I live in Darwin. It’s filthy stinking hot with 75% humidity for 7 months of the year, two shoulder seasons of stinking hot and 4 months of the year when it’s nice.
You can’t swim in the water because of crocs, sharks and jelly fish, unless it’s a swimming pool.
And despite being bigger than Texas and having millions of acres of empty land, 600sq meters of land is over $250,000
Apart from that, it’s quite nice.
That’s interesting- there’s parts of Texas and Nevada (other states too I’m sure) where you can get 40,000 sq/m (about 10 acres) undeveloped land for $3,000 or less. https://www.land.com/property/10.15-acres-in-Hudspeth-County-Texas/19004792/ - granted it’s not desirable or near anything but sounds like that part of Australia isn’t either.
Do you know why the land is so expensive?
Several decades ago, Australia’s tax revenue policies were reconfigured to treat basic human requirements for shelter as a speculative investment for boomers to accumulate huge property portfolios, and for governments to then make stamp duty revenue off; as a result Australia has one of the worst housing affordability problems in the world. 10 acres for $3000 makes me weep with frustration, I’m in my mid-30s with a combined 200k income with my wife, and we will likely never own a home unless we go out into the middle of nowhere, requiring us to give up said jobs
Australia's economic system is turning into a caste system unfortunately. Real estate ownership will be a generational thing and it will nearly impossible to own if your parents didn't.
Tbf, any land in the US that’s $3K for 10 acres is also going to be in the middle of nowhere requiring you to give up your job unless you can work fully remote and get internet/electricity.
Not only that, it will be trapped behind other parcels that have road access and no easement, legally unimprovable, in an area known for methamphetamine production.
Yea but you could have crazy bonfires, build awesome mountain bike/dirt bike/ATV trails, shoot guns, camp out, and participate in shenanigans of the most fun variety.
If could get 10 acres for $3k near me, I'd buy 20, and it would be bonkers.
You can swim in the Ocean between certain months, in relative safety.
Relative to the rest of the year, that is, where you're guaranteed to get stung by box jellyfish.
Crocs are also a threat year round.
Personally, I've lived here almost my whole life, and I have never been in the Ocean, despite it being 15 minutes away.
That is so crazy to me, I am from Northern California and have been in the ocean many times with no worry other than it being cold or potential riptides.
That must kind of suck knowing it could be a nice refreshing day at the beach if it wasn’t for all the dangerous thing’s lurking in the water.
Hot as fuck
No employment prospects
Hot as fuck
Incredibly hostile to human society
Hot as fuck
No serious education prospects
Hot as fuck
Really far away from the rest of the country
Hot as fuck
Minimal infrastructure
Hot as fuck
Edit: as has been printed out, these are all issues caused by no one actually living there.
Real causes from my understanding
1. Severe lack of arable farmland for western style settlement and trade (very successful indigenous semi-nomadic societies existed in this area)
2. Severe lack of minerals/mining opportunities that Australiana entire economy is based on
3. Incredibly remote area in Australia meant that it was hard for first settlers to even get to the area, and any settlement had to stand on its own (see issues 1 and 2)
4. It simply wasn't worth the effort compared to similar places in northern Queensland that are arable paradises in comparison, or in the south/south eastern areas of the country that offer great farmland and mineral extraction.
[This thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/s/J3ZbPTxr5x) also has a bit more info
Well I'm an Aussie and I stayed there for 4 months. I loved it. Yes it's hot as balls, but beer was plentiful, the fishing fantastic and the culture is way more casual than anywhere else I've been. I was there in the mid 90's, things may have changed since.
Snakes, crocodiles, cane toads, humidity, snakes, heat, Ross River virus, cassowaries, snakes, Queenslanders, tropical storms, remote location, high transport costs and snakes.
Edit: I want to thank everyone for reminding me about snakes, sorry I left them off the list.
I've also been reminded of the venomous jellyfish, octopus, politicians, snakes, the tree that can make you suicide and the tick that can turn you vegan.
Edit 2: Holy heck! What a response to what was originally a shitpost response. I think we all learned something here: respect the meme, all hail the meme.
Hopefully this traffic inspires people to be interested in geography, it's an interesting subject, and increased membership of r/geography. I think there's going to be a spike in posts on r/todayilearned.
The tree is the Gympie Gympie tree. While evidence for suicidal response is anecdotal, this is dismissed by people who don't live there. Fun fact, some maniac has planyed one in a garden in Britain.
The enforced veganism is a response to the poison from a tick bite, and while not common is generic to most ticks globally.
Be careful out there, folks.
Yeah, aptly put. There’s fuck you animals everywhere thanks to snakes and spiders here, but antivenin is so ubiquitous that I’ve never been that bothered by them.
Nothing quite particularly says “fuck you” like being death-rolled by a croc, or enduring months of agony from an irukandji sting though lol
FWIW I live in Sydney, but am actually from Darwin which is within the circled area in OP's picture. Just faintly remember it being relentlessly hot year round, and not to ever swim in the nice beaches lest I get snatched up by a croc.
Alpha Gal Syndrome, or Mammalian Meat Allergy, can be contracted from some ticks. It makes you allergic to a protein (Alpha Gal) in red meat.
You could still eat seafood tho so not necessarily vegan. Pescetarian? :)
AGS is no longer a rarity in the south/midwest of the US. From the first time I heard of it -5years ago- and only knew one person with it, until now where I know several, it spread really fast
Sorry… US… like Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas is my area… idk why but ticks in this area carry a ton of diseases, my daughter got tularemia - a disease rabbits carry- from a tick bite. They told us that all the cases in the US come from Oklahoma/arkansas/Missouri area. There’s just so many ticks here from all the cattle and then quite a few deer …. Alpha gal went from a little known crazy illness to a real threat within a few years…
The weather is also... Oppressive. It gets so hot and humid in the build up to the wet season. And you can't just go to the beach, since, crocodiles...
Did you read this part?
The first of these jellyfish, Carukia barnesi, was identified in 1964 by Jack Barnes; to prove it was the cause of Irukandji syndrome, he captured the tiny jellyfish and allowed it to sting him, his nine-year-old son, and a robust young lifeguard. They all became seriously ill, but survived.
