I knew Australia had lots of scary and deadly creatures but coming from tiny safe little England had no idea that the seemingly innocent funny looking kangaroo, the national animal, could pose me any threat. A large kangaroo can grow up to nearly 2 meters nose to tail; I mean that is pretty big, um which is a little over six foot so that equates to a big strong man. Kangaroo’s “…They may treat a human as they would another kangaroo, grappling with their forepaws, leaning well back on their tails to provide enough support to lift and kick with both hind legs simultaneously. Such a blow could break a man’s ribs while the long claws are quite capable of ripping flesh”, now this sounds more like a horror movie to me. However, I did watch a programme once about a rather weird boy who had to have counselling after being attacked by a kangaroo on a golf course and was seemingly terrified of golf courses ever since, hardly capable of stepping onto one without heaps of hypnotherapy-now that really is something else! I still find it pretty hard to believe kangaroos could possibly be that scary or dangerous unless you are driving in your car and one jumps out in front of you. I have yet to see any kanger’s out here but I’ll let you know! Amongst other scary animals you could come across out here are sharks, salt water crocodiles which I have ‘heard’ have been known to leap from the sea at unsuspecting tourists – needless to say they didn’t come back from their walk on the beach. Australia is also host to the deadliest jellyfish in the world apparently the most poisonous creature alive and the pain is supposed to be so horrific it can kill a grown man from shock alone. Hmmm let’s see what else are there, poisonous spiders, the blue ringed octopus which is worryingly so small you can hardly see it and the bite virtually painless so you would not even know you had been bitten but can reassuringly cause death within 90 minutes. There are also 384 types of snakes but not too worry as only 47 types of them are poisonous, there are even poisonous cone shells for Christ sake!! In fact Australia has the largest amount of dangerous animals in the world. But how did any of them get here it’s a massive island surrounded by water? For anyone who knows me will find all this quite funny as I have always loved animals but am something of a massive wuss and fairly neurotic, I used to want to be a wildlife camera women but until a recent trip to South Africa where I had to face the literal possibility of hippo’s charging at me in the bush and did great white shark cage diving I had been known to be frightened of walking through a field full of cows! Needless to say I have settled for a career in vet nursing instead. Anyway fingers crossed I am unlikely to encounter anything of the above but you never know...watch this space.
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