On December 17, 1967, Harold Holt went swimming off of Cheviot Beach, on the coast of Victoria, Australia. And he was never seen again. The odd thing is, that he was the Prime Minister of Australia at the time, yet there wasn't much fuss made about the whole ordeal. In fact, in Australia today not many people under the age of 30 even know about this story (according to Bill Bryson). Odd.
(I only know about this story, not because of my devotion to Australian history and culture, but because I'm rereading Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. A very good read.)
Other fun facts about Australia: while driving around various highways, you can see a Big Lobster, a Big Prawn, and a Big Banana (these are just big things built out of chicken wire and fiberglass), in 1997 the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (the same group that set off nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in 1995) probably set off an atomic bomb in the middle of the outback and no one really noticed except for a small blurb in the New York Times, and the top 10 most poisonous snakes are all Australian.
Oh what an exotic place Australia is! Doesn't it make you want to visit?
No comments:
Post a Comment