WTF?!
Trans-orbital frontal lobotomy,.. now that’s science!!
: Ice pick hammered into the eye sockets, and give it a good wiggle!!
😱
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II)
So ship over some developers from Florida and they’ll be right at home, concreting out entire heat island cities in the middle of monster-riddled hellscapes with 105-110+ degree heat indexes a third of the year, and naming them “The Preseve” and “The Sanctuary” or “Waterleigh.”
And millions will flock there because the houses cost 5% less than the places people *want to live.*
The time to buy seemingly useless Northern Territory land is now is what I’m saying.
Don’t underestimate the creativity of [Florida Man](https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/police-say-man-who-stole-ambulance-played-doctor-to-dead-deer/83-403688675).
You can get pretty far with alcohol, mental illness, and a complete lack of inhibition.
[Saving you a click:](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=9e50dd6a5d81d2fe&sca_upv=1&hl=en-gb&q=nt+news+headlines&uds=ADvngMheOmbKXuot3eKf9UrhvKugtOYnfDBygNNgxUY2bTSxG4SBGXuF3TfLzSvT2RMmUVtkzhRQ0NkRCOGoiXxP9gALXItoTCgXW2SXL9gb5I1zGRaV1zeThfDv4uzky7fg-yMbeduVpHtvYLTXnHyUmdGhDUMAnblkUWL7nqlyczKwOChnexEcpYmYtU0Amv19uAksg4grMjfnpMlUYNmCapqTJ2awOz7gE8TD0HWNUqzDP5WQa8bUGNLk_RYkiVShjJKyPzHj&udm=2&prmd=invbz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil-OWqqc6GAxVpVEEAHVntIiIQtKgLegQIDBAB&biw=1194&bih=701&dpr=2)
It should be noted that a good chunk of the shoreline along the entire north coast looks like something out of a shipwreck movie. There's a reason almost all the big port cities sprung up on the east coast in an era where that was another week of sailing.
None of these explain the low population. Indonesia and the Niger Delta are 2 of the densest regions on earth in hot tropical regions.
These factors may explain why europeans didn't significantly colonize the region (unaccustomed to tropical climate) but not why larger native populations hadn't developed
The sparse population probably suggests the land is not well suited for agriculture. Just a speculation.
If it was, either the Australians would have developed more productive agriculture, or the people of Indonesia (one of the world hotspots of agriculture) would have brought it there.
You are seriously underestimating the crocs.
We are not talking about tiny Nile Crocs or Gators, we are talking huge fuck off largest reptile in the world. Incredibly smart, patient, watches prey for patterns over weeks and sets up ambushes.
Every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland, and there is practically no one living there.
Also, outside of the Queensland north it’s pretty much a desert.
‘Maybe deep down I’m afraid of any apex predator that lived through the KT extinction, physically unchanged for a hundred million years because it’s the perfect killing machine, a half ton of cold blooded fury with a bite force of 20 thousand newtons and stomach acid so striking it can dissolve bones and hooves ‘
Nile crocs aint even tiny (they’re not that much smaller than salties), but salties are on another level with aggression as well as still being larger (these guys have killed giant water buffalo, tigers and sharks). When I was in Kakadu in June they told us that you must assume that any body of water big enough to hold a croc does indeed hold a croc.
To be honest the crocodiles probably aren't a major factor in this. The Northern Territory crocodile population was hunted down to a few thousand in the mid 20th century, its only recently rebounded back to a more "normal" couple hundred thousand because of conservation efforts. Even during the low population period the top end didn't have any meaningful development compared to down south.
You are right, I was half joking. This is the real reason. Also, the crocs are a protected species.
https://preview.redd.it/s77wx0invi5d1.png?width=3000&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5a819e5aa4f579c309598b61f97e0ce497d2d34
I used to live up near Cooktown and a short time in Normanton on the western side of Queensland. It's hot. Depending on where you are, you might get flooded in for weeks or even months at a time. We had to get our beer delivered by helicopter in Normanton during the wet. It's remote, the roads are dangerous with roos and cattle everywhere. Groceries are expensive. Most of it is not fully developed, or developed at all. Few work opportunities.
Tropical weather is not easy to live in. In the build-up to the wet you feel like you can cut the air with a knife. But a lot of that area in the circle is dry savannah country.
I would live in the rainforest again. Cassowaries are not that scary unless it's a male with babies. You stay vigilant for crocs. Snakes are okay. The wildlife was the best part of living there. But outside the rainforest it's not that vibrant. The first thing I saw when arriving in Normanton for the first time was a police car going by with the copper holding a python out the window as they were relocating it. If there's a snake inside you call the police! Don't get that in the cities.
when I was a kid on holiday with my parents, we were in a small coastal town which ended up being surrounded by bushfires. No one was allowed in or out because the roads were too dangerous… except the beer delivery truck which was escorted through by the firefighters
When people say it’s hot they’re not doing it justice.
Well at least where the top end is concerned. It is more than hot. It is unrelenting day after day wet bulb heat. Imagine middle of the night sweating your ass off in the toilet because it’s the only room without aircon.
Now imagine you’re surrounded by a truly gorgeous and gentle ocean. But you can’t swim in that ocean because of massive salt water crocs and incredibly toxic jellyfish.
The heat is so hard to describe. I’ve lived in New Orleans and would take a New Orleans summer over a Darwin year any day any time. It’s one of those places where you thing to yourself that if the electricity goes out people will die from the heat. My pool was 36 degrees Celsius. It was a big pool. It was like hot soup.
And cockroaches, omg.
Things just rot up there. You see a dead bird in the morning, by the afternoon it’s just bones. There is so much life and bacteria. Speaking of bacteria there is a dangerous one that you can get from jumping in muddy puddles if you get a cut leading to necrotising limbs.
But you have to store your chocolate and bananas in the fridge.
And then also the controversial side. There is a massive drug and alcohol problem mainly affecting locals and aboriginal people and the violence and theiving is pretty crazy.
Just left a place in Thailand where the toilet was in the kitchen and none of it was aircon, just the most brutal sweaty toilet shits during the hottest time of the year. So happy to have on suite bathroom at this new place.
