What makes Australia so special?

 1 – Pythons so big they can lift marsupials

In the photo, we see one of these giant snakes lifting a wallaby, which is only slightly smaller than a kangaroo.

2 – The virulent flying foxes

While catching a disease directly from these great bats is unusual, they are known to carry two viruses capable of killing.

3 – Great white sharks surfing

If you thought it was only humans who enjoyed riding a wave, then look again. In Australia it is not uncommon for these terrifying marine predators to come close to beaches.

4 – Crocodiles in the ripple

After all, it's not just sharks that can, right?

5 – Snakes that eat crocodiles

Any resemblance to a giant snake famous for a series of horror movies may not be purely coincidental.

6 – Lots and lots of spiders

The country is also famous for the number and variety of spider species, many of which are poisonous.

7 – Swarms and infestations of insects and flies

Not lethal, but not a little uncomfortable, these small beings usually fly in flocks and group themselves all over the surface – even the heads and bodies of unsuspecting passersby.

8 – Giant venomous centipedes

These scary little animals can bite if disturbed or handled improperly. Its venom can cause intense pain that takes days to wear off. Oh, and they can even feed on snakes!

9 – Very, very large crocodiles

These huge, scary, and lethal reptiles often take a stroll through the streets of Australian cities.

10 – A bucket full of lethal spiders

Captured in the Blue Mountains campground, each of these tiny Atracinae arachnids is capable of killing with one bite.

11 – Grotesque Underground Beasts

They are harmless, but these giant earthworms and mole crickets are certainly not pleasant for those who are repulsed by insects and creepy-crawlies.

12 – Big and angry birds

Invade the territory of one of these cassowaries and risk returning home with some injuries.

13 – Tiny and lethal jellyfish

Although smaller than a fingernail, irukandji jellyfish can be some of Australia's most dangerous creatures. Its venom is 100 times more potent than that of a mighty snake and a thousand times stronger than that of a tarantula.

14 - The only octopus fatal to humans

The only being of its kind whose venom is capable of killing us, the blue-ringed octopus is certainly an adversary to be feared. Although the animal is small, there is no antidote for its substance.

15 – Snail that can cause suffocation

The most venomous of the five hundred species of conical snails, the Conus mamoreus has been responsible for several human deaths. Injected by a tooth similar to a harpoon, its venom can cause paralysis of the respiratory muscles, leading to asphyxia and therefore death.

16 – One of the most camouflaged and lethal fish in the world

Stonefish are extremely poisonous and tend to lie motionless on the sea floor, looking much like simple rocks or pieces of coral. They have dorsal spines that can inject an extremely toxic venom that causes intense pain and can kill.

17 – Killer hail

More intense hailstorms can cause real ice boulders to fall from the sky, bigger than billiard balls. One of these in your head and you'll join your ancestors sooner.

18 – Snakes Everywhere

Holes in golf courses, clothing stores, and toilets, no place is sacred to Australian snakes. One of them has even been spotted on the wing of a plane flying from the country to Papua New Guinea.

19 – Even freshwater wells can kill

On days when the ambient temperature is higher than 24ºC, some freshwater places harbor species of microscopic beings capable of causing amebic meningitis. Quite rare, the disease is highly lethal, with a survival rate of less than 3%. And just get in the water to get it.

What is an unexpected danger in Australia?

 The unexpected danger in Australia, is how far everything is. The distances are huge.

In the outback desert especially.
Travellers die there with unnerving frequency. Foreigners die; urban Australians die; local aborigines die. They drive in cars, they think the cars can handle it, they think they have enough provisions, but no, no, no.

Guess what this shows? It shows the Shelton family—Steve, Skye, their 4 children—in the middle of the Simpson Desert. If you magnify the photo (The Australian Magazine, 24–25 November 2018), you will find their 1998 Nissan Patrol GU, plus their camper-trailer with a blue awning attached, plus the 2008 Nissan Patrol of Rick Shea and his daughter, who came to their aid. But who couldn’t do much, apart from stay with them.

