Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
True, there are quite a few dangerous animals in Australia. What people forget is that you basically never see them, at least not as a city dweller.seems to me that Australia somehow ended up with more than a fair share of dangerous animals and critters..
Having lived here for over forty years, I have only seen a handful of the thirty species in the flesh (other than in a zoo), and most of them only rarely (as in once or twice): bees (doh!), brown snake, giant centipede, tick, redback spider, bluebottle, yellow-bellied sea snake, lionfish, and toadfish. To see the last three on my list, I had to go scuba diving, so I guess we can discount those. Of the remainder, most are harmless because they are not interested in people. It's not exactly difficult to leave a centipede alone…
But, even in the countryside, you will rarely come across anything other than snakes. Most snakes are easily as afraid of you as you are of them. Most of the time, when I come across a snake (once every ten years or so), I'm lucky to just see its tail disappear as it runs away. The one exception are brown snakes, which tend to be aggressive. If you see one, just give it a wide berth and you'll be fine.
The whole Australian animal thing is grossly overblown. Sure, go for a walk through the bush at certain times of the year, and you might collect a tick. Not a big deal. If you are unlucky, you might brush against a bluebottle while swimming. That's unpleasant, but definitely not deadly. Irukanji and box jellyfish are indeed dangerous, but they show up only at certain times of the year and in certain areas. You know when they are there, so you don't go swimming around then. Great white sharks are indeed dangerous, but the probability of actually getting attacked by one is extremely low. You are more likely to get struck by lightning than getting bitten by a great white shark.
And pretty much the only people who get taken by saltwater crocodiles are the ones who decide to go swimming right beside the sign reading "Extreme Danger - Very large estuarine (saltwater) crocodiles inhabit these waters." Every time one of those people gets eaten, the average IQ of humanity goes up by a tiny fraction…