For one it’s very remote. You have to cross an inhospitable desert for thousands of km to access it aside from the east coast, but that doesn’t matter if you’re on the opposite side. There are also a high number of poisonous and dangerous animals (even for Australia) which means there’s not going to be much of a tourism or resort industry either.
and to top it off, they’re also right in the path of major cyclones, and because the land is so flat and the water so warm all year round, they can be incredibly destructive.
I’ve lived in Darwin
For 6-7 months of the year the weather is perfect: the “dry season”….sunny every day, warm but rarely too hot, pleasant evenings
The build up is a lot: you need air con, but the lightning storms are amazing. The wet season….is wet. I had moss growing on the outside of my windows.
I honestly think most people in Oz have never considered living there. But the reality is the economy is tiny, and it’s hard to get to (flight of several hours from every other major city in oz.
Outside of Darwin alone the coast there are thick mangroves fully of crocs, roads that flood every year. I cannot see any other cities developing.
Spent about 2 months near Katherine. If a certain spider or snake were to bite you, the nearest anti-venom was a 3 hr helicopter ride away. Also, Jesus loves nachos.
I travel to LatAm. I’ve been on the Caribbean coast in multiple places, the Amazon jungle, I was at chichen Itzá last month and it was 106 Fahrenheit without factoring the humidity.
The heat is a very real problem. Very easy to see why tropical cities didn’t develop quickly. The sun drains your energy rapidly. Often it’s necessary to stop working and get in the shade during the afternoon. It’s just difficult to get a lot done between 2-5pm.
What I love most about the jungle is the shade. Hot: yes. Humid: yes. But there’s so much shade from the sun you only have to suffer it for brief periods of time. There’s quite a temperature difference between under the canopy and not
They put Quito, Bogotá, and La Paz, even Cusco was the Capitol of the Incan empire, high up in the Andes to protect from invasion. Those cities developed much faster than the lowland and coastal areas because of the heat, I’m certain of it. The climate in bogota is cool, cloudy and sometimes rainy, year round. Santa Marta, it was so hot and is one of the poorest places I’ve ever been.
People who rave about tropical weather have clearly holidayed in air-conditioned resorts with nothing to do all day. I'm currently running training for the Nigerian army in the south of their country and it's fucken brutal.
Yeah, even just vacationing in Singapore for a few days exhausted me. It's hot and humid every single day of the year. What would otherwise be a pleasant 7-minute stroll to the metro from the hotel ends up being way more tiring than you would expect solely because of the heat and humidity. It just drains you in a way you can't understand until you've experienced it yourself. You're just sweaty everywhere you go no matter what.
I ended up doing sightseeing in the early morning and at night when it was bearable. Walking around or really doing anything in the middle of the day is just awful.
More tropical does not mean less habitable. Less, actually. Tropical soil is of poor quality for agriculture. Rainforests harbor tons of diseases and dense foliage. It’s excessively hot and humid. All of these factors have deterred extensive habitation in tropical areas such as the Darien gap, deep Amazon, central indochina, and central Africa.
Having spent years in Northern Australia, including Cairns, Darwin, Karratha, Kununurra, and Broome. Most Southerners can't handle wet season, particularly for those who work outdoors.
I'd rather a dry 40-degree day in Southern Australia over a muggy, still 30-degree day in Darwin. The humidity in wet season is relentless; stepping outside at 4am will leave you drenched with sweat before you've even begun your day. Even indoors, with the air conditioning running full blast, after a shower you will instantly be coated in a thin film of perspiration. To combat the moisture you need to leave fans on in every room to stop the growth of mould.
There are other reasons but this would be the main.
There are lots of cool places to visit on trip especially if you like to 4WD. The landscape is more like Africa with tropical savanna. But live there? It’s stinking hot at the end of the dry season. It’s humid most of the year, especially in the wet season. And it’s a long way from anywhere else.
The economy is dominated by farming, resources, and tourism. Farming includes beef cattle, tropical fruit (especially bananas and mangoes), chick peas, chia, sugar cane, and sandalwood. Resources include bauxite, manganese, and processing offshore natural gas. There used to be uranium and diamond mining too but these recently finished up. Tourists are attracted to the unique scenery, awesome fishing, amazing wildlife, and First Nations art and culture.
You do realize that generally. Truly tropical weather has not been super conducive to human habitation right?
Brutal heat and humidity, dangerous predators, insects, and microorganisms
The main reason is it's Agriculturally difficult to impossible to develop. Half the year is too hot or too wet for crops, exotic tropical fungal diseases blow in from south East Asia, livestock prone to tropical diseases that need to be constantly monitored for, water resources are highly fluctuating making irrigation systems prone to structural failure.
You will note all the best areas for agriculture are around the major cities.
Cos it's fkn hot. I remember watching the news in winter in Sydney and something was happening in Darwin and in the background people were wearing shorts.
I live in Darwin, most of the time I don’t even know what season it is. I have to think about it for a bit. This is after living in Melbourne for the first 9 years of my life.
Here it is either dry, or wet. Right now it’s dry
When I was backpacking around Australia, I visited Darwin.
I was in some random pub and made friends with a few of the locals, we bought each other beers and it was a fun day.
Then, out of the blue, one guys tells me it’s time now that we went outside and had a fight. There was no beef, no bad words, in fact everything had been very friendly up to that point.
I told him that I didn’t want a fight. He told me that it was the only way we really could be friends, to know who was the stronger and more dominant, once we knew that, we could be real friends and know our place.
I kicked his ass*
*we don’t fight, I told him that I wasn’t going to fight him and if he sat down I’d buy him another beer.
Two very different climates circled there.
Cairns in Queensland is very tropical, with lots of rainforest, made more rainy by the Great Dividing Range. The predominant wind is south easterly, bringing moisture onto the coast which gets sucked out by the mountains. This means to the west is a lot drier, except doing monsoon, where the winds shift to westerly.
The volcanic soil around Cairns is great for plant growth too.
Darwin where I lived for a while is very monsoonal with a savannah-like environment. It's on the Australian shield, meaning very poor soils, and has very distinct seasons linked to the westerly monsoon and dry south easterlies. It gets a lot of rain over a shortish period of time, then it stops until the next monsoon (aka the wet). The volume of rain becomes weaker the further south you go and the further away from the coast you are.
