Cool Facts About Australia

We both learnt some weird and fascinating things about Australia as we went along...

- In Australia, there are 25,000 wild camels (who would’ve thought!), 60 types of kangaroos, nearly 19 million people, and 37 million sheep.AND about 7000 beaches!!!!!

- Coral Spawns once a year for three days, seven to ten days after a full moon (different times a year for different parts of the world). The ocean fills with white clouds of coral spawning!

- Termite mounds in Australia are made of termite spit, poop, and cellulose, and are up to 18 feet (7 meters) in height. Some are built (by the termites, of course) magnetically to align north/south so they get minimal heat.

- Whales have sex in threes. The male penis is 14% of its entire body length, and can not be maneuvered without the assistance of a third whale!!

- Honey is bee puke.

- The Platypus is a monotreme, which means that it has one hole for every function: peeing, pooping, laying eggs, etc.

- Box Jellyfish fill the ocean waters of the northern half of Australia from October to April. They have 4 meter (10 feet) long tentacles, and their stings can kill a human in 3 minutes!

- Children in outback Australia receive their education through the School of the Air. The lessons are broadcast over the radio to cover 1.3 mil. Sq. km. of land.

- The low lying West MacDonnell Range in the red center of Australia used to be as high as the Himalayas millions of years ago!

- Approximately 100,000 Australian aboriginals don’t know their parents or original communities due to government removal. In the 1970’s, aboriginal children were taken from their parents to be integrated into "modern society".

- The road trains (hauling trucks like 18-wheeler trucks in America) in Australia can be up to 150 feet long, with up to 4 trailers and 98 wheels.

- In Darwin, Australia, the 1941 Japanese bombings were twice as big as Pearl Harbor, and then there were 64 bombings in that one year!! Fourteen ships were sunk, and then in the 1970’s, the Japanese bought the scrap metal back from these ships THEY bombed!

- Barramundi fish are born males, then change to females as adults…to lay the male eggs!

Brad