Foster's, it's Australian for beer ... except we don't drink it.Credit: Ken Irwin
Ever alert for drop bears and roos on CBD street corners, Michael Gebicki tackles the enduring foreign misconceptions about a holiday in Australia.
"It must be so pretty with all the dear little kangaroos flying about," says the Duchess of Berwick and Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, and does that make you cringe? Wilde was taking the mickey, sure, but even so, the world is full of myths, misunderstanding and confabulation that foreign travellers firmly believe about the reality of life in our wide brown land, at least until they get here.
To many Brits we're uncouth convict spawn in a more or less constant state of inebriation, which is required since we live in a land crawling with venomous spiders and snakes. Many Americans think of us as a knockabout crew of funsters who greet one another with a hearty "G'day mate" . On the Australia Day long weekend, it's time to slay some of the myths that would-be travellers hold with a few home truths.
The Myth
Koalas are more or less permanently stoned on eucalyptus leaves, which accounts for their sleepy-eyed insouciance.
The Truth
Not stoned, just tired... the misunderstood koala.
Eucalyptus leaves are not a mind-altering substance. A diet made up exclusively of eucalyptus leaves is so low in nutrients that a koala barely has the energy to stay awake for about four hours each day. Opening its eyes wide takes tremendous effort. They also have tiny brains, since a large brain uses a lot of effort, which the koala doesn't have. Despite the small cranium, nothing irritates a koala more than a tourist calling it a bear. It's an arboreal marsupial.
The Myth
Foster's is Australian for "beer".
The Truth
The last time I drank Foster's it was in an English pub, and, just as I may jive along to a Hall and Oates number, it was nostalgia rather than affection that made me do it. Does anyone in Australia who is not a tourist actually drink the stuff?
The Myth
Vegemite? You cannot be serious.
The Truth
The reason that Vegemite terrifies visitors to our shores is what is known as the wasabi error. Spread it on your toast like peanut butter and you will quickly learn the error of your ways. Brits are more savvy, having encountered Marmite at some time in their youth, but if you want to bring shock and awe into an American's life, casually slide the Vegemite jar across the breakfast table and suggest that this is an exotic and traditional Australian breakfast food. There are some substances that are best consumed only by those born to it. Natto in Japan. Tsampa and yak butter tea in Tibet. Peanut butter with jelly in the USA. Vegemite is ours. Man up, or leave the table.
The Myth
The seas are full of sharks. And they bite.
The Truth
This is one myth with a grain of truth. The recent spike in attacks and deaths from sharks – four fatalities nationwide in 2014 – has focused attention on the number of sharks off our beaches, and it's not a pretty story. The shark alarm has cleared the water at Bondi Beach several times this summer, and two great whites found dead in its nets. Last summer, more than 170 sharks were caught off five Perth beaches. Not one was a great white, the species that copped the blame for the attacks that motivated the program, but the number is impressive. The chance of drowning, dying from bee stings or a fatal accident en route to the beach is much higher than that of becoming the victim of a shark attack but even so, the idea of an apex predator waiting to ambush from the deep and ingest some of your body parts does gnaw at the mind with unusual tenacity.
The myth
That a shrimp on the barbie?
The truth
We don't barbecue shrimps, they're not up to it. Prawns are big, shrimps are, well, shrimpish. There's a little more to it than that, but that's about all you need to know for the backyard barbie. The shrimp on the barbie expression comes from the mouth of Paul Hogan in possibly the only clever advertising campaign that the Australian Tourism Commission (as it used to be known) ever devised to sell Australia to the world. As Hoges himself might say of a shrimp, "Call that an edible crustacean?" (Withdrawing giant prawn from back pocket). "Nah, mate. That's an edible crustacean."
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