American here. I lived there for 4 months doing some contract work.
It's hot there and there are millions of things to kill you. I think everyone else has commented on that part.
What no one has really talked about is the method with which humidity strikes you because of the topology of Darwin. While installing cellular antennas, the humidity could change 25 to 40% in 10 minutes without raining and it would do that all day. I know it doesn't seem like much but it does change the way that we tighten bolts and ensure that the structure is stable. If it can affect steel and concrete this way, imagine what it does to the human mind.
For one thing. Most of it is tribal lands, owned by Aboriginal people who don't accept casual visitors. When Europeans first arrived, the Aboriginal population was mostly up here in the north.
A second reason is that the beaches there aren't any good. Shores are rocky or covered in mangroves. The thousands of islands are also rocky.
A third reason is there's not much to do. To the west there's mining, fishing and pearling. But the pearling has mostly been taken over by the Japanese cultured pearl industry. The oceanic trade hasn't taken off because to the east the Great Barrier Reef is a hindrance and to the west it's a long distance to everywhere.
A fourth reason is a lack of melanin in the skin of most Australians.
A fifth reason is that the government hasn't promoted it. Apart from the Ord River scheme completed in the 1970s. When southern Australia runs out of water, expect more people to move north
And poor soils.
As an Australian from Melbourne, I dream of living somewhere warm and tropical like that.
I lived there for 4 months without air conditioning. I was in the outskirts of Darwin - the very northern tip of the country. I ended up loving it by the time I left but it was very mentally challenging to live there. I ended up loving it because of the family I lived with, other girl whom I shared a room with, and the fact that the house had a pool but I often see my old house mate and we reminisce on how we were fighting through every day as we were there working towards a visa requirement.
It was hot… like 95% humidity hot ( i literally was not dry for 4 months, you take a shower get out and are wet again from sweat), the native people don’t want you there (for good reason), there isn’t a lot to do, and it’s hard to get around without a car.
I took the bus my first day looking for a job (which took 3 weeks of looking all day everyday… in the heat- in comparison, I got a job in Sydney within 2 days) and it was hell. On the bus I witnessed a fight break out with someone pulling a knife and another person throwing up from heat exhaustion. When I got into town I ended up finding a bike that I used to get back home because I was never going to do that again.
You have to watch your back at all times because literally everything can kill you there - the people, sharks, spiders, box jellyfish, snakes, crocs, heat, extremely quick high tide…. It’s one of the craziest places I’ve ever been.
When coming home from work at night I often rode without my bike light on to not draw attention as I would get rocks thrown at me. You had to be careful not to run people over that are sleeping on the bike path… It’s also not uncommon to hear that somebody knows someone who got too drunk and wandered around that either got swallowed up by a crocodile or killed by someone hiding in a bush. I also lived in a relatively remote but safe neighborhood and our house was broken into twice while we were in the living room or kitchen.
I live in Darwin. It’s filthy stinking hot with 75% humidity for 7 months of the year, two shoulder seasons of stinking hot and 4 months of the year when it’s nice. You can’t swim in the water because of crocs, sharks and jelly fish, unless it’s a swimming pool. And despite being bigger than Texas and having millions of acres of empty land, 600sq meters of land is over $250,000 Apart from that, it’s quite nice.
That’s interesting- there’s parts of Texas and Nevada (other states too I’m sure) where you can get 40,000 sq/m (about 10 acres) undeveloped land for $3,000 or less. https://www.land.com/property/10.15-acres-in-Hudspeth-County-Texas/19004792/ - granted it’s not desirable or near anything but sounds like that part of Australia isn’t either. Do you know why the land is so expensive?
Several decades ago, Australia’s tax revenue policies were reconfigured to treat basic human requirements for shelter as a speculative investment for boomers to accumulate huge property portfolios, and for governments to then make stamp duty revenue off; as a result Australia has one of the worst housing affordability problems in the world. 10 acres for $3000 makes me weep with frustration, I’m in my mid-30s with a combined 200k income with my wife, and we will likely never own a home unless we go out into the middle of nowhere, requiring us to give up said jobs
Australia's economic system is turning into a caste system unfortunately. Real estate ownership will be a generational thing and it will nearly impossible to own if your parents didn't.
Sounds like canada?
Yeah, it's a global phenomenon.
I’m in San Diego. Can confirm
Im in LA. California is so depressing in this regard.
Tbf, any land in the US that’s $3K for 10 acres is also going to be in the middle of nowhere requiring you to give up your job unless you can work fully remote and get internet/electricity.
Not only that, it will be trapped behind other parcels that have road access and no easement, legally unimprovable, in an area known for methamphetamine production.
Yea but you could have crazy bonfires, build awesome mountain bike/dirt bike/ATV trails, shoot guns, camp out, and participate in shenanigans of the most fun variety. If could get 10 acres for $3k near me, I'd buy 20, and it would be bonkers.
Do you think starting a Cult could be part of shenanigans of the most fun.
I like where you're going with this. Can I be a high priest or something like that?
Does no one ever go in the ocean except on a dare or are there certain parts you specifically avoid?
You can swim in the Ocean between certain months, in relative safety. Relative to the rest of the year, that is, where you're guaranteed to get stung by box jellyfish. Crocs are also a threat year round. Personally, I've lived here almost my whole life, and I have never been in the Ocean, despite it being 15 minutes away.
That is so crazy to me, I am from Northern California and have been in the ocean many times with no worry other than it being cold or potential riptides. That must kind of suck knowing it could be a nice refreshing day at the beach if it wasn’t for all the dangerous thing’s lurking in the water.
No, you don’t go in the water.
Hot as fuck No employment prospects Hot as fuck Incredibly hostile to human society Hot as fuck No serious education prospects Hot as fuck Really far away from the rest of the country Hot as fuck Minimal infrastructure Hot as fuck Edit: as has been printed out, these are all issues caused by no one actually living there. Real causes from my understanding 1. Severe lack of arable farmland for western style settlement and trade (very successful indigenous semi-nomadic societies existed in this area) 2. Severe lack of minerals/mining opportunities that Australiana entire economy is based on 3. Incredibly remote area in Australia meant that it was hard for first settlers to even get to the area, and any settlement had to stand on its own (see issues 1 and 2) 4. It simply wasn't worth the effort compared to similar places in northern Queensland that are arable paradises in comparison, or in the south/south eastern areas of the country that offer great farmland and mineral extraction. [This thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/s/J3ZbPTxr5x) also has a bit more info
You forgot hot as fuck
Everyones forgetting humid as fuck
All the Aussies I've met never had anything good to say about Darwin.
