Australians Divulge The Most Surprising Things About Their Country That Would Shock Tourists
The land Down Under is one of the most highly anticipated travel destinations for tourists around the world. Australia has fascinating history, beautiful sights, great food, cool wildlife, and some pretty cool people.
But as with any travel destination, there's bound to be a certain degree of culture shock. Have a seat and listen up, because you're in for some surprises.
Australians shared some information with us after Redditor emchmu123 asked the online community,
"Australians of Reddit, what is something that the rest of the world would be surprised or shocked to hear about the country?"
"There are more wild camels..."
"There are more wild camels in Australia than the Middle East."
CoffeeHistorical2094
At some point, the British were just like, what other animals can we introduce to this place? And then they just did it.
"You can drive for 26 hours straight and still be in the same state. It's kinda unsettling, especially those really tiny mining towns that have like a gas station and just flat dryland for as far as you can see."
[deleted]
It's kind of crazy how desolate so much of the country is. You don't just go to the Outback, you prepare to go there.
"In some parts..."
"In some parts of the country you are closer to space than the nearest town."
glenmelonhorst
That's another way to hammer this point home.
"While I was working..."
"While I was working in Whistler people were often shocked to hear we have ski resorts in Australia."
[deleted]
Wow, you guys have everything.
Why do you get all the good stuff?! What about the rest of us?!
"I've never had..."
"I’ve never had shrimp on the barbie - ever!"
atypicalnose
Can you even call yourself Australian at this point? How can we possibly process this information as the ignorant tourists that we are?
"Every spring..."
"Every spring, Magpies take to swooping people who come near their nests. Not a secret really, but I don't know how widely known it is."
statisticus
I love magpies. They are the mascot of chaos and destruction.
"That there are..."
"That there are vast areas of rainforest as well as the better-known desert areas."
imrzzz
And it's beautiful! You forgot to mention that it's incredibly beautiful.
"The last confirmed death..."
"Almost no one here dies to spiders or snakes. The last confirmed death from a spider bite was in 1979."
TheThunderChild
This is exactly the kind of propaganda a deadly Australian spider would spread.
"It was a conservative government..."
"It was a conservative government that introduced gun control laws."
[deleted]
A nice fact to whip out at dinner parties the next time someone says that only liberals are for reform.
"You're supposed to eat Vegemite toast with butter. Not just a thick slather of Vegemite like Nutella."
[deleted]
"You're supposed to eat Vegemite toast..."
Hang on a second!
They've certainly not told us everything, but take heed, fellow traveler, and report back. Australia is a hell of a place and you'll have plenty of stories to tell when you come back!
Certain countries just develop a reputation with the rest of the planet.
Sometimes it's earned, but sometimes it's way off base.
So what about Australia?
Are the rest of the Earth's stereotypes about the land down under fact or fiction?
Redditor Phrince_Prillip asked:
"Non-Australians, what's the first thing that comes to your head when you think of Australia?"
Mr. Dundee
"A voice in my head saying 'You call that a knoif?'"
- Flaky-Fellatio
"Love the pronunciation of the word 'Knoife'."
- Phrince_Prillip
"That's not a knoife. THIS is a knoife."
- MadnessPersonified
Giphy"I hate that my answer was kangaroos."
"I know more about Australia but f'king kangaroos pops up first."
- yankiigurl
"AUSTRALIA=KANGAROOS"
- Zgirl333
"Kangaroos, yes. But specifically that kangaroos are just buff donkeys."
- Torshii
GiphyFood?
"Answering honestly, the first word that popped into my head when I read your question was vegemite."
- ReadyTadpole1
"Now I want some Vegemite."
- Fabulous_Parking66
"Please don't make the mistake everyone makes. Remember, it's not chocolate. This has been the Australian Government Department of Vegemite Health and Safety."
"Funded by the Australian Government Canberra."
- ProbablyNotYourMum
"If you are a foreigner, the first time you eat vegemite, it should be spread so thin that it is a light brown smear. Half a pea size might be too much for one piece of bread."
"Now if you are an aussie and still do that amount, you are weird."
