What it’s like to fall into the deadly Australian plant, gympie-gympie

Cheers

The Emmagen Creek 'local' was someone who I already knew, he used to work for me in electronics but chucked it in to 'go bush' with his better half and ended up taking over a disused tin-mining lease under the pretext of prospecting for tin but in reality he did little other than to loll around eating papaya which grew everywhere around his dwelling.

Somehow or other he invited me and another colleague to visit him and we agreed although it was very inconvenient for me at the time. (I had university assignments to complete—so when not trekking about in the bush you can picture me doing formal logic assignments sitting on a stump in that wilderness. Getting the assignments back to the uni in a timely manner was a somewhat fickle hit-and-miss process—I had to pay the local hippies who lived on the beach some miles away rather handsomely to take them to Cairns to post whenever they went there to collect their dole payments.)

Australia isn't really that bad, not that many of us fall victim to or are gobbled up by the wildlife every year but it does happen. We locals are rather blasé about wandering in the 'bush' without much protection—hazmat suits would be deemed totally unnecessary. Though the Daintree Rainforest probably has more to be concerned about than many other areas, there are crocodiles in the larger rivers and you'd be advised not to swim in them, also the cassowarys can be quite aggressive, especially so when nesting (see heading 'Attacks'): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary.

I got a bit of a scare myself when at Cape Tribulation. Emmagen Creek is just that, a small permanently-flowing creek with a few good swimming holes about two minutes walk from where we were camping. As was my wont, first thing of a morning I'd go to the creek to wash up and bush my teeth at its bank. One morning I sensed the presence of something nearby and to my right less than 18" away was a yellow-bellied black snake of a type I wasn't familiar with (like those I know from down south). Like me, it was hanging from bank and drinking the water (it seemed totally obvious to my presence). No worries, one keeps perfectly still in those situations. When it finished drinking it just slid away.

Oh, that wasn't as nearly scary as when I accidentally stood on one of these critters close to where I lived as a kid (it was sunning itself on a bush path just around a bend that I couldn't see around): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_brown_snake.

This is one truly nasty bugger that one doesn't want to mess with. I felt this squish under my foot, fortunately it took of at great speed in one direction and I did the fastest back-flip of my life in the opposite direction.

See, there are hazards here, but one usually survives.

2 ton marsupials, for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/10/how-cone-snail...

Bad idea.

The smoke carries the oils and if you get in it, you're going to be in for a bad time.

https://www.jcu.edu.au/this-is-uni/natural-and-built-environ...

Going from memory, feel free to correct: - Tons of snakes that will ruin your day (and probably week/month), but most of them have high survival rates and anti-venom. I was shocked to find they're often survivable without treatment? We're running out of anti-venom for coral snakes (interestingly they're basically cobras), but they're famously docile and have a weak bite.

    - Two dangerous spiders, but both fairly treatable with medical attention. Though brown recluse bites that progress can be pretty scary

    - Alligators are surprisingly non-dangerous, if not fed, or intentionally interacted with. They'll walk right past you, and want nothing to do with people

    - Big cats aren't too common and tend to avoid people; but I guess they've been seeing a few more attacks out west

Australia has crocs that seriously hunt people, and fight them over territory. Plus snakes that are super deadly. I guess almost all venomous spiders are less of a big deal than I was lead to believe growing up and usually not fatal, even without medical attention... but you wouldn't want to get bit by a funnel web.

However, people living in north QLD, NT and WA are definitely in nature's territory. Crocodiles are now inhabiting almost every waterway, dry conditions make taipan snakes and spiders a real threat, and the rainforest really does has dangerous plants and animals. As an FNQ resident, most locals no longer swim at the beaches.

I think your perspective depends on where you live.

That being said, they never lost a war against their wildlife...

At least the snakes are mostly kind enough to fuck off to where the humans don't live.

Eastern brown snakes and Sydney funnel webs like urban environments. But as you say they don't kill many people even though they can.

Cars and humans are far worse.

The thing about Australia's flora and fauna is that Australia has such a low population density. I think that if it matched the US, far more people would die from it's creepy animals etc.