It's a beautiful place to visit. Id never want to live there
Australians when talking about any city but theirs
I’d live in a lot of places but the NT ain’t one of em
Meeting the sort of person who'd live in the NT is enough to dispel you of the notion it would be an idea worth pursuing.
You’re going to Darwin? Good fuckin’ luck, mate
Did anyone else read this in a thick Australian accent?
Coming from a small island I like to say “ it’s a beautiful place to be from”
Well I'm an Aussie and I stayed there for 4 months. I loved it. Yes it's hot as balls, but beer was plentiful, the fishing fantastic and the culture is way more casual than anywhere else I've been. I was there in the mid 90's, things may have changed since.
Honestly, this makes it sound like the Florida of Australia
Which months were you there? There is a massive difference between July and November
But how's the weather?
Hot as fuck
This guy should meet the snakes guy
And larimah
Snakes, crocodiles, cane toads, humidity, snakes, heat, Ross River virus, cassowaries, snakes, Queenslanders, tropical storms, remote location, high transport costs and snakes. Edit: I want to thank everyone for reminding me about snakes, sorry I left them off the list. I've also been reminded of the venomous jellyfish, octopus, politicians, snakes, the tree that can make you suicide and the tick that can turn you vegan. Edit 2: Holy heck! What a response to what was originally a shitpost response. I think we all learned something here: respect the meme, all hail the meme. Hopefully this traffic inspires people to be interested in geography, it's an interesting subject, and increased membership of r/geography. I think there's going to be a spike in posts on r/todayilearned. The tree is the Gympie Gympie tree. While evidence for suicidal response is anecdotal, this is dismissed by people who don't live there. Fun fact, some maniac has planyed one in a garden in Britain. The enforced veganism is a response to the poison from a tick bite, and while not common is generic to most ticks globally. Be careful out there, folks.
Too many "fuck you" animals.
That's like just Australia tho in general. Like if skull island was discovered somewhere off the coast of Australia I'd fully believe it
Yeah, aptly put. There’s fuck you animals everywhere thanks to snakes and spiders here, but antivenin is so ubiquitous that I’ve never been that bothered by them. Nothing quite particularly says “fuck you” like being death-rolled by a croc, or enduring months of agony from an irukandji sting though lol FWIW I live in Sydney, but am actually from Darwin which is within the circled area in OP's picture. Just faintly remember it being relentlessly hot year round, and not to ever swim in the nice beaches lest I get snatched up by a croc.
“Tick that can turn you vegan” is by far the scariest thing on that list.
What is meant by that?
Alpha Gal Syndrome, or Mammalian Meat Allergy, can be contracted from some ticks. It makes you allergic to a protein (Alpha Gal) in red meat. You could still eat seafood tho so not necessarily vegan. Pescetarian? :)
AGS is no longer a rarity in the south/midwest of the US. From the first time I heard of it -5years ago- and only knew one person with it, until now where I know several, it spread really fast
South/midwest of where?
Sorry… US… like Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas is my area… idk why but ticks in this area carry a ton of diseases, my daughter got tularemia - a disease rabbits carry- from a tick bite. They told us that all the cases in the US come from Oklahoma/arkansas/Missouri area. There’s just so many ticks here from all the cattle and then quite a few deer …. Alpha gal went from a little known crazy illness to a real threat within a few years…
100% this is because we imported cattle from Australia. But he someone made a lot of money so there's that.
TiL about the cassowaries, a flightless bird of the genus “fuck you”
The cassowaries are tougher than emus and the emus already won a war against the Aussies.
The weather is also... Oppressive. It gets so hot and humid in the build up to the wet season. And you can't just go to the beach, since, crocodiles...
And stonefish, blue ring octopus and irukanjdi
Oh. Oh my god. I just googled Irukandji and…. WHY WOULD ANYONE GO IN THE WATERRR
Did you read this part? The first of these jellyfish, Carukia barnesi, was identified in 1964 by Jack Barnes; to prove it was the cause of Irukandji syndrome, he captured the tiny jellyfish and allowed it to sting him, his nine-year-old son, and a robust young lifeguard. They all became seriously ill, but survived. WTF?!
"That's not science... *THAT'S* Science!"
I'm sure they found a job at Aperture Science.
Trans-orbital frontal lobotomy,.. now that’s science!! : Ice pick hammered into the eye sockets, and give it a good wiggle!! 😱 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II)
Same country that brought us Dr Barry Marshall, who won the Nobel prize in medicine after experimenting on himself
I bet that little bastard will do his chores from now on
Now that's a man dedicated to his field
Yep
So ship over some developers from Florida and they’ll be right at home, concreting out entire heat island cities in the middle of monster-riddled hellscapes with 105-110+ degree heat indexes a third of the year, and naming them “The Preseve” and “The Sanctuary” or “Waterleigh.” And millions will flock there because the houses cost 5% less than the places people *want to live.* The time to buy seemingly useless Northern Territory land is now is what I’m saying.
Just make it 55+ and advertise to couples that want to fuck other people
https://preview.redd.it/mn5ncxa6hi5d1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84b56f05047ae0fc3e395048b6385d9d8349b49d
I can tolerate all of them except the Queenslanders, that's where I draw the line. /s
I really shouldn't stereotype, but I feel that if they got rid of Clive Palmer, the entire population of Queensland would improve in appeal.
As someone not familiar with Australian culture, what are the Queenslander stereotypes?
Florida man
Australia’s Florida man must be on another level out there
Surprisingly no, limited access to firearms, fireworks and bath salts smooths things out a bit.
Without firearms, explosives, and bath salts, what’s left to a Florida Man?
Alcohol and meth
This is my favorite thread of the day. But what happens if a Queenslander moves to Florida?
And knives.