- Theosie
GiphyR.I.P. G.B.R.
"The Great Barrier Reef. It’s a dream of mine to see it one day."
- macaronsforeveryone
"Better book yr ticket soon…"
- BandicootPlastic5444
"I guess my dream is dead in the water, literally."
- macaronsforeveryone
"People say it's all dead but there's still an enormous amount of living reef to be seen. It's definitely worth going to."
- philjorrow
GiphySouthern Hemisphere
"Summer during end of the year, December."
- ixhejehdbejeh
"For whatever reason, we still play all the old Christmas songs. even White Christmas, when it's summer and like 40°C (104° F) outside."
- rawker86
"Christmas on the beach is sensational."
GiphyCrikey
"Steve Irwin."
- Ok-Chocolate5893
"When I was a kid it was my life goal to meet Steve Irwin, I was obsessed with the man. When he passed I was absolutely inconsolable for days."
"Also, does anyone remember the episode where he lays with his dog [Sui] before she passes? I've been trying to find the clip and was never able to."
"No idea why I want to make myself cry but it was a really touching moment."
- la-bano
"Bless that wonderful person."
"We miss him, my eyes just watered from thinking about him, he was my first ever celebrity death, and I was devastated as a young boy."
- Sir_Admiral_Chair
GiphyChomp!
"Crocodiles."
- Deana-Marie
"Ooh! Saltwater crocodiles!! I'd forgotten how big they can get."
- pennyraingoose
Giphy🎵 You better run, you better take cover...🎶
"Men at Work’s 'Down Under' automatically started playing in my head when I read the word Australia."
- Jaded195
GiphyChanged Perception
"German here, now living in Australia."
"Before: heavy drinkers, kangaroos and koalas."
"Now: Huntsman spiders, bushfires, flooding and heavy fines for everything."
- drschnaps
"Twas an early morning after a big night with my mates. Everyone was sleeping, and I got up from the couch to go to the toilet or whatever."
"I came back to witness a chunky Huntsman spider walking across the tiled floor, toward my friend's bedroom door."
"I could hear its footsteps."
‐ PHILOSOMATIQA
"The big spiders are fine, it’s the tiny ones that will kill you."
- My-Witty-Username
A lot of animals made the list, but koalas, echidna and wallabies did not.
Did anything else synonymous with Australia get forgotten?
What do you think when you hear Australia?
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People Share The Popular Misconceptions People Have About Their Home Country
Every country is unique in their traditions, their customs, and the way people live their lives. It makes traveling so desired by so many people.
However, with the spread of misinformation and the consumption of media that decides to simplify whole cultures, people think wrong things about an entire culture worth of people.
They might think a country acts a certain way, or sounds a certain way, or likes to look for elves in the mountains.
Wait, what?
Reddit user, SodaWithoutSparkles, wanted to know what people get wrong about where you live when they asked:
"What popular beliefs about your country just isn't true?"
There are the classics, the ones right at the top of people's minds when they think of another country, or another continent, worth of people. Wrong, yes, but popular, and maybe that's the problem.
Such A Small View Of A Large Continent
"Kenyans are all long-distance runners, live in huts, speak no English, and have pet wild animals. Ugh."
"So here goes: The long-distance guys are mainly from one community/ tribe called the Kalenjin that's about 15% of the population. Next, Kenya is still a developing nation with a lot of poverty, but there's a lot of modern architecture. Next, the country is rated 18 out of 100 on the English Proficiency Index. And lastly: you can apply for a special (and rarely-granted) permit for your bobcat named Babou, but keeping wildlife is not at all common. And the Kenya Wildlife Service will conduct regular visits to ensure Babou isn't being kept in Meowschwitz-like conditions."
movie_favorit
"People in the west have really outdated views on Africa. We tend to see the whole continent as one blob, and assume everyone's poor or living in a shack."
"Think that's partly due to all the charity videos at christmas. If you see Africans, they're often in a charity ad because some war torn region is suffering from food shortages or a lack of clean drinking water. Meanwhile, as you know, plenty of African countries are poor but wealth discrepancies are large so there are plenty of living relatively affluent lives in modern cities. I assume living in Nairobi wouldn't be that different to living in many a western city, if you can afford that lifestyle."
