Is it really so dangerous to live in Australia? I have friends from there who I'm sure are trying to scare me when they talk about spiders and snakes, crocodiles and sharks etc etc etc and that I shouldn't come over because so many people aren't prepared and die.
But it doesn't seem to be in the news that all these naive tourists are dying over there so I think they're making it up!
Yes, it is the national joke. Not very funny, but what the hey...
There are some very real dangers to tourists in Australia but as mentioned previously it's mostly due to ignorance. An example would be that our brilliant surf life savers pull many many tourists from the water each year to save them from drowning because they don't know to swim between the flags and head off to the part of the beach where there are no swimmers and the water looks smooth - straight into a rip. Even then, many Australians know to swim across a rip, not fight it, and tourists don't.
But I guess any country has its dangers that locals know how to minimise. I met US citizens who lived somewhere where bears used to get into their garbage bins. I was horrified that they so calmly talked about porential killers going through their bins!