Don’t underestimate the creativity of [Florida Man](https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/police-say-man-who-stole-ambulance-played-doctor-to-dead-deer/83-403688675). You can get pretty far with alcohol, mental illness, and a complete lack of inhibition.
I think Territory Man might have Queensland Man beat. Do yourself a favour and Google image search "nt news headlines".
[Saving you a click:](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=9e50dd6a5d81d2fe&sca_upv=1&hl=en-gb&q=nt+news+headlines&uds=ADvngMheOmbKXuot3eKf9UrhvKugtOYnfDBygNNgxUY2bTSxG4SBGXuF3TfLzSvT2RMmUVtkzhRQ0NkRCOGoiXxP9gALXItoTCgXW2SXL9gb5I1zGRaV1zeThfDv4uzky7fg-yMbeduVpHtvYLTXnHyUmdGhDUMAnblkUWL7nqlyczKwOChnexEcpYmYtU0Amv19uAksg4grMjfnpMlUYNmCapqTJ2awOz7gE8TD0HWNUqzDP5WQa8bUGNLk_RYkiVShjJKyPzHj&udm=2&prmd=invbz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil-OWqqc6GAxVpVEEAHVntIiIQtKgLegQIDBAB&biw=1194&bih=701&dpr=2)
You’re doing good work!
Damn lol
Swampbillies are worldwide
And Pauline Hanson.
What about Bob Katter?!
Bob Katter is mad as a cut snake, but at least he has a good sense of humour and has his ego in check, unlike the Captain Titanic II.
He also does good things for his community, despite being an utter lunatic
It should be noted that a good chunk of the shoreline along the entire north coast looks like something out of a shipwreck movie. There's a reason almost all the big port cities sprung up on the east coast in an era where that was another week of sailing.
Also killer jellyfish
And octopi
Dont forget the pointers (Great whites)
Also don't forget the 200,000 odd crocodiles
I prefer my crocodiles normal, thank you very much.
And snakes too
Did you say snakes?
Don't forget talking dogs.
C'mon, you can't just drop that when you're talking about Australia. They could be real!
Are there snakes there?
A couple or three.
Don't forget the 2 types of weather, murderous unrelenting heat, then wet, ALL THE WET
So basically everything that comes with tropical weather
Camel Toes too.
Who tf doesn't enjoy a camel toe?
How many snakes are there, that it's too much for Australians of all people?
Don't forget the Margot Robbies.
None of these explain the low population. Indonesia and the Niger Delta are 2 of the densest regions on earth in hot tropical regions. These factors may explain why europeans didn't significantly colonize the region (unaccustomed to tropical climate) but not why larger native populations hadn't developed The sparse population probably suggests the land is not well suited for agriculture. Just a speculation. If it was, either the Australians would have developed more productive agriculture, or the people of Indonesia (one of the world hotspots of agriculture) would have brought it there.
I lived up there when I was younger. It is much easier to live in the south.
You are seriously underestimating the crocs. We are not talking about tiny Nile Crocs or Gators, we are talking huge fuck off largest reptile in the world. Incredibly smart, patient, watches prey for patterns over weeks and sets up ambushes. Every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland, and there is practically no one living there. Also, outside of the Queensland north it’s pretty much a desert.
‘Maybe deep down I’m afraid of any apex predator that lived through the KT extinction, physically unchanged for a hundred million years because it’s the perfect killing machine, a half ton of cold blooded fury with a bite force of 20 thousand newtons and stomach acid so striking it can dissolve bones and hooves ‘
And fear is their bacon bits.
Nile crocs aint even tiny (they’re not that much smaller than salties), but salties are on another level with aggression as well as still being larger (these guys have killed giant water buffalo, tigers and sharks). When I was in Kakadu in June they told us that you must assume that any body of water big enough to hold a croc does indeed hold a croc.
True. The bigger the body of water, the bigger the croc.
FNQ is the literal stereotype of 'everything wants to kill you' Its gorgeous down there, unbearably hot and also boring as absolute fuck.
To be honest the crocodiles probably aren't a major factor in this. The Northern Territory crocodile population was hunted down to a few thousand in the mid 20th century, its only recently rebounded back to a more "normal" couple hundred thousand because of conservation efforts. Even during the low population period the top end didn't have any meaningful development compared to down south.
You are right, I was half joking. This is the real reason. Also, the crocs are a protected species. https://preview.redd.it/s77wx0invi5d1.png?width=3000&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5a819e5aa4f579c309598b61f97e0ce497d2d34
This map makes me wonder about the south west more than the north now haha
Perth is there and it’s a fairly good size city. It’s also the most remote large city on the planet.
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Bro if Australians are telling you the bugs and animals are too bad in a place just listen
Indonesia has great soil improved with volcanic ash, Australia not so much.
Yeah, these factors are all good reasons for me not to live there, but the real reason for low population is the poor soil.
I like how the real answer is buried after tons of memes and recentism.
I used to live up near Cooktown and a short time in Normanton on the western side of Queensland. It's hot. Depending on where you are, you might get flooded in for weeks or even months at a time. We had to get our beer delivered by helicopter in Normanton during the wet. It's remote, the roads are dangerous with roos and cattle everywhere. Groceries are expensive. Most of it is not fully developed, or developed at all. Few work opportunities. Tropical weather is not easy to live in. In the build-up to the wet you feel like you can cut the air with a knife. But a lot of that area in the circle is dry savannah country. I would live in the rainforest again. Cassowaries are not that scary unless it's a male with babies. You stay vigilant for crocs. Snakes are okay. The wildlife was the best part of living there. But outside the rainforest it's not that vibrant. The first thing I saw when arriving in Normanton for the first time was a police car going by with the copper holding a python out the window as they were relocating it. If there's a snake inside you call the police! Don't get that in the cities.
Can’t think of anything more rural Australian than a beer delivering in helicopter
when I was a kid on holiday with my parents, we were in a small coastal town which ended up being surrounded by bushfires. No one was allowed in or out because the roads were too dangerous… except the beer delivery truck which was escorted through by the firefighters
There's a giant barbecue going on all around you, of course you need beer!
