You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess what, mengo, what's that?
Well? I have to tell you. You know, today I was flat out like a lizard drinking. I was a real battler who needed to calm my farm.
Wait, what's going on.
I'm just I'm practicing my Australian slang. But you know one thing I'm not doing doing it in an Australian accent. I'm sparing you of that. But just so you know what I was saying. I just told you that I worked super hard today, but I pushed through even though I probably should have relaxed.
You see where I went there. Yeah, I hope they have this category to do a lingo soon.
Oh it's gonna be so good. Yeah, it's only a matter of time. I'm sure. You know, people visiting Australia need to be prepared. I'm in support of this, but of course we know all the cliches like it ay made and there's a barbie for barbecue, made famous of course by Paul Hogan's Australian tourism ads back in the nineteen eighties. But there are a lot of lesser known ones. So let's see if you can guess a couple. What's a slippery.
Dip going for a swim?
It's actually a playground slide. How about a arvo?
Are you just trying to make me feel dumb?
Yeah, that's my that was actually my goal. I was like, you know, I don't feel great about myself today, I'm gonna make mango feel dumb and arvo?
Is that something to do with avocados?
Well, it means afternoon. So Australians are big fans of shortening words and adding an o to the end of it. So a gas station is a servo, an ambulance is an ambo, and a liquor store is a bottle.
Of I'm not sure I'm ready to incorporate those into my vocabo.
Just yeah, you nailed it. That was That was pretty great. We do want to study up because today we're taking a virtual trip through US Australia, which is both the world's smallest continent and the sixth largest country, and we've got a lot of ground to cover, literally, so let's dive in.
Awesome.
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangush hot ticketter, and over there in the booth is our Palin producer Dylan Fagan. Now this is interesting. He has a wolverine claw on one hand and in the other he seems to be holding it looks like Thor's hammer.
I'm guessing this is a reference to the great Australian actors Hugh Jackman Chris hemsquare. Then he's also holding up a barbie dog that has to be for Margot Robbie.
Yeah, I don't know how he's doing all this just two hands, but you know, Dylan, he's so impressed.
He is really talented. And today's episode is pretty amazing too. We are gallivanting across Australia, stopping for nine fascinating facts along the way. Before we get going, I just want to say that Ruby, my kid played an Australian bird and their school play last year.
I can't think of anybody better to play it.
It was just a bird, but they decided to put on an Australian access. Oh this is good, and it sounded Chinese sometimes Indians.
Okay, it's a little a little problematic here there, but it was amazing. That's pretty terrific. I need to see a clip of.
This, so let us get started by planning our transportation. So how do you feel about train travel?
Well, I mean train travel is one of the things I love, the idea of it, right, you know, I love I do love sort of shorter train travel trips that are like a couple hours. I've done the like really long train trips in the US when I was a kid, and I used to go up to Virginia during the summers and what would be like a ten to eleven hour drive would just be like almost a full day train. So that sort of thing got a
little long. But I do still have this sort of ideal version or idea of train travel, and it's kind of nice or romantic to think about.
How about you, Yeah, I really have a similar sort of like romance with train travel. My grandfather was a writer. He's say the best writing he did was when he was on trains. He'd get a lot of inspiration. And I've always wanted to take that train across the Canadian Rockies and also up to Montreal and the Fall to see the foliage from the train. But Australia is obviously a big place at around three million square miles. But there is a way to go straight across it, and
that is the Indian Pacific Train. It is named for the fact that it goes all the way from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, which is a journey of about twenty seven hundred miles from Perth to Sydney. Wow, and it goes straight through the outback. At one point in the trip there are three hundred miles of straight track, which is the longest such stretch in the world. In fact, it stands out so much that this Australian astronaut his name is Andy Thomas, once said that you can even
see it from space. He described it as quote like someone had drawn a very fine pencil line across the desert.
