Look before you leap

[catalyst2]

If the snake in the library wasn't enough, now it is a croc in the pool! Not my pool, fortunately, but a public pool in Darwin. Admittedly Darwin is about 4 200 km from where I am now but, in my book, not even that distance is enough!

Comments

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Dude, you live in Australia. Aren't there crocs in every pool there?

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

Holy carp, I hope not! (whoops, I think that would be far more effective if it said "crap"!)

No, I've never seen a croc here - this is all that bloody Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin image. It's like everybody thinks America is all Starbucks and MacDonald's and - hang on ...... ;-)

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Haha. You aren't totally wrong. I go outside my apartment and throw a rock and hit a Starbucks. I'm surrounded by them. In fact, the coffee shop below me was bought out by Starbucks and just closed up. New Starbucks, coming soon! Take into account that I live downtown in the heart of the city though. And there's a McDonald's down the street from me too.

When I think of Australia I think of the Outback. I also think of that soapy miniseries I loved so much when I was a pre-teen, Return to Eden. The main character was attacked by a croc! That and Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin are my frame of reference.

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

It's funny because 90% of the Australian population lives within cities, all within 25km of the coast so there's this tiny inhabited strip and then a massive internal space with a very sparse population. Most Australians have barely even seen the Outback themselves.

I should get you to watch McLeod's Daughter's - it is country-based (as opposed to Outback which is untouched bush and desert) but a *little* closer to reality since they are on a farm. Of course, dramatic conventions dictate that someone falls off a horse/tractor/roof and sustains life-threatening head injuries/internal injuries/coma/amnesia every week but still ....

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Is that a soap opera?

Did you ever see Return to Eden? I'd love to see that again. I liked it so much that I even bought the book adapted from it. The DVD hasn't even been released here, for shame.

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

It is certainly one of the top viewed programmes here - can't say that it is to my taste but then that's just me. Details here (http://www.tv.com/mcleods-daughters/show/4327/episode_listings.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabssh&tag=tabs;episodes). I suspect that if you liked Return to Eden, you might like that too.

[asgaja.livejournal.com]

Seriously, that's an active animal life there!

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

It's about the only thing that's active - even the rest of Australia calls Perth Dullsville!

[tijnat.livejournal.com]

I live not quite in the heart of downtown and besides the usual birds, mice, voles and squirrels, some of which occasionally find there way into my apartment courtesy of my cats (not squirrels), we have skunks, raccoons and coyotes living in the area. I haven't had any of the latter enter my place, although I once looked out my bedroom window and was face to face with a raccoon peering in the window.

We also have bald eagles nesting in the park where I work. One of the eagles captured a seagull one Sunday morning and sat on top of our building shredding it to bits, while feathers drifted down on to our customers!! I was just glad I wasn't there to see it.

[catalyst2.livejournal.com]

We do get lots of roos around, only Western greys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Grey_Kangaroo) so not very big or exotic but nice to watch. Lots of lizards, bobtails (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump-tailed_skink) especially but what I am most impressed by is a nearby colony of Yellow-billed spoonbills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_Spoonbill), not so much because of what they are but that I have watched the colony grow from 3-4 windblown strays about 8 years ago to a permanent colony with about 20-25 breeding pairs.

Within a short distance there is a breeding pair of Ospreys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey) who have one young in the nest right now and a nesting pair of Whistling Kites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistling_Kite) who have raised at least one chick to maturity every year since 1994!