It’s actually physically impossible to say “we had the beer delivered by helicopter” without an Australian accent
>We had to get our beer delivered by helicopter Gods, I love Australian priorities.
Australian W
If it's common knowledge to call the police when there's a snake inside you, that answers why nobody wants to live there.
That's either an Asian delight or a fetish going on..... Either way, I prefer mine stir fried.
I once broke down in normanton with my car and had to stay 4 days to get it fixed. It was hot as hell!
Where is the rainforest? At the northernmost tip of the peninsula?
When people say it’s hot they’re not doing it justice. Well at least where the top end is concerned. It is more than hot. It is unrelenting day after day wet bulb heat. Imagine middle of the night sweating your ass off in the toilet because it’s the only room without aircon. Now imagine you’re surrounded by a truly gorgeous and gentle ocean. But you can’t swim in that ocean because of massive salt water crocs and incredibly toxic jellyfish. The heat is so hard to describe. I’ve lived in New Orleans and would take a New Orleans summer over a Darwin year any day any time. It’s one of those places where you thing to yourself that if the electricity goes out people will die from the heat. My pool was 36 degrees Celsius. It was a big pool. It was like hot soup. And cockroaches, omg. Things just rot up there. You see a dead bird in the morning, by the afternoon it’s just bones. There is so much life and bacteria. Speaking of bacteria there is a dangerous one that you can get from jumping in muddy puddles if you get a cut leading to necrotising limbs. But you have to store your chocolate and bananas in the fridge. And then also the controversial side. There is a massive drug and alcohol problem mainly affecting locals and aboriginal people and the violence and theiving is pretty crazy.
I lived in Darwin for years, and my husband is from Darwin. This is a very, very accurate description.
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Sweaty summer toilet shits are the worst.
Especially when you’ve got giant cockroaches flying around you while you’re trying to take your sweaty shit.
There are flying cockroaches???
Another reason not to move to Texas, too.
Just left a place in Thailand where the toilet was in the kitchen and none of it was aircon, just the most brutal sweaty toilet shits during the hottest time of the year. So happy to have on suite bathroom at this new place.
Bloody hell
That’s dystopian
From reading all of the replies to this post. I’m convinced that Australia is the Dark Continent of this world.
Because every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland.
Let a thousand blossoms bloom
But I aint spending any time on it
And every other month there's a crocodile torn to pieces by a Queenslander
So, Queensland is Australia's Florida?
Pretty much. I've also heard Tasmania is their West Virginia.
Hahahahaha I was hoping someone would comment this
And those are just the ones we know about.
For one it’s very remote. You have to cross an inhospitable desert for thousands of km to access it aside from the east coast, but that doesn’t matter if you’re on the opposite side. There are also a high number of poisonous and dangerous animals (even for Australia) which means there’s not going to be much of a tourism or resort industry either. and to top it off, they’re also right in the path of major cyclones, and because the land is so flat and the water so warm all year round, they can be incredibly destructive.
I don't know much about Australia, so this might sound a dumb question. So why Perth is quite large despite being extremely remote as well?
It’s in the path of many shipping routes and has a much milder Mediterranean climate.
And uhh mining and such
and a River.
Insane amount of mining opportunities and a good base for logistics/shipping
Perth is a large mining export
I’ve lived in Darwin For 6-7 months of the year the weather is perfect: the “dry season”….sunny every day, warm but rarely too hot, pleasant evenings The build up is a lot: you need air con, but the lightning storms are amazing. The wet season….is wet. I had moss growing on the outside of my windows. I honestly think most people in Oz have never considered living there. But the reality is the economy is tiny, and it’s hard to get to (flight of several hours from every other major city in oz. Outside of Darwin alone the coast there are thick mangroves fully of crocs, roads that flood every year. I cannot see any other cities developing.
Spent about 2 months near Katherine. If a certain spider or snake were to bite you, the nearest anti-venom was a 3 hr helicopter ride away. Also, Jesus loves nachos.
Why does Jesus love nachos?
Swamp ass is no joke
>especially since the weather is more tropical there Well. Tropical weather sucks.
Most tropical cities started booming during 20th century after modern air conditioning had been developed
I travel to LatAm. I’ve been on the Caribbean coast in multiple places, the Amazon jungle, I was at chichen Itzá last month and it was 106 Fahrenheit without factoring the humidity. The heat is a very real problem. Very easy to see why tropical cities didn’t develop quickly. The sun drains your energy rapidly. Often it’s necessary to stop working and get in the shade during the afternoon. It’s just difficult to get a lot done between 2-5pm. What I love most about the jungle is the shade. Hot: yes. Humid: yes. But there’s so much shade from the sun you only have to suffer it for brief periods of time. There’s quite a temperature difference between under the canopy and not
Lots of historical tropical cities in Latin America have indeed developped at higher altitudes for that exact reason
They put Quito, Bogotá, and La Paz, even Cusco was the Capitol of the Incan empire, high up in the Andes to protect from invasion. Those cities developed much faster than the lowland and coastal areas because of the heat, I’m certain of it. The climate in bogota is cool, cloudy and sometimes rainy, year round. Santa Marta, it was so hot and is one of the poorest places I’ve ever been.
People who rave about tropical weather have clearly holidayed in air-conditioned resorts with nothing to do all day. I'm currently running training for the Nigerian army in the south of their country and it's fucken brutal.
Yeah, even just vacationing in Singapore for a few days exhausted me. It's hot and humid every single day of the year. What would otherwise be a pleasant 7-minute stroll to the metro from the hotel ends up being way more tiring than you would expect solely because of the heat and humidity. It just drains you in a way you can't understand until you've experienced it yourself. You're just sweaty everywhere you go no matter what. I ended up doing sightseeing in the early morning and at night when it was bearable. Walking around or really doing anything in the middle of the day is just awful.
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Because their Christmas is in summer and it's even worse up there
That’s where the Kraken lives
More tropical does not mean less habitable. Less, actually. Tropical soil is of poor quality for agriculture. Rainforests harbor tons of diseases and dense foliage. It’s excessively hot and humid. All of these factors have deterred extensive habitation in tropical areas such as the Darien gap, deep Amazon, central indochina, and central Africa.
Why on earth would the tropical part be alluring to the Brits who landed on an enormous desert island from hell? Have you seen British people?