Oh that's so interesting, I guess just because there weren't many obstacles they were having to deal with, they were just able to go go straight. I did not know this. So let's say I wanted to take this train ride, which honestly I kind of do. Now, how long does this trip take?
It is five days and four nights. Actually, I had a friend who took it on a honeymoon and he said it felt a lot longer because he had a kangaroo steak and it sat in his stomach.
Reminder not to do don't do that.
But there are quite a few sightseeing stops along the way, so passengers visit Calgourly, a nineteenth century gold rush town, a remote outback city called Broken Hill that's home to the country's longest running mining operation, and in the Barossa Valley, a prominent Australian wine region known for its bold and full body cher us.
Okay, I'm mean I have to say that sounds like an incredible adventure. But even without a train ticket, I do know a bit about what that straight middle section of the outback looks like, you know, because I did some research. Mego, I did some research into Australia's topography, and what I learned is it's extremely flat, very flat mago.
Australia is actually the flattest continent in the world, with an average elevation of under a thousand feet, and much of that is just plateau like right there in the middle of the continent. So you might be wondering, like, how did this happen geologically speaking? Well, it turns out Australia is located towards the center of a tectonic plate.
So when two tectonic plates next to each other move, you know, pointy of things like mountains form, but if you're right there in the middle of a plate, you actually don't really get much of that effect.
But there must be some mountains in Australia, right, Yeah.
Its highest point is Mount Kozyuzko, with a peak of seven three hundred and ten feet. It's maybe a little bit taller than you imagined after this, but overall we're talking about a pretty flat place, especially in the middle part where the train tracks are running where we're describing there. It's one fifth of the country and it's just a big flat desert pancake, basically dessert pancakes. Yeah.
So one of the fascinating things about Australia is how barren it is. Two thirds of Australia is considered too arid for settlement, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, which the country learned through trial and error. Actually, it turns out Australia is littered with ghost towns, which means that people did try to settle there and it
didn't go that well for them. So back in the eighteen sixties, this guy named George Goiter, who was originally from Liverpool, became Surveyor General of Australia and after this big drought swept through South Australia in eighteen sixty four and eighteen sixty five, Goiter was directed to make a map of the affected region, and what he ended up doing was drawing this kind of curvy line that supposedly marked where rainfall was too unreliable to plant crops, and
north of the line was no good. South of the line was okay.
It seems pretty straightforward.
Yeah, for a curvy line. But the problem was in the eighteen seventies the rain started falling, and by this time the government was using Goiter's line to designate where farmers could buy land on credit. But there wasn't much land left south of the line, so farmers started buying up land to the north. They were like, you know, it's just a line on a piece of paper. What does this guy know? And for a while things were okay, but by the early eighteen eighties Goiter was proven right.
The rain to the north just turned out to be this fluke, and the land dried up and those farms started failing. Now you can still find the remains of towns that once appeared to be booming, with schools, bars, hotels all built up that are abandoned, and people actually enjoy visiting these ghost towns, but it doesn't make sense to stick around for too long. And here's a little
detail I can't stop thinking about. One of these towns was optimistically named Farina, the Latin word for wheat, which was the crop they thought the town would be famous for growing.
Oh, I mean, that's kind of sad. So while we're on the topic of Australia's unpredictable weather, this seems like a good time to talk about the best months to visit. So, as many of us probably know, winter in the US is Australia's summer. So the hottest time of year there is December through February, which just throws me for a loop. No matter how many times I know that, it just
seems impossible. So during those months, major cities will experience temperatures ranging from sixty eight to ninety nine degrees fahrenheit, So it does get pretty hot. But you know, given that time of year, it might be your preference.
Yeah, especially if you're trying to escape cold or wet or snowy winter.
Yeah, but just so everyone's fully informed of what they're getting into. I did look up Australia's hottest day on record that occurred in Onslow, a coastal town in Western Australia with around eight hundred residents, a pretty small place, so in January twenty twenty two, the town matched a previous high from nineteen sixty two. It was a record set in southern Australia with a temperature of one hundred and twenty three point twenty six degrees fahrenheit.
