I used to have a foot pump. Can’t think what happed to it. I still use a manual pump for bicycle tyres …well, when I start riding the bike again anyway. 
1 Like
I used to have a tyre pressure checker, some feeler gauges and a starting handle. 
1 Like
That’s not entirely accurate, There is a family reunion visa PR scheme which includes parents.
You have to be resident in Australia for 10 years to receive a state pension which is increased twice a year.
No one has died from a spider bite since the 1960s when anti-venom was devised. I have lost one dog to a spider bite. I have never been bitten even though I come across red backs in my garden all the time (they live in my garage door for a start).
The incidence of snakebites annually in Australia is between 3 and 18 per 100,000 with an average mortality rate of 0.03 per 100,000 per year, or roughly 1 to 2 persons (looked it up). They are usually people trying to kill the snake, leave them alone and they will leave you alone. You rarely see a snake they are are not hunting humans.
Sharks do not attack people on land so just stay out of the water. Crocs do attack people on land but very, very rarely - usually aboriginal children swimming in a waterhole it seems.
1 Like
Bruce the thought of just sitting on a toilet and having a spider bite you on the bum. Or being kicked in the goolies by a 6ft Kangaroo is not my idea of a plesant life style. Lying out in the sun and having a poisonous snake taking a bit out of a penis is a bit worrying
Family reunion scheme doesn’t work if you have no family in Australia. Resident for 10 years before getting a pension is no good if you are already an OAP.
Bum-biting spiders? …and Dingoes
2 Likes
We have had the creep of more places charging for air, but it can still be found. A relatively newer treat are bicycle repair stations that are showing up in our parks and trails that include hand air pumps, but I think they made their way from Europe?
Blasphemy! 
I’m a lot more worried about the teenager driving the weapon of mass destruction next to me and staring down at her phone.
1 Like
That was more for @realspeed 's benefit, personally I dislike sand more than sharks (the damn stuff gets everywhere). In a way I miss the English shingle beaches though I do not miss the cold water at all.
1 Like
It’s hard, in the final analysis, to work out what will be missed. 
I would think spider bites on the toilet are very rare - being randomly kicked by kangaroos even rarer and a snake would never just come up to somebody lying in the sun and bite them
1 Like
I’m sure Australia is a pleasant place to live by and large. I think Mike and Teresa are pretty easily shocked though. The points mentioned seem fairly minor to me. I also think all countries have something to grumble about.
Edit: Actually, on a second watching of the video, they don’t seem shocked. Just pointing out a few differences. 
Did anyone watch their first video? Same sort of thing just more of them and much earlier in their experience
It is interesting to see/hear what different people notice when they come here.
I was in Oz for a few weeks early 80s, and I guess there were many things about the place I could call culture shock: tiny beer glasses, free promotional cigarettes handed out, the rat tail hair cut.
Ah the 7 oz and 5 oz beer, so favoured by Queensland businessmen at lunch time (in their dapper safari suits with short trousers and long white socks). I haven’t seen them for decades (that doesn’t mean you can’t get them though)
Are they the one’s that play pool and have Bundy and Coke for breakfast.
You certainly wouldn’t get promotional cigarettes handed out now and you wouldn’t see many rats tail hair styles, that fashion has long gone
I’m pleased to hear times are a changin
not changing - long changed on those 2 aspects.
I thought someof you might be interested in this, I came across a typical free BBQ in a park in Adaminaby mentioned by Mike and Teresa. this park only had one but in bigger towns there are many.
That rather grubby plate in the base is the old control system where there was a single button to turn it on, they are far more sophisticated now.
