tent, put them inside them inside the tent.

Or if you put them outside, shake them out, give them a good banging and shake them out the next morning before you put your feet in.

Speaker1:
Oh yeah, that just..

Speaker3:
And scorpions as well, you know, do that. But we don't have deadly scorpions in Australia. But they'll give you a bite.

Speaker1:
Well, sting.

Ah, sting. Yes.

Yeah. Do not want. Anyway, hopefully you've enjoyed this episode guys.

Yeah. Come to Australia and enjoy yourself!

Speaker1:
That's it.