Wow. So maybe January and Anslow is something you skip.
Yeah. I do think that heat is a bit much, even for me. But if you're looking for a season with some milder temperatures, you might consider traveling during Australia's winter, which is June through August. So then the temperatures average between fifty two degrees fahrenheit in eighty six degrees fahrenheit.
Yeah, which is more of my kind of weather and it reminds me a little of India. Speaking of which, does Australia have a monsoon?
It does, so Northern Australia experience is a monsoon season from November to March or you know, in that range. So this causes weeks of heavy rain. But aside from that, Australia's climate is incredibly dry. In fact, it's actually the second driest continent on Earth, just after Antarctica. That's really fascinating.
So the lesson is check the forecast before you go, which is good advice even if you're not craffling. Okay, so we have to take a quick break, but we've saved our.
Best Ossi facts for last.
When we come back, we've got Orca's bikes and a record breaking fence. Stay tuned, Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're counting down nine facts about traveling through Australia. I should note here in case anyone is wondering this episode is not sponsored by the Australian Tourism Board, but it could be Ossy travel Board. Reach out if you want us to do some on location work for you. Anyway, I love this next fact. If you visit Southeast Australia,
you might bump into the world's longest fence. The wood and wire fence known as the Dingo Fence, is three thousand, four hundred and eighty eight miles long, which is about the distance between New York City and London.
Oh my gosh, that is a very long I know.
It actually started as a few separate fences primarily built to address all these wildlife related problems. The goals were to keep invasive rabbits from destroying crops and to stop dingos from going after sheep, and by the nineteen fifties these fences got connected into one long dingo fence. Now it's so long that if you tried to walk around it, it would take you about six months. Thankfully, it has gates so you actually don't have to do that. But it's a lot of work keeping such a long fence
in tip top shape. There's a staff of twenty three full time employees patrolling it, and it costs around seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year to maintain.
So has it done the job it was intended to do?
I mean, dingos do get through sometimes, but it has divided up the wildlife pretty effectively, so the dingo free side has a lot more kangaroos and EMUs and other things dingos like to eat. But one interesting recent piece of research found that young kangaroos outside the fence that's on the same side as the dingos are larger than the young kangaroos on the other side, who don't really
have to worry about being dingo food. They'd actually evolved to be bigger to meet the demands of their environment.
Oh wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, all right, Well, while we're on the topic of nature doing what nature does, we do have to talk about Australia's national parks. So, believe it or not, there are technically only five parks that are run by the Commonwealth of Australia, although there are plenty more that are run by Australian states or territories.
There that's crazy, there are only five national parks. I remember your dad told me he used to memorize counties but he couldn't fall asleep. And I told him Delaware only had three counties. And You're just like, that would take me much time.
I really wouldn't be that helpful.
But five parks isn't that many, so I guess it makes it easier to visit them all if you want to. But what's the number one national park I should put on my bucket list if I'm going to Australia.
All right, Well, if you have to pick one, I would say go with Kakadoo. It's the largest national park in Australia. The place is massive, seventies seven hundred square miles spreading across the Northern Territory. So to put that in perspective, Grand Canyon National Park is nineteen hundred square miles, so it's like four of those. It's a massive, massive park. So given how big it is, Kakadu is a great place to go if you want to experience a mind
boggling variety of ecosystems. This one park contains floodplains, wetlands, woodlands, rainforests, savannahs, and so much more. And there are beautiful waterfalls, plenty of wildlife, from crocodiles to wallabies to pythons.
I mean, I definitely want to see a wallaby. I'm not sure about the other two.
I was saying it to sound like I was brave, but I definitely don't want to see a python, especially I've seen plenty of crocodiles being near Florida. But something you'll definitely want to experience if you go there is the Aboriginal culture. So over half the park is Aboriginal land. The Binning and the Mungoi people have lived there in that region for more than sixty five thousand years and visiting is a great way to learn about their history.