"Most of reddit is too poor to live comfortably in Kinshasa for example, even if the DRC's a genuinely poor country. And if you explain Ethiopia was Christian centuries before eastern Europe, our brains shut down."
"We're entirely clueless. Sorry about that."
MargarineAndLube
We'll Punch You, Then Apologize, Then Punch You Again
"We're polite"
Homirice
"A fellow Canadian"
bubalub
"We are polite. The misconception is that nice and polite mean the same thing."
Quite_Bitter_Being
They Also Aren't All Plumbers Who Fight Dragon Kings
"No Italian aren't all short, black haired, fat, mobsters that wear wine-stained tank tops and coppolas. We are loud tho"
fawovi7739
"I spent six months in Italy as an au pair, and I don’t think I met a single person I could have mistaken for a mobster. Everyone was very loud and smoked a lot though. I loved every second of it."
MiniatureAppendix
"Jesus, we are so loud. I'm an Italian living with n Germany. We are sooooo loud. Every-single-one. Incredible."
Lelo1293
Keep Things The Way They Are
"No we don't speak Spanish, yes we'll probably understand you when you speak Spanish to us but we'll probably think you're an a--hole. No we don't want to join up with Spain, we like our distance."
throwawaygoodcoffee
"You're from Portugal?"
CharlesChrist
'Ello Guv'na!
"People think British people are either stiff Upper lip public schoolboys or cockney brick layers/football hooligans. There's a whole world of people in between! Some of us don't even like football. One of my friends DOESNT EVEN DRINK TEA! Not sure why she's my friend to be honest."
movie_favorit
It's not just people misunderstand, but the animals of the region. You might think one thing about the creatures of a region only to find out that it's just not true at all.
So Common A Misconception You Have A Retort Ready To Go
"Welsh people shag sheep. Temptation is there but the static shock wouldn't be worth it."
movie_stearm
"I'm English but live in Powys. I get told this joke when other English people find out I live in Wales."
"The best retort I've heard from a Welshman is 'Yep. We shag them and we then sell them to the English to eat...'"
WestEssexEnclave
Let's Go A An Australian Bush Bash!
"We don’t all ride kangaroos to work fighting off giant spiders while keeping an eye out for drop bears."
"I work from home."
ElZoof
"There are a lot of kangaroos though. I feel like that is the one stereotype that tourists wouldn't feel ripped off at"
PissAnt5
"Why would we fight off giant spiders? I keep them as pets, they protect me from drop bears."
LaitueGonflable
Every country has myths, legends, or rumors themselves that spread about, gaining a legacy pushing them into lore. After all, how else do you explain the elves living in the mountains?
Think Of The Magic
"That some high percentage of us believe in elves."
Iplaymeinreallife
"I know about 25 Icelandic people and 2 of them seriously believe in elves and gnomes. To me, that's a pretty big percentage"
Pizzacanzone
"When there’s 5 people in your country and 2 of them believe in Elves, i don’t know, that’s a high percentage of people who believe in them"
CommunitRagnar
Credit His Origins Where They're From
"Dracula is often depicted as living in Transylvania. While he was imprisoned there for a while, he was actually the ruler of Wallachia (another historic Romanian province that neighbors Transylvania to the south). As for the rumor that we are vampires, I neither confirm nor deny this statement."
fawovi7739
"There was another similar question awhile back that said something to the effect of:"
"I don't know why people think Romania is full of vampires. I've lived here for 600 years and I've never met one."
differentiatedpans
At Least We're Nice Half The Year
"Iceland was not named as part of some conspiracy to keep folks away from a good thing. The name comes from the fact that early settlers arrived during summer and then suffered horrible losses of livestock and people once winter hit and icebergs were seen filling the fjords. It was more of a warning than anything, that this place sucked. Greenland on the other hand was probably named as such to make it sound more hospitable"
movie_online_2
Try to educate yourself before you go out traveling.
Educate yourself on how to find those hidden elves, that is!
