Back in Feb 2017 you probably read my travel warning “What not to do in Sydney” and thus survived your visit to The Emerald City. But Australia is not just Sydney, and while most victims are lured by the siren song of the harbour town, some escape from the littoral frying pan into the literal fire.
Despite repeated warnings, our more feckless visitors trespass into the ‘burbs. Some — and this makes my butt clench — leave the relative safety of the Australian shoreline (discounting our marine predators) and go bush!
Um. Didn’t anyone explain to you that “Wolf Creek” (2005) was a documentary?
It’s been almost a decade since my earlier travel warning was published, and in that time social media has become the one-stop-shop for millions of audacious travellers who want to roll their mortality-dice and visit the deathtrap downunder.
Currently the socials are bloated with unhappy young Saxons looking to escape their dismal homeland. They sit in cattle-class for 24 hours then step out of the airport, duck their first swooping magpie, and more sunlight than they’ve seen in twelve months punches them right between the eyes.
Maybe it’s the sudden jolt of vitamin D, but they fall in love with the place instantly.
From recent Coroner’s reports we know that newly smitten tourists often get a bit light-headed and giddy. They exit at Central train station and, bedazzled by boards filled with fresh locales, blurt something fatal like “Penrith? Ay there’s a Penrith in Cumbria is it wat? Mind yer dookers boyo!” and the poor bastards are never seen again.
Disappearing downunder is simple as that. It doesn’t have to involve being ostentatiously devoured by our wildlife — although that’s an option — I mean, 25 shark attacks incidents in 2025 alone, not bragging.
Becoming unalived in Oz is relatively simple: “A daytrip to Mount Druitt? Sounds fun!” In theory, it’s possible you’d survive. More probable is that you’d get your head stomped by a 400lb Samoan primary schooler to the tune of “The Message” by OneFour.
Which is my way of saying that straying outside the Tourism Sanitized Zone (or “Zee” as survivors call it) is prima-facie a very bad idea.
In totes reality, those beaches you stop at to take sexy selfies for the losers following you back home? They all back onto unsexy suburbs populated by sullen, unfriendly “real Australians” who might invite you into their home and treat you to a succulent Chinese meal.
Or they might be fattening you up for their Bull Arabs.
I mean, toss your coin.
But, as frightening as this sounds, the ‘burbs are nothing like our country towns.
I mean, the government really needs to step in and slap warning stickers on electric vehicles that can’t get you between capital cities during daylight hours (i.e., all of them), because coasting into Cobar in your Tesla at 6pm doesn’t mean you won’t see Dubbo anytime soon, it means you may not see it ever.
Those who know Dubbo know this is no great loss, but (and how you’d fit this all on one warning sticker I don’t know) in terms of dot-points on your bucket list, I doubt it includes ending up at the bottom of a disused mineshaft rubbing lotion onto your skin.
Even if you did get mobile again, one kamikaze 200lb roo after another will try to ram you off the road in the dark. That long-haul trucker who stops to help? Let’s just say those carcasses hanging in his meat locker aren’t all heiffers.
If this makes you pause, remember it all pales into utter insignificance should you be dumb / stupid / cursed / or unlucky enough to venture into the outback.
When the bitumen stops and the red sand begins, if will feel like you’re being watched — because you are. They are waiting for night. They know you won’t make it to the next town. They’re patient. They’re hungry.
And that’s just the birdlife!
I know it doesn’t seem so on your cheap-ass tourist map, but our outback is as big as the United States. 90% of Australia’s first nations people lived within 50km of the coast for a reason. Its because the remaining 4000 km (a space wider than the moon) is filled with creatures that kill and eat dipshits like you.
Its the only place on Earth where dinosaurs forgot to go extinct.
But sure, come visit!
Buy those bullshit fake Ugg boots at the bullshit fake Ugg boot shop in Sydney Harbour.
Drink that yellow watery piss they call beer for $12 a schooner.
Grab your backpack for a quick daytrip to the Rock and back, I mean why not. It’s only the same distance as it is from London to Cairo.
You wouldn’t be the first to come unstuck, nor the last. Because you dumb cocks don’t listen. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to save your asses one more time.