There are over five thousand Aboriginal rock art sites in the park, including some works that are over twenty thousand years old, which is incredible. And then visiting Kakadu, you can choose a tour company with Aboriginal guides who share the sort of the cultural significance of the park and
all of its art there. And I know you might be a little wary of encountering crocodiles there, and that's fine, But there is this one company that takes you on a boat tour up the East Alligator River, so along the way you get to learn about Aboriginal mythology, traditional plant medicine, and even bush survival skills. So pretty fascinating.
Yeah, I love that. It's like it's called the East Alligator River. I guess you know what's going to be on it. Well, speaking of things in the water with very sharp teeth, Australia's waters are home to the largest orca congregation in the Southern hemisphere. So if you visit Bremer Bay, about three hundred miles south of Perth between January and April, you are actually guaranteed see orca.
Oh wow, I do love an orca guarantee. That's pretty Yeah, that's pretty awesome. So what is it about this area that makes it such a great place for whales and people who appreciate them.
So, about forty miles off the coast of Bremmer Bay, there's an undersea canyon. It's a biodiversity hotspot where marine life booms and since things like zooplankton, fish, and squid all congregate there, bigger animals like to feed on those things and hang out there as well. So every year orcas flock to the Bremer Canyon and they use it as their hunting ground. You can actually take a sightseeing boat out across the bay to see them. People have
reported seeing hundreds of orcas at a time. That's not the only large marine life that actually spends time there. You also find sperm whales, rare beaked whales, and plenty of shark species swim through the area as well. And actually, in the past few years, orcas have been observed killing blue whales in the region, which is sad, but you know, circle of life.
Yeah, it definitely is. All right, Well, let's wrap up our up with a different circle, and that is circumnavigating Australia by bike.
That is insane. I feel like I get winded after twenty minutes on a city bike and I cannot imagine bicycling all the way around Australia.
Well, get this, because the first time someone cycled Australia was way back in eighteen ninety nine. It took Arthur Richardson two hundred and forty five days to complete the journey. Then, in October of twenty twenty four, cyclist Lachlan Morton made the trip in thirty days, nine hours and fifty nine minutes, beating the previous record by over a week.
I mean, first of all, like, it's amazing that it took the better part of a year to just circle the country. And then and then someone doesn't in thirty days. Yeah, it's amazing. It still sounds entirely exhausting to me. So what does the route actually look like?
All right? For to count as an official attempt to circumnavigate Australia, you must bike at least fourteen thousand two hundred kilometers, which is over eighty eight hundred miles. There are eight designated locations that you have to pass through, including Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, but you can go in any direction you want, though people usually go counterclockwise because of how the tailwinds work there. According to Morton, it was a great way to see Australia and quote
get a real feel for the country. Now. He supported a local charity with his ride, raising over one hundred thousand dollars for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Oh I love that.
But given Australia's wildlife, isn't it like a dangerous ride?
It definitely can be, and Morton did have an unfortunate run in while he was there. He was biking through northern Queensland and he collided with a kangaroo, which I think probably wouldn't go very well. He did say later that he was on top of it before he even noticed, but luckily both he and the kangaroo were okay.
Well, just because the kangaroo survived the incident, I'm gonna have to give you today's trophy. If it hadn't survived, I would have given it to Dylan.
That makes a lot of sense. All right, well, thank you very much. I appreciate it, and I'd like to have Fish share this trophy with Lachlan Morton. I sat here and recorded a podcast. He biked around an entire continent. So I don't know who's to say who worked harder on this one, but thank you did that does it for today's episode. We'll be back next week with a new one. In the meantime, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Leave us
a five star rating and review. Today's episode was written by Meredith Danko. Thanks Meredith, She's always a rock star, and from Dylan Gabe, Mary Mango and me thank you for listening.
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongschatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produce for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.