Some facts
Since most Americans actually know very little about Australia, here are a few facts to fill you in:
1. The land area of Australia is only slightly smaller than the continental US.
2.There are only 18 million people living in Australia -- this is less than the amount that the population of China increases each year.
3.When you fly from Sydney to LA, you arrive before you left.
4.Eighty percent of the plants and animals in Australia exist nowhere else on earth.
Most (and by most I mean ALL) of the facts above came to my attention from a book by Bill Bryson called In a Sunburned Country. I want to share a paragraph from this book:
"Every cultural instinct and previous experience tells you that when you travel this far you should find, at the very least, people on camels. There should be unrecognizable lettering on the signs, and swarthy men in robes drinking coffee from thimble-sized cups and puffing on hookahs, and rattletrap buses and potholes in the road and a real possibility of disease on everything you touch--but no, it's not like that at all. This is comfortable and clean and familiar. Apart from a tendency among men of a certain age to wear knee-high socks with shorts, these people are just like you and me. This is wonderful. This is exhilarating. This is why I love to come to Australia."And this place, that's so like home also happens to have animals that don't walk or run, but hop -- and carry babies in pouches. And another one that is toothless, venemous, fur-covered, egglaying, semiaquatic and has webbed clawed feet. Am I dreaming? Remember that show Sliders?
My route around Australia
Since the only thing I love more than reading maps, is making maps, I have created this excellent map just for you that outlines the route my journey will take.
Click on the image to view larger.Since I'll be spending the next 14 days before I leave moving boxes of my stuff; patching holes in my walls; weighing my luggage; eating all the extra desserts and sandwiches that you left behind; and spending some quality time with my car before our divorce, I will be quite busy and so I will write my next entry, which will include more details on my itinerary, during my 20 hours in the air.
