Dangerous Creatures of Oz

You know, when we came to Australia we were aware of the dangers critters that can kill you for example Snakes, crocodiles, sharks, Jellyfish, spiders, stonefish and toadfish - they can all kill you ...what we didnt know was all the other things that can also kill you!

The crocodiles we saw in Port Douglas - they are all the way down the coast to as far as Rockhampton (I think). The snakes well they are everywhere, although we have been told "if they can climb they are a tree snake and are harmless" ... well, I for one, wont be waiting around to see if it can climb or not.

Then we have the jellyfish or "stingers" there are several types jelly fish to be very wary of - the most common one is the box jelly fish - this lovely piece of work can kill you very quickly. However at least you can see this jellyfish - there is even a more lethal one called the "Irukanji" - this is a transparent jellyfish about the size of your fingernail with very long tentacles!!!!! If you are lucky you MAY see its shadow on the seabed otherwise you are very lucky to see them before they get you, there are also a couple of other types that I cant remember them all. The trouble with this jellyfish is that it can sting you but the symptoms dont appear for about 1/2 an hour, then suddenly you are in excruiating pain and can die very quickly, the other problem is for each of these "stingers" there are different methods of treating them, vinegar, hot water, cold water and whatever else so basically if you get stung, you need to identify the stinger and decide which treatment to use (oh, and of course ring the emergency services)! Needless to say we have "stinger suits" which make you (well me anyway) resemble a telly tubby to go swimming in during stinger season.

So, we thought we were prepared, you know, about 10 litres of vinegar, cold packs, all the info available and started making our way to the whitsundays, of course you need to read about a place before you get there so the books came out and what did we discover... yes, there's MORE dangerous creatures down here. We also have the cone shell - a lovely shell that everyone wants to pick up, however it has a spike that will "pop" out and stab you with poison...but it gets even better this is where the "death adder" lives. Apparently the death adder is a very slow moving SNAKE that likes to lie in the sand on beaches so you cant see it, actually they lie anywhere in the sun but on beaches you cant see them because they hide in the sand and of course this death adder is very poisonous. We heard of someone chopping wood for the fire and got bitten by one so chopped his finger off immediately!

We are sure there is probably more dangerous critters around but all of this can make a girl somewhat paranoid so the moral to my story is ... NO MORE READING...hopefully ignorance will be bliss!