Day -3

So what do you know about Australia and New Zealand anyway?  This type of trip is rare enough for me to feel like I need to do some serious preparation to get the most out of it.  Turns out two months isn't really enough. 

Robin and I have both been enjoying a book that we have each been reading.  The book is "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson.  It has been great fun reading about Australia before going there.  He recounts his experience when he toured a great deal of the country in 2000.  I learned about some of the history, the lay of the land, cultural aspects, wildlife, and the seemingly endless ways you can be seriously harmed.  " ... Australia has more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else: sharks, crocodiles, the ten most deadly poisonous snakes on the planet, fluffy yet toxic caterpillars, seashells that actually attack you, and the unbelievable box jellyfish (don't ask)."  Of course we need to throw in rip currents and the murderous outback and we haven't even mentioned the spiders.  And let's not. . . .  

I learned a lot that I didn't know.  For example - I bet that you didn't know either that evidently a nuclear bomb was detonated in the outback by the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.  (These are the same nuts that used sarin gas to kill people in a Japanese subway back in the 90s.)  Anyway, Australia is so big that you can set off a nuclear bomb and hardly anyone will notice.  Bryson deals with this and a lot more with good humor and I recommend the book.