Tony, could we be looking at a concerted conspiratorial effort to keep us foreigners out of that bit of paradise you enjoy?

Do they have as many nature series on your television, almost nightly, documenting all the deadly venomous critters they claim are about in your paddocks and homesteads.  I mean, they always show the deadly funnel web crawling in shoes, and the TV shots of the children wandering out just on the edge of their yards into tall grass and the ominous music plays - portending an imminent strike of the deadly snake.  Irwin has one episode where he is banging around in his home garage chasing a slippery Brown Snake, which had taken up a comfy residence inside the engine compartment of his car.  There he was with his infant child being held by his equally daredevil and lovely wife, capturing the viper and having a little pet of the snakes crown, before lovingly placing the snake back in the neighbor's tall grass.  I'm telling you Tony, they never let up on our TV programing on what you seem to be indicating is a grand pulling of our leg.  BTW, do you wear one of those scary looking 14inch toad stickers in a scabbard on your leg like Mick Dundee?  How many crocs have you personally dispatched?

I guess that chasing a brown Snake is what made such an episode worthy of TV. You wouldn't watch a show of people just sitting on the sofa. You have to show something nobody would ever see for themselves

Honestly, sea creatures included, we have it all down here! And many a golf club is wise to warn of looking for balls in long grass. But my analogy using rattlesnakes and scorpions is apt. They are in the US, but they are not to make wary any overseas visitor to your shores. You have to look for them in places nobody goes.

Imagine hearing that foreigners were cancelling a US vacation because they had it confirmed for them that rattlesnakes and scorpions are over there. Or that we told a friend living in Orlando that he was brave (or desensitized) to be in that country for the same reason. That is how some of us Aussies are feeling at reading this thread!

From what I'm reading , the lowcountry where I reside [south georgia ] has more potential fear factor than what I assumed Austrailia had .......I routinely wear snake boots when starting a project in the field. I loose track of how many mean cottonmouths , cane brake, pygmy and diamond back rattlesnakes AND copperheads I encounter and / or dispatch annually,[this is in the 10 to 20 range ,not hundreds ].....last year I even had half a coral snake come out of a lighter stump I was cutting......big banana spiders [non-venomous , but 5 or more inches ] ,hang from eye level in 8' webs throughout the woods....but the one to be aware of is the brown recluse , whose bite ,while not deadly , will leave large necrotic festerings for months....I don't always see  the many lesser catterpillers ,centipedes , spiders etc., but do try to guess what they might have been by my  reactions to their bites....fire ants really don't rate a sentence...but alligaters do.
  And this is coming from a long lost yankee from the catskills whose youthfull experience with bad things was confined to mosquitos and no-seeums.

....but I love it here but can't wait to make the big trip to OZ ![why is it refered to as that?]...no worries , just right. right?

Here in Singapore at my home club (Laguna National) we have cobras. Two weeks ago, one of my playing partners killed a cobra with a driver. Aiyah!! as we say here. Bugger me, as we would say in Australia.

The cobras are relatively hard to eradicate, since they usually don't eat carrion (so poisoned dead rats don't work). The club cuts back the undergrowth in the cobra-heavy areas and calls in a snake charmer/specialist/wrangler to catch them.

That was my second encounter with snakes in a month. On a recent trip home to Australia I was playing New South Wales. Pushed my driver on the fiftennth into the scrub to the right of the fairway. As I was about to head on in to search for my ball, the group playing the adjacent 16th yelled out not to go in as they had just seen a brown snake (very deadly) just where I was about to look. So I dropped on ein the middle of the fairway and played on!!

For those Americans on site (and I think I am safe in saying this is the general Australian view) Steve Irwin is a wanker(Australian slang for idiot with crude connotations).

For the New Zealanders you know what a wanker is because it's what we used to call Sir Richard.  By the way just back from the cricket, Chris Cairns can definitely hit a ball. (Americans: think Mark Maguire with the physique of a tight end).  

Paul,
Re OZ.  Australians are quite renowned for shortening everything.  Generally can't be bothered in saying the whole word.  So Australian becomes Aussie (pronounced oZZie not ossssie), which means Australia becomes Oz.  Simple..

JAL the spider you killed was most likely a huntsman.  Absolutely harmless.  

More movie quotes.

"Asps. Very dangerous. [pause] You go first."



Dick Daley,

I saw the same "Crocodile Hunter" episode as you, but I think he was simply listing the 10 most dangerous snakes in Oz only, not the world, although I'm sure a few make the world list.

Re most venomous I think it depends on how it is calculated.  

i.e a lot of venom or the strongest venom.

From memory I have seen on nature shows that Australia has 6or7 of the top ten.

Now not to scare anyone but the following is a story from my childhood and not I would imagine a common Autralian experience.

When I was five we moved from our farm in south west Victoria to another farm in Nothern Victoria.  The new farm was on good land but was run down from the previous occupant.  When we arrived there was junk evrerywhere, including long grass and piles of wood.  In short a wonderful habitat for the local reptiles.

In the first year of our tenure on the farm my father killed 26 snakes.  Either Tiger Snakes or Brown Snakes.  In the 25+ years since then I think he would have seen about 15-20.

I should note it is now illegal to kill most if not all of our native snakes.  

Tony,

You are absolutely right. See:

http://www.manbir-online.com/htm2/snake.22.htm

However, although not the most highly toxic, I do feel that the dreaded Expecterier Trouserius (Trouser Snake) has caused more damage, injury, heartache than the rest of 'em put together.

And they said golfclubatlas couldn't be taken to new lows Shane

In the words of Al Czervik, what time are you two due back in Boy's Town...  

Jason, yours is a lock for post of the year 2005.  It is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on this forum.  Where did you get the idea from?

Chris:

Truth is often stranger than fiction.  

Guess the trip to Australia is out  

Jason,

The solution is to leave your wife at home, or find a new wife.

Golf is more important than spiders and snakes.

Shane