Swimming instructors at Casuarina swimming club in Darwin, Australia, have a unique way to help teach their young students to swim faster - by having a crocodile chase them during speed trials! The instructors use a six-foot saltwater crocodile with its jaws taped shut, but even with all those precautions, students still find the experience a tad intimidating. Yet this new teaching method seems to be working - the students have found that it helps shave seconds off their swimming time!

Nah ...wanted a lift to the 19th hole, but when the golfer refused [silly thing to do] ...the croc decided to drive itself.

Did a lot of camping there out of canoes when I was a teen. You gotta go in Jan-March or the clouds of skeeters will drain you.

If I go that far south nowadays I'll usually take my boat down into the Thousand Islands area for some fishing. Last time there I pulled up a 200 lb Jew Fish. Protected species.......

Being native born to Daytona Beach, I'll enlighten the readers as to what the difference between a Yankee and Damn Yankee is. A Yankee comes down here and spends their money. A damn yankee comes down here and stays.

  

Apparently they're not such a delicacy since word got out that one gave a 28 ft salty one almighty belly ache



Oi, don't go giving our swim secrets away...next they'll be taking our gold medals at the next Olympics....there again, could always dispense with the tape.

we could export the tape along with the crocs.....(extra fast bio-degradable!).....  

Yep....some of that paper tape & a few 25 footers.

I revisited Florida last year and on 1st July, (our wedding anniversary), spent a fun night at Medieval Times. Kinda nice for our lass to have a knight ride up to her and throw a flower.

I'm not sure it'd work as well in England, it's by no means certain the knights here would bother to remove the plantpot first...

Probably not....the cold, damp English weather 'd have 'em too busy polishing their armour to prevent rust setting in.

To all those who live here and love it, pay taxes, own a home and have been here a long time, do not let some people call you a "damn yankee" I have raised 2 kids here and grandchildren, my grandfather lived here most of his life and so did my uncle. My neice just moved here, always wanted to be here with me, not where she was. She LOVES the heat, hates cloudy days, rainy days. This young lady with a college education will only help here. The school system stinks and she took exams to get into college here and was flabbergasted at how easy it was compaired to other states. After over 25 years, and how I personally feel about Florida any "native" who gives me a hard time is someone who might be the reason it took florida until the "70s" to get rid of water coolers labelled "whites only", and don't want anyone to come here. I am proud to live here and pay for what I have. Yes it's nice and yes we have some things here that no one likes but I wouldn't live anywhere else. I have lived in N.Y. to Colo. and I think this is just the best state to live in.

Speaking of spiders, my friend just was bitten by a brown recluse (think thats how its spelled not sure) but had to have a large portion of his calf removed due to bite. We have little spiders to that will make you very sick too.

Them's some bad spiders. Their bite can take months to heal. And, as your friend found, it can cause some serious problems too.

Brown Recluse spiders are NOT native to Florida but are in fact Damn Yankees.

I was bitten on the left calf by a 'white-tailed' spider here in Oz....took 2 & a half years to heal completely, and even 20 or so years later it still flares up from time to time. It wasn't so much the venom, but rather its digestive enzymes and the associated bacteria....within a few hours the flesh starts necrotising and rotting away. It took some intensive treatment and extremely strong drugs to halt the process....and during that period in the hospital I was almost begging them to take off my leg, so much was the pain.

Yep, there sure are some nasty bitey things in the world....and sometimes it feels like more than half of 'em are here in Oz....'tis winter, the mozzies should be gone now, but I still manage to get bitten more than thrice a day.

I read somewhere that Florida is going through a drought and could be facing water restictions soon if it doesn't break. Know what that is like...we are on level five water restictions here in S.E. Queensland, and right now one wouldn't want to get caught with a garden hose in hand. It wouldn't only be because of the very stiff fines that apply, but more like the dozen or so neighbours suddenly pouncing on top of you.

At present we are supposed to take only 4 minute showers to conserve water...and I was not at all impressed with the fat joke of one radio announcer, who commented that some would surely struggle to get the acres clean under just a four minute shower.

I stayed for awhile on a coffee plantation at Mt Hagen in the highlands of New Guinea in the early seventies. One day, walking happily through a group of trees, I was advised by people I was walking with to take an alternate route.....wondering why, they pointed upwards.......I was walking into a giant spiderweb that was like a hammock strung between two trees......with a spider in the middle that looked about the size of a dinnerplate.
The way the light was did not make it very visible, but early the next morning I returned and the web was covered with dew and looked like a massive sheet of diamonds......wish I’d had a decent camera then......

The size of the insects there was amazing.......millipedes were multimillepedes.

Spiders the size of our funnelwebs and just as attractive would walk across the tiled loungeroom floor and the native women would nonchalantly walk up to them with their bare feet and slowing squash & grind them with their big tows......I was a teenage arachnophobe......it wasn’t pretty.......

One morning I woke up with two bites on the outside of my leg just above the ankle.......they developed quickly into two large boils the size of small marbles and the boils persisted for weeks.....not particularly painful, just irritating. Many months later they healed somewhat, one has even faded, but what I presume was the first bite with the most venom, left a dark brown patch a little larger than these smilies.........and several times a year becomes insanely itchy and bleeds for weeks and then settles down again......this has persisted for well over 30 years. Lord only knows what bit me......I don’t even wanna know what was crawling around in my bed!!.....