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You don't realize you're living in history, until long after the moment is gone.
What can feel like small, mini moments, might add up to something in the long run.
A choice, a decision, an action, all building towards the finality of your life.
Unfortunately, some people's actions might have rubbed others the wrong way, bringing upon themselves mockery and shame.
Why?
For being right, it turns out.
Reddit user AllofaSuddenStory wanted to know who got the last laugh in the long run when they asked:
"Who is someone that was mocked at the moment, but then proven right years later?"
It's hard when the people we once thought of as "heroes" are discovered to kind of suck. Hard.
Live Strong
"Greg lemond. In 2001 he said lance Armstrong was probably doping. He was threatened he took a huge image hit and his business opportunities suffered."
"He never let up on lance despite the media campaigns, threats, damage to his reputation and business, and the recrimination of his peers in the cycling community. Until surprise surprise in 2012 it came out that lance Armstrong was doping. Who could have foreseen that? If only someone had told us."
"Oh wait. Greg Lemond did. A decade ago."
Cheeseyex
A British Gentleman Would Never--Oh Wait, They Did
"John Rae. Very skilled arctic explorer who unlike most of the rest of Europeans at the time wasn’t above learning from the Inuit. He was largely successful because of his willingness to learn from them and use their clothing and diet and techniques."
"Anyway, about ten years after the Franklin Expedition was lost John Rae was out looking for clues what happened because the British Admiralty had a standing reward of £10,000 for anyone who had credible information about the expeditions fate. He found some physical remnants of the expedition and had met with Inuit who’d seen some of the last surviving members of the expedition. They related to him how they’d been taken by disease, lack of food, and how some of them finally succumbed to cannibalism."
"Rae took this information back to England, where society was absolutely outraged how he dared to spin such drivel. Surely no sophisticated gentlemen of the hero’s character that would be in Sir John Franklin’s expedition would act so savagely!"
"John Rae never got the award. Years later someone else did who told of a story that was correct also to some degree, but less than Rae had been."
"In modern times bone fragments have been found with telltale cut marks, thereby proving John Rae and the Inuit right."
rhutanium
Undoing All The Good Work They Did
"Johnny Rotten"
"Banned from the BBC for ousting Jimmy Saville as being a horrendous pedophile."
"Some 500 cases of abuse. Had his own set of keys to a psychiatric hospital where he would frequently abuse vulnerable children."
Danuta_
Some people become so publicized for their mockery, that their situations and scenarios become common knowledge, the butt of jokes, and fuel for feeling bad for being so wrong later.
Don't Joke About It
"Lindy Chamberlain. A dingo really did eat her baby. :("
TinyGreenTurtles
"Even at the time of Azaria's death aboriginal trackers that were brought in said a dingo did it but because they weren't white no one listened and the poor family was put through hell after losing there child."
ipoopcubes
And A String Of Awful Copycats Followed This Legitimate Case
"Stella Liebeck, the lady who got burned with McDonald's hot coffee. The media mocked her and accused her of a frivolous lawsuit but it was an ongoing problem that McDonald's served dangerously hot coffees that had injured many others."
"The coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns to her pelvic region and she was hospitalized for 8 days while she had to get skin grafts, and continued medical care for 2 years related to the burns. She originally just wanted her medical bills covered but McDonald's tried giving her an insultingly low amount, so then she was forced to open a lawsuit. The courts rightfully sided with her and forced McDonald's to regulate the temperature on their hot beverages."
IdRatherNotNo
Speaking Out To This Day
"Monica Lewinsky. That poor woman was dragged through the mud and seeing everyone reassess what was done to her has been bittersweet."
"ETA: Bittersweet bc more people seem to understand she was a victim (sweet), but she was really young, and decades of her life were spent being a public punching bag (bitter)"
happycos
Some of these stories, when examined with the power of medical hindsight, shows we really don't know anything about medicine.
It's A Wonder All Humans Aren't All Dead
"Joseph Lister"
"First proposed that germs caused post-operative infections, and recommended that surgical instruments be sterilized between operations."
"People thought he was nuts."
