Name: 50 Things That Are Only Possible In Australia
Uploaded: 2020-03-12T08:40:51.000Z
Duration: 10 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Okay it’s Pop quiz time! Which country has the longest fence in the world? How about

the 2nd largest Greek population? Um, Three times more sheep than people? Ok, one word

will give it away: kangaroos. Yes, I’m talking about the Land Down Under. So, what do you

Let’s start with the name. “Australia” comes from the Latin word “australis,”

meaning “southern.” Way back in the 2nd century, there were legends of a mysterious

“terra australis incognita” or “unknown southern land.” Well, now it’s very known,

Despite the stereotypes of hot sunny weather year-round, the Australian Alps, which are

the highest mountain range in the country, get more snow than the Swiss Alps do! Better

The world’s longest national highway is in Australia. It stretches for over 9,000

miles! (for comparison, the earth’s diameter is about 7,900.) It's actually a network of

highways that connect all capitals of the mainland states.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China, but what about the Great Fence of

Australia? Ok, that’s not what it’s called, but still! The Dingo Fence in southeast Australia

stretches for nearly 3,500 miles. For comparison, it would easily cover the entire span of the

Now it might not be so surprising to know that Australia is huge! It’s about the same

size as the continental US. At about 2,500 miles wide, the distance from the west to

east coast is further than Barcelona to Moscow.

In all, Australia is the world's 6th largest country and the only one that’s also a whole

But with all that territory, over 80% of Australians live within 60 miles of the coast. This makes

the country one of the most coastal-dwelling populations in the world.

And that means a whole lotta beaches! In fact, they have so many that if you decided to visit

a new beach every day, it’d take you almost 30 years to see them all!

The biggest property in Australia is about 40,000 square miles in area. South Korea could

The country’s termites are busy building huge properties as well. Their mounds are

the tallest animal-made structures on this planet.

Before humans arrived, the continent was home to mega-fauna. If you’d lived there about

46,000 years ago, you’d be dead today. But you would’ve seen 10-foot-tall kangaroos,

23-foot-long goanna lizards, and ducks the size of an adult horse. Quack!

The largest living structure on the planet is the Australian Great Barrier Reef. By the

way, it has its own mailbox! There’s a rumor that the fish there use “eel-mail”…

Neither kangaroos nor emus can walk backward. That's why they're painted on the Australian

The platypus, an egg-laying mammal that lives only in Australia, is one of the rare venomous

mammals on this planet. Luckily, while the venom has an excruciatingly painful effect

on people, it's not lethal. The takeaway -- Don’t fuss with a platypus.

By the way, when the first platypus was brought to England, people there were sure that it

was a joke. The English believed that Australians had sewn a duck's bill onto a rat's body to

play a trick on them! Yeah, right up until he bit them! Not laughing now are ya?

Swimming in the surf during the day had been illegal in Australia up until 1902. But after

one guy calmly entered the waves of Manly Beach one afternoon that year, surf bathing

The largest Greek population outside of Greece itself is in Australia. Actually, to be more

precise, in Melbourne. More than 160,000 people who live there say they come from Greek descent.

Melbourne was the richest city in the world in 1880. These days, Tokyo, Japan holds this

And until 2018, Melbourne had been ranked as the most livable city in the world for

7 years in a row. But then it was bumped down to 2nd place after Vienna, Austria. Come on,

One of Melbourne's founders was John Batman. (Yep, that was his real name.) And get this:

the city was temporarily called Batmania! Too bad they decided to change it… to Robinville?

In 2018, Australia ranked third after Norway and Switzerland on the Human Development Index.

This index is based on education, life expectancy, and citizen's income. Basically, they got

In 2005, security guards at the Parliament House in Canberra were prohibited from calling

people "mate." But the ban only lasted for a day, mate! G’day!

If you’re ever in Western Australia, you can visit one of their many super salty pink

lakes. They get the bubble-gum hue from a certain type of algae and bacteria, and they’re

totally safe to swim in! Just be careful what you chew!

Oh, and be sure to take a selfie while you’re swimming in what looks like a giant pool of

Pepto-Bismol. You can thank Australia for coming up with the word “selfie” in the

There are about 74 million sheep to 25 million people in Australia, which makes an impressive

ratio of three to one. Only China and India have more than that!

Ok, and the kangaroo thing is totally true. There are twice as many kangaroos as there

are people there – that’s 50 to 25 million.

Speaking of which, when a baby kangaroo is born, it's only half an inch long. It’s

also hairless and totally pink. Kinda looks like a gummy bear…

What else is there in Australia? Oh that’s right, koalas! And to top that, there are

10 times more camels than koalas. Australia is the source of a lot of the Middle East’s

camels! (um, Do you prefer one hump or two?)

In Western Australia, it's against the law to be in possession of more than 110 pounds

of potatoes. Eh, every country has its obscure bizarre laws!

Almost every single day, rangers at Uluru, aka Ayers Rock, get packages with pieces of

the sacred monolith. Apparently, tourists take a piece of rock as a souvenir, and then

they feel guilty and send it back with a note of apology. But some say they start having

bad luck as soon as they return home with the stones! So, they send their “souvenirs”

back to undo the curse! No wonder these packages got the nickname “sorry rocks.”

The architect of the world-famous Sydney Opera House got the idea of this unique construction

while munching on an orange. If you combine all the sails of the building’s roof, you'll

The most ancient fossils in the world were found in Australia. They were no less than

3.4 billion years old! Even older than my leftovers in the frig.

There are so many different species in this country that only 25% of them have been discovered

Of the animals discovered to be native to Australia, none have hooves.

Burger King miraculously turns into Hungry Jack's as soon as you land in Australia. It's

the Aussie franchise of the famous fast food chain.

Australia is a unique continent that doesn't house any active volcanos.

It’s also the flattest continent on our planet.

But it’s got plenty of mountains, and one of them is called Mount Disappointment. It’s

just 2,600 feet tall, and, naturally, explorers William Hovell and Hamilton Hume expected

to see a great view from the top. However, after climbing the mountain, they discovered

that there were too many trees growing on top and blocking the view completely. Guess