We seem to top all the lists....in any form of 'killing' thingie....some silly jellyfish up north is the deadliest of all critters.

All I've ever had to dodge was a brownie....or two....

We have had water restrictions in Florida for years, you water according to address, odd even day things and once a week, or when they are nice and we have had plenty of rain we get two days, yet commercial properties water anytime they want, city workers openly waste water, 10 guys watching one guy working. We always wonder about that? Back to water restrictions, wash the car only with hose shut off, you can hand water everything but not use a sprinker system, weird, cause you can set it for a short time and it will just use a small amount for the whole yard, just to keep the plants alive. Also, no limit on in home use. Again major corps. can have running water fountains and run sprinkler systems anytime to keep the properties looking great. Fines here if caught are $500.00 american money for first offence, second offence is court appearance, judge isn't very nice even if you state, like I heard someone say, judge, it's raining out right now and the sprinklers are on outside the courthouse watering the plants. Government rules, we don't, and they don't have to follow the rules, just us little guys and gals. Ever see pictures of the white house lawn and rose garden, not like Bush has any water restrictions, Any Governor, Senate member, anyone in govenment seem to be allowed to do anything and the taxpayers pay. Nice Job if you can get it. I would run but hey if you ever have done anything you wouldn't want your parents to know about I assure you someone would dig it up and it would be all over the news, net, tabloid, you name it. When I was in my twenties, I did stuff (like Clinton) but I inhaled.  Didn't inhale, we all know that was a crock, but it made for great news didn't it. Opps off track again, sorry. to long to read. Oh well..... Can't even remember what the whole thing was about in the first place. Later.

Came across a taipan West of Dalby a few years back....was mating season and quite a harrowing experience. It was easily 10 - 12 foot long and would not allow us past on the bit of road it was occupying....kept rearing up and striking quite ferociously at us if we approached any closer. Despite being in a large furniture removal truck, my traveling companion would not proceed because he said they can get up into the chassis and find their way into the cab....

Uh, oh...thought I....and being a 16yo migrant lad from England, where the most potent slithery thing I'd seen was a non-venomous grass snake, it was a case of: "ya wanna reverse this thing back the 400 miles to Brisbane" Having read that the Western Taipan has more than enough venom in a single bite to drop a dozen elephants, I wanted out of there pronto, like yesterday, even.

Luckily for us, a couple of Aboriginal blokes came along to extricate us from our (potentially bowel moving) predicament....brave boys, those, very, very brave boys. They approached the striking taipan, caught it with their bare hands and removed it from the road....



I saw somewhere that we have a species of stonefish which may be the deadliest of all critters....its venom capable of causing total paralysis within 30 - 40 seconds...death within a minute or so. Got a feeling it was on one of Steve Irwin's doco's.

  Steve Irwin "RIP". Widow and Daughter doing great, glad he has such a strong family. Bindi is soooooo sweet and she will grow up to be just like daddy I am sure, great role model for the little girls in this world. Daddy would be so proud.

You find mating harrowing?
You must be doing it wrong...

Interestingly there's been 2 or 3 people who have survived Taipan bites...
Of course, we ALL 'know' Ayres Rock is just a burial mound for all them that didn't....

You obviously didn't know my first missus, then....reasons to be fearful, parts 1, 2 and 3. These days I'm not mating at all....too old n' grumpy to have the patience for full-time kids. I mean, I love it when my kids bring my grandkids to visit (visit being the operative word), but when I weary from all the excitement/attention giving, I can say to my kids: "Don't you think it's time to take these lil mites home and get 'em ready for bed.




Um, that's Uluru these days...especially to we European invaders....and now I know that I shan't bother to dig it up to see wots under it.

...yep, they're silly alright.

You ought to see their impression of Clint Eastwood in 'Dirty Harry'.

"In all that confusion ...did I fire six deadly stingers into you, or only five?" "To be honest, in all that swimming & diving, I can't remember, but ...." "Do ya feel lucky, snorkelpunk?" ....."Well, .... Do ya?!"

Their acting is so damned transparent!   

Yeah, I usually like a performance with more substance....but in the case of the (deadly) impersonating jellyfish, I'd be more than happy to miss the show entirely. Was up at Airlie Beach a few years back when a rescue launch brought some guy in who got stung by one off one of the islands....poor bugger, was touch and go for a while.

helluva head stone......



probably just as well......more than two thirds of the rock is actually hidden beneath the ground.....and wot with you an' your gammy back an' all......

Ah, so it's like an iceberg, eh...the biggest bit's underneath.



I didn't really need an excuse not to dig it up. You're right, with me crook back I didn't wanna have to anyway, so when Jafo said wot wos under it I wos relieved. Now yer tells me it's mostly underground (like a huge bloody great chunk of it), I can refer to that instead and save face big time when I make the formal announcement not to dig up Ayers...er, Uluru on national telly. Thank goodness you came along when you did, like before somebody tricked me into it by suggesting that Jafo lied about all them people bein' buried under there.