Positive-Source8205
"Yep, in addition the this, Joseph’s peers in medical community actively dismissed his suggestions for years due to the fact that they could then be considered culpable in causing harm to patients"
"Ironically, delayed uptake continued to harm patients"
95CJH
How Are We Not All Dead?
"Ignác Semmelweis"
"First doctor to champion hand washing as a means to prevent spreading infection. Everyone made fun of him."
saltyFr3nchFry
"He also noticed out of 2 maternity clinics there was a higher death rate in one because students were doing postmortems and then going straight to the clinic without washing their hands. Who would have thought dead people matter wouldn't go well with pregnant women and new born babies"
OmegaStealthJam
Remove A Handle, Save Lives
"John snow in 1854 tried to tell everyone about cholera, and how it was being caused by the water supply, no one believed him until he took illegal action and saved many lives"
Verticlefornow
"He didn't do anything illegal, he collected evidence and took it to the local government who had the pump handle removed. It was actually late in the outbreak, if not well after the outbreak so how many He saved with that action is questionable, but the methods and the use of spatial epidemiology was groundbreaking."
VectorB
Oh Yeah, Worldwide Pandemic.
"The doctor in China who was arrested for trying to stop the spread of Covid from the start"
youburyitidigitup
"They knew it was coronavirus by 2nd December 2019. They knew it was a cousin virus to SARS and MERS. They did everything it their power to keep it quiet til January..."
"...Also I do understand looking back that we can seem to trace back the data/ rabbit hole to June/ July 2019, some even can go back to March 2019. I'm pointing out that I simply heard/ read the officially "there's a new coronavirus in Wuhan" in digital print on that date. That's when this all started for me personally."
Turfanator
"And his name was Dr. Li Wenliang. May he never be forgotten. salutes"
safer_than_ever
“delirious ravings”
"Alfred Wagner hypothesized plate tectonics in the 1920’s, but this wasn’t an accepted notion until the 50’s. He was a meteorologist, and copped a lot of flak from the geological community at the time."
SaraBunks
"This is the one I was looking for. He was ridiculed and talked down on because of his plate tectonics theory, calling his ideas 'delirious ravings.'”
Daninumblr
Dingo Trauma
"Lindy Chamberlain. A dingo really did eat her baby. :("
TinyGreenTurtles
"People used to say that 'a dingo ate my baby!' Mockingly as a joke when I was in school. I never knew what it was from, then when I found out I was horrified and completely disgusted that people I knew were running around mocking a woman who lost her baby to a wild animal attack for fun."
CannibalCapra
DNA BEFORE
"Barbara McClintock, she postulated the existence of transposons (certain types of genes) in DNA BEFORE anybody even knew what the actual structure of DNA is like, she was widely mocked by the scientific community at the time. Transposons were later confirmed to exist and she was awarded the Nobel."
ThousandSunnySenpai
Floods
"Duff Roblin, the Premier of Manitoba. After the 1950 flood, Roblin's government initiated the Red River Floodway project. The floodway diverts part of the river around the city. At the time he was mocked and a lot of people thought it was a waste of money, because 'a flood like that will never happen again.'"
"It's been estimated that it's saved $40 billion CAD in flood damages since it was completed in 1968. I was there for the '97 flood. The floodway saved my home and my in-laws' home."
deagh
Depletion
"Sherry Rowland. Discovered the effect of CFCs on ozone depletion and received an immense level of blow back from industry. Not only that, but invited talks and collabs were rescinded within the scientific community. Poor guy was ostracized. 20 years later after his (and Molina’s) discovery, he’s finally recognized with a Nobel prize."
GadgetGo
Allergies
"Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered Penicillin, spent almost 10 years trying to convince the medical bodies of his time that it was worth investing time and resources to experiment with it, but was basically told to pound sand despite the respect he had prior to the discovery. Lot of good it did me, I was lucky enough to be born allergic. Happy for the rest of you at least."
