Dangerous animals, alcoholics and suicide

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  Foxboro, Massachusetts, United States
Monday, June 30, 2008

How the hell did you two end up in Darwin and where the hell is it is a question we got a lot! We can blame Erica for that. Erica was looking for a new position and we'd talked about moving on to somewhere new, maybe somewhere in Western USA, an area we'd always wanted to move to, maybe Europe or maybe Australia.

We'd thought if we moved to Australia it would be close to one of the larger cities in the south east such as Sydney or Melbourne. Erica mentioned a position in Darwin and said what's it like there? I had been there back in 1995 but to be honest couldn't remember too much about it. I remember being blown away by Litchfield National Park and its waterfalls and being disappointed by Kakadu NP, famous for its wildlife and Aboriginal population. We had done a whistle stop tour of Kakadu just stopping to see some cave painting. I can safely say cave paintings don't float my boat!

My other outstanding memory of Australia's tropical north was a job pumpkin picking a ways away down the west coast in Kununurra. This was the only job I had ever done where I quit midway through the day! I later found out the time I was there, September/October time was known as the 'build up season', I was out in the fields in 110F (40C), high humidity and not a hint of wind. My forearms were ripped to shreds from the thorns on the pumpkins and the gaffer wasn't even giving us water! It was a long 1 mile walk back to the main road before, very dehydrated, I managed to hitch a ride back into town.

As it turned out I was actually over in Australia visiting my sister and family and doing the fantastic Overland hiking trail in Tasmania when Erica had her interview. My buddy Al and me thought this would be an ideal time to do a straw poll to find out what people thought. There were definitely two camps. The 'why would you ever want to go and live in Darwin' bunch and those that had been there. THe naysayers told us tales of woe about how the weather was terrible, how they had one of the highest alcoholic rate, the highest alcohol consumption per capita and the highest suicide rate, there was even a 'suicide season'! According to some Americans who had been there in the 70s Darwin was the red neck capital of Australia. The 'suicide season' turned out to be the build up season. In Darwin the dry season, lasts from May to September. The wet season starts in December and lasts till May. The 'build up' is the bit in between and is characterized by an increase in heat, humidity and stillness in the air in what sounds like an uncomfortable time to be there. We did do a little research on the whole suicide rumours and didn't really find any evidence of that been true. There is unfortunately a sad story on the aboriginal people on the Tiwi Islands, about 80km north of Darwin detailed in this Guardian article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/24/australia.adrianlevy

On the plus side people who had been to Darwin or knew of people who had been there generally had very positive things to say.

My hiking buddy Al, my sister and I all fell in love with Tasmania and even though Darwin was 3000 miles away Erica and I decided it would be a great opportunity to live in the tropics for 4 years. For Erica the position in Darwin would be a great opportunity for her career wise.

A few other things that should be mentioned about Australia are the lists of dangers over there like the snakes, the spiders, the box jelly fish, typhoons, salt water crocs, blue ringed octopus and if that doesn't get you, Australia is well known for its hole in the ozone layer and the high rates of skin cancer! All this was well known by me from my time living in Sydney from 1994-1996 but some was new to Erica.

Australia has the 10 most venomous snakes in the world according to the Animal Planet - http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/crochunter/australiazoo/10mostvenomous.html - From previous trips to Tassie I'd seen plenty of Tiger Snakes - I remember having to throw stones to get them away from their sunbathing spots on the hiking trail!

Australia has some of the most dangerous spiders, including the funnel web and red back spiders. In Sydney they say you should check your shoes every morning just to make sure one of the little guys didn't crawl in overnight.

The further to the tropics you get in Australia and the warmer it gets the greater the prevalence of box jellyfish becomes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_jellyfish ) - In Darwin there can be jellyfish all year round although it is generally safe in the winter months. I will not forget a guy I met back in 1995 who had a scar left on his arm that was from a tentacle that had wrapped around his arm 3 months previously. Erica's favourite story is of vinegar stations on the beach, very important if you do get stung -some people say to cover yourself with Vaseline before you swim so the jellyfish just brush off you - the other option is to pee on the sting site! Not too sure how someone found this one out, but I don't think I want to get deported from Australia for indecent exposure, so maybe it will be safest to stay out of the sea.

And just in case you're not put off swimming in the sea here is the wiki entry for the blue ringed octopus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus

There are plenty of rivers and watering holes around Darwin, maybe these could be a good place to swim? Not so fast - there are also the saltwater crocs. These animals have been around since the dinosaurs and for a good reason - they are natural born killers! Their proper name is estuarine crocs which means they are also found in fresh water and have been found many hundreds of miles inland in the areas inhabited by the less dangerous fresh water crocs! They say if you fill up your billycan at the local billabong don't go back to the same spot the next day as the croc will be waiting for you. People will give you lots of ways to escape a charging croc - run in zigzags, run in the opposite direction, climb a tree if there is one available or as Erica instructed me - poke them in the eyes!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7320000/newsid_7328300/7328394.stm

To be honest I'm not sure I'm the man she thinks I am and I'm not sure she would be so lucky!

Darwin gets cyclones, a type of weather pattern similar to the hurricanes in the northern hemisphere. In 1975 on Christmas Day Darwin was literally flattened out by Cyclone Tracy. It took a long time for Darwin to recover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy

Oh there was one other things to keep and eye on - killer kangaroos. A recent article on the BBC pointed this final danger out to us - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7515552.stm