The Sheltons left the Mount Dare Hotel on Wednesday, 5th September 2018. They were at the end of a 4-week driving holiday from their home near Brisbane, Queensland, across the Northern Territory.
The Simpson Desert is 175,000 sq km in area and between 550 and 715 kilometres wide, depending on which track you take. It consists of more than 1100 parallel sand dunes running north-south. The Sheltons began driving to Birdsville, 477 km away.

On Friday morning, the engine stalled on the crest of a dune. Uh-oh. They had brought lots of water, but the aluminium container stored under the trailer had burst: 110 litres were gone. They had 84 litres left.
They had a UHF line-of-sight radio. It did not reach far, what with the undulating terrain, but it did reach Rick Shea and his daughter, who were driving to Rockhampton, Queensland. They arrived.

Rick had an HF radio, which covers 1000’s of kilometres. Rick rang the Birdsville Roadhouse for its recovery service. Birdsville said to ring the Mount Dare Hotel, which was “closer”: 240 km away. Mount Dare wanted $5000 upfront.
About 10,000 to 15,000 tourists cross the desert every season, and many break down. Mount Dare effects 20 to 25 recoveries per season. If a camper-trailer needs rescuing, that requires 2 trucks (there and back), wages for the mechanics, money for fixing the trucks (they break down too and suffer terrible wear and tear). It does not come cheap. More like, $440 per hour.

The Sheltons had problems with their credit card; they eventually got $3000 from their parents. They were told the rescue trucks would arrive on Sunday. The trucks did not arrive on Sunday. One of the trucks had been in a crash, the other was waiting for a part. The replacement parts were being sourced by the Kulgera Roadhouse.
It is 1 day’s drive from Kulgera to Mount Dare. It is 2 days’ drive from Mount Dare to where the Sheltons were stranded.

Late on Tuesday afternoon—after 5 days of waiting, with dwindling water and food—2 Nissan Patrols crested the dune with, each, a mechanic from Kulgera. They unloaded 120 litres of water. It took them 4 hours, to find the broken sensor in the timing mechanism. They built a replacement.
On Wednesday morning, the mechanics accompanied the travellers for 50 km, then turned back for Kulgera. During the round trip, one of their trucks suffered a broken shock absorber, a shredded tyre, and a damaged fuel tank.
The Sheltons rolled into Birdsville on Thursday 13th September.
Their bill exceeded $10,000.

The moral of this tale is:
take a satellite phone and an emergency radio beacon; bring 7 litres of water per person per day; tell people when you expect to arrive; stay with your vehicle; and … make sure your credit card is active.

Why is Australia mainly desert, in contrast to South America, which also lies south of the equator?

 Australia doesn’t have a huge mountain range like the Andes that collects all the rain from clouds blowing across the continent. The driest desert in the world, the Atacama, is on the western side of the Andes between the same latitudes as Australia.

If you look at which latitudes where Australia lies in relationship to South America. It lies between 9° and 44°S. That is the region where most winds bearing rain clouds come from the south East or north East similar to South America.

Australia's latitude in Perspective

The Andes range is almost 7000m tall and still growing. Rain clouds don’t travel high enough to cross it. Thus almost all of the rain in those latitudes falls on the eastern slopes and becomes the rivers of the Amazon basin while the Atacama desert on the western side gets none.

Sadly, Australia is the most ancient continent and all our high mountains have long since worn away. So our rainfall pattern is reversed. A narrow strip of green along the East coast gradually fading to desert the further west you travel. It’s a similar pattern if you compare Australia with southern Africa at the same latitudes, the Kalahari desert and Namibia on the west and a strip of green along the east coast. Climate and Vegetation of Africa

Atacama desert in Chile - below Simpson Desert Australia

Kalahari

“A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a "shadow" of dryness behind them.”