The-BIG-Plant
Capsized
"Henry Freeman, a lifeboatman in Whitby. He tried to get the other lifeboatmen to wear cork lifejackets, but no-one would but him. During a great storm, the lifeboat was launched several times to help struggling vessels and sailors. On their sixth launch, disaster struck and the lifeboat capsized. Only Henry survived thanks to his cork life jacket. They became compulsory for lifeboatmen shortly afternoon."
alizare
80s Noise
"Richard Stallman. Warned us back in the 80s that if we allow corporations to rule the internet that nobody will have privacy or freedom on the web, among many other things. r/stallmanwasright"
ProtonSlack
Truth
"Courtney Love on Weinstein."
lundy7881
"There's a small bit in the book 'The Game' (highly recommend not reading it). The author makes fun of Courtney the whole way through because she's reading books on fraud and alleging that people have stolen her money. At the end, he adds in a sentence or two about how someone in their house looks at her finances and goes, 'Wow, it's true."
SkinHairNails
Concussion
"Dr Bennet Omalu who found that American football players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy/brain concussions which were slowly affecting their neurological and psychological functions. He was strongly opposed at first but then proved right. His biographic movie is named 'Concussion.'"
sweettooth_92
Just keep an open mind going forward.
And wash your hands.
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It's easy to feel homesick.
You travel far away, far from what you've known, to live somewhere else. During your excursion you'll let your mind wander, thinking back on the things you remember most of your homeland. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the sheer amount of alcohol you and your countrymen all drank.
Everyone's country of origin has something unique that stands out about it when comparing it to the rest of the world, and we're sharing them today.
Reddit user, ManavMishra07, wanted to know what makes your country stand out when they asked:
"What's your country known for?"
Sometime what your country is known for can be obvious, as if it needed to be written on the side of your flag or something.
Don't Forget The Socialized Healthcare
"Maple syrup and politeness."
Mortar_n_Pestle
"Canada"
Puzzleheaded-Show289
Wait, So Who Lives In Them Now?
"Pyramids, for the last time we do not live in fucking pyramids okay"
iIAdHmSa
"Sooo, do you just use them as weekend homes or something?"
not-gandalf-bot
Mountains As Far As The Chocolate Can See
"Chocolate, cheese, watches, neutrality and mountains."
dia6hf
"Switzerland"
TangibleRalph
Other times it can be all the fun stuff, the things most adults would love to do every time they go or the stuff teenagers get up to when they think no one is looking at them.
NOT How You're Thinking Of It
"Spiders, snakes, lizards, mosquitoes, flies, crocodiles, sharks, ants, toads and c-nts, lots of c-nts"
Zealousideal
"Australia"
grenzor
Learn Your Geography
"Weed and sex workers"
"Edit: Alright I think it’s time to clarify that Amsterdam is not a country, it’s the capital of a wonderful small country called the Netherlands. And while we’re at it, Holland is not a synonym of the Netherlands, it is only a part of it"
thedivineconspiracy
All Of The Fun Stuff
"Banks, castles, a very specific kind of molten cheese and a popular destination for our neighbouring countries to buy alcohol, cigarettes and coffee because it‘s cheaper"
InfiniteOmniverse
"Luxembourg."
"Used to buy cigarettes there when I was an au pair in Trier."
Aimil27
And then there's these, the stuff you kind of wish everyone would forget about your home country.
Now We Know What The Queen Gets Up To
"Bad teeth, tea, the queen and knife crime"
Hot_Ad_7663
"Always wondered what the queen does anyways"
random_tiktoker
Rubbing It In Everybody Else's Face
"Spreading freedom at the point of a gun"
TimFromTampa
"There is literally nothing more American than that"
YardOk8020
Know Your History
"A failed Artist."
Zealousideal
"It doesn't matter how many Austrian artists are great there are always a failed one that spoils the bunch"
glowing_feather
"Don’t worry. Most people think he’s German."
Leo_Kovacq
Turns Out The Nazis Ruined A Lot Of Things
"Chocolate, fries and beer."
AcanthocephalaLow590
"Much like our waffles we crumbled in the hands of the Nazis."
Rwokoarte
Don't be ashamed of where you came from. It's what made you who you are today.
Maybe be ashamed if they're still doing the stuff that made them infamous.
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