The Australian Museum is not exactly the hippest or most trendy place to visit in Sydney. With the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens and the Sydney Tower, just to name a few, the museum is not the normal port of call for people who are new to the city. Unless of course you are a senior citizen and someone left the gates open at the nearby old age home. However, if you'll bare with me you shall see that there is some method to my madness.
My wife and I are fairly new to Australia so everyday brings with it a new adventure and teaches us more about this great country. On a stroll through Hyde Park in Sydney, we stumbled across the museum. There are many well kept old buildings flanking the park and you would think the museum would be just another. It certainly would be just another old building if it weren't for the head and the tail of a dinosaur sticking out opposite ends of it. This clever little marketing trick did its job and we plodded across the road to investigate further.
Rexy was rubbish at Hide and Seek.
We forked out $16 each at the front desk which included a limited tour of the Birds of Paradise exhibit. Again, this may not sound like an interesting idea but most of these birds would put any professional contortionist to shame. Some amazing dances and displays.
The rest of the museum proved to be a labyrinth of buildings, rooms, hallways, staircases and lifts. If the museum shop stocked Satellite Navigation devices they would make an absolute killing. After a series of u-turns, wild guesses and pure blind luck we managed to get through all of the exhibits. We visited the Aborigines exhibit, the Minerals displays and
The Skeleton exhibit;
Because every skeleton, and his dog, deserve some quiet time.
The Dinosaur exhibit;
The unsuspecting tourist never saw Rexy coming.
Finally we reached the reason for this post. We found the "Surviving Australia" section and a shiver shot down my back as I read the sign and found myself wandering what kind of country has to devote an entire exhibit, and a large one at that, to creatures that can kill you in under 10 minutes! There is even a smaller exhibit within that shows you what to expect in your very own back yard. It crossed my mind then and there that this could be seen as a form of population control and a highly effective one at that.
There are too many villains of the animal kingdom to mention them all so I will focus on the meanest. Lets start with the sea and the Box Jellyfish. This nasty son of a gun is found between the months of October and April predominantly along the shores of Northern Australia, Northern Western Australia and Northern Queensland. Keep in mind that the North is the hottest part of Australia, especially in the Summer months and that's exactly when these nasty little critters arrive. Someone is laughing somewhere. Its body is box shaped and is roughly 20cm by 20cm. Its tentacles can number up to 15 in total and can stretch up to 3 metres in length. These tentacles possess some of the most dangerous venom on the planet. You have virtually no chance of surviving the venomous sting. The pain is so excruciating and overwhelming that you will most likely go into shock before reaching the shore.
Then there are the Blue Ringed Octopus. This little ninja is the size of a golf ball and as cute as a button but its beak is strong enough to bite through a wetsuit and kill an adult in minutes. Best of all, there is no known antidote.
Sea snakes, Saltwater Crocodiles, Cone shells, Scorpion Fish, Lion fish, Stone fish, Sharks and Stingrays are the other killers found in the waters of Australia. You have to ask yourself - how is it that there are so many Australia surfers out there?
On land Australia has 20 of the 25 most venomous snakes in the world. The most poisonous snake in the world is called the Taipan who's venom is strong enough to kill about 100 adults with just a single bite. Are you kidding me? When this creature was thought up by the powers that be they must have been thinking of making humans the size of a small mountain range. The Brown Snake and the Tiger Snake follow just as behind and the locals reckon you don't need to put the siren on while you drive to the hospital.
The Funnel Web, Redback (cousin of the Black Widow) and White Tail are all spiders found pretty much throughout Australia. The Redback, particularly, is said to be in every back yard and even closer than your dodgy neighbours. All three of these bad boys will kill you if you do not get immediate medical attention after being bitten.
A dangerous episode of Neighbours.
Last but not least I come to a bird. Not just any bird, mind you, but a bird that was described in the museum as ill-tempered and aggressive.
One of these two birds is ill-tempered.
A Cassowary is a large, flightless bird that is similar to an Ostrich but slightly smaller. Found in North Eastern Australia they possess a dagger like claw on each of their three toes. The centre claw can measure up to 12,5 cm in length and was described by Ornithologist Thomas E. Gilliard, in his book Living Birds of the World, as a "
murderous nail that can sever an arm or eviscerate an abdomen with ease." Even though the Cassowary sounds like it has been pulled off the pages of a Stephen King novel, there has only ever been one reported death from the hundreds of Cassowary attacks. The report, however, failed to mentioned how many one armed or one legged men the Cassowaries were responsible for so I have decided to steer clear of North Eastern Australia altogether.
If for some reason you are contemplating a trip to Australia please ensure that you stop by the Australian Museum in Sydney first to see what you are in for. If the little museum shop sold return flights and a taxi cab to the airport along with the satellite navigation devices, they'd be millionaires.
