The Whiskers of Oz

“Why Australia?” The easy answer is that we’ve visited Australia (and Melbourne) twice and loved it. The parts we saw while driving from Sydney to Melbourne were reminiscent of the California coast with gorgeous ocean vistas, but the animals are stranger and the accents are charming.

When I (Emily) lost my phone in a cab in Melbourne, I was in a panic because we had been using my phone’s international plan to do nearly everything on the trip (research, maps, purchases, etc). I assumed the phone was lost forever. However, after we figured out how to use the “find my phone” feature, our former cab driver happily answered and offered to drive the phone back to our Airbnb for us. When we offered to pay the cab driver for his time, he declined and instead brought us some pastries and coffee for our trouble. This was in central Melbourne, the largest city in Australia.

It was an experience that epitomized Australia’s famous “no worries” culture. But Australians can get worked up about important things, like when an Olympic equestrian was recently investigated for wearing a “mankini” during a riding event. Australians were enraged that the rider was investigated for what they saw as good fun.

Australia is full of surprises. Despite the newness of its growing glass city skylines, Australia is an ancient land. The Indigenous people of Australia belong to the oldest continuing culture in the world. Australia also claims title to the oldest object ever found on Earth (a zircon crystal believed to be 4.4 billion years old). And it’s one of the few places to view stromatolites, which are the oldest visible life forms on the planet. What a unique privilege to be part of this land’s unceasing timeline.

And for animal lovers like us, what could be better than spending more time with the wacky creatures that call Australia home? (Over 80% of which are endemic to the continent.) This includes platypuses that have venomous spurs, and the short-beaked echidna, which feeds its offspring by “oozing” milk from the skin within its marsupial pouch. Also: baby echidnas are called “puggles”. Also: echidna lay eggs. Echidna not!

As Australian residents, we’ll also have the thrill of learning to check our shoes for venomous snakes and extremely large spiders. Peaceful beach walks could lead to encounters with shark eggs or 10-foot-long beach worms.

In other words, as lovely as it is, Australia also promises to shock and maybe even scare us, which seems appealing as we stumble into middle age. Plus, we certainly won’t run out of things to see.