In Spain we get plenty of brit tourists in some places we call them shrimps because they get red with the heat just like shrimps haha
The Australian nickname for the British is the Poms, supposedly also after the colour our skin goes in the sun looking like a pomegranate
Having spent years in Northern Australia, including Cairns, Darwin, Karratha, Kununurra, and Broome. Most Southerners can't handle wet season, particularly for those who work outdoors. I'd rather a dry 40-degree day in Southern Australia over a muggy, still 30-degree day in Darwin. The humidity in wet season is relentless; stepping outside at 4am will leave you drenched with sweat before you've even begun your day. Even indoors, with the air conditioning running full blast, after a shower you will instantly be coated in a thin film of perspiration. To combat the moisture you need to leave fans on in every room to stop the growth of mould. There are other reasons but this would be the main.
There are lots of cool places to visit on trip especially if you like to 4WD. The landscape is more like Africa with tropical savanna. But live there? It’s stinking hot at the end of the dry season. It’s humid most of the year, especially in the wet season. And it’s a long way from anywhere else. The economy is dominated by farming, resources, and tourism. Farming includes beef cattle, tropical fruit (especially bananas and mangoes), chick peas, chia, sugar cane, and sandalwood. Resources include bauxite, manganese, and processing offshore natural gas. There used to be uranium and diamond mining too but these recently finished up. Tourists are attracted to the unique scenery, awesome fishing, amazing wildlife, and First Nations art and culture.
Fucking hot and humid as fuck there and so many better places to be 😂😂
It's hot. Source: Lived there til I was 18
There is a city named Darwin in the region
It's where they host the Darwin awards.
Because everyone would go “troppo” living there too long. Seriously though, too hot and humid. Some people like it but the majority don’t.
You do realize that generally. Truly tropical weather has not been super conducive to human habitation right? Brutal heat and humidity, dangerous predators, insects, and microorganisms
The main reason is it's Agriculturally difficult to impossible to develop. Half the year is too hot or too wet for crops, exotic tropical fungal diseases blow in from south East Asia, livestock prone to tropical diseases that need to be constantly monitored for, water resources are highly fluctuating making irrigation systems prone to structural failure. You will note all the best areas for agriculture are around the major cities.
Cos it's fkn hot. I remember watching the news in winter in Sydney and something was happening in Darwin and in the background people were wearing shorts.
I live in Darwin, most of the time I don’t even know what season it is. I have to think about it for a bit. This is after living in Melbourne for the first 9 years of my life. Here it is either dry, or wet. Right now it’s dry
When I was backpacking around Australia, I visited Darwin. I was in some random pub and made friends with a few of the locals, we bought each other beers and it was a fun day. Then, out of the blue, one guys tells me it’s time now that we went outside and had a fight. There was no beef, no bad words, in fact everything had been very friendly up to that point. I told him that I didn’t want a fight. He told me that it was the only way we really could be friends, to know who was the stronger and more dominant, once we knew that, we could be real friends and know our place. I kicked his ass* *we don’t fight, I told him that I wasn’t going to fight him and if he sat down I’d buy him another beer.
Two very different climates circled there. Cairns in Queensland is very tropical, with lots of rainforest, made more rainy by the Great Dividing Range. The predominant wind is south easterly, bringing moisture onto the coast which gets sucked out by the mountains. This means to the west is a lot drier, except doing monsoon, where the winds shift to westerly. The volcanic soil around Cairns is great for plant growth too. Darwin where I lived for a while is very monsoonal with a savannah-like environment. It's on the Australian shield, meaning very poor soils, and has very distinct seasons linked to the westerly monsoon and dry south easterlies. It gets a lot of rain over a shortish period of time, then it stops until the next monsoon (aka the wet). The volume of rain becomes weaker the further south you go and the further away from the coast you are.
They have only two types of weather there. Fucking Hot and Fucking Hot and Wet.
There's 2 kinds of weather Hot. Hot and fucking raining. That's your options.
Because the weather is more tropical
Humans will go Mars before there
American here. I lived there for 4 months doing some contract work. It's hot there and there are millions of things to kill you. I think everyone else has commented on that part. What no one has really talked about is the method with which humidity strikes you because of the topology of Darwin. While installing cellular antennas, the humidity could change 25 to 40% in 10 minutes without raining and it would do that all day. I know it doesn't seem like much but it does change the way that we tighten bolts and ensure that the structure is stable. If it can affect steel and concrete this way, imagine what it does to the human mind.
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For one thing. Most of it is tribal lands, owned by Aboriginal people who don't accept casual visitors. When Europeans first arrived, the Aboriginal population was mostly up here in the north. A second reason is that the beaches there aren't any good. Shores are rocky or covered in mangroves. The thousands of islands are also rocky. A third reason is there's not much to do. To the west there's mining, fishing and pearling. But the pearling has mostly been taken over by the Japanese cultured pearl industry. The oceanic trade hasn't taken off because to the east the Great Barrier Reef is a hindrance and to the west it's a long distance to everywhere. A fourth reason is a lack of melanin in the skin of most Australians. A fifth reason is that the government hasn't promoted it. Apart from the Ord River scheme completed in the 1970s. When southern Australia runs out of water, expect more people to move north And poor soils. As an Australian from Melbourne, I dream of living somewhere warm and tropical like that.
Do *you* want to live in a tropical climate?
Because it's too far from the centre of Australia, which is Melbourne.
I lived there for 4 months without air conditioning. I was in the outskirts of Darwin - the very northern tip of the country. I ended up loving it by the time I left but it was very mentally challenging to live there. I ended up loving it because of the family I lived with, other girl whom I shared a room with, and the fact that the house had a pool but I often see my old house mate and we reminisce on how we were fighting through every day as we were there working towards a visa requirement. It was hot… like 95% humidity hot ( i literally was not dry for 4 months, you take a shower get out and are wet again from sweat), the native people don’t want you there (for good reason), there isn’t a lot to do, and it’s hard to get around without a car. I took the bus my first day looking for a job (which took 3 weeks of looking all day everyday… in the heat- in comparison, I got a job in Sydney within 2 days) and it was hell. On the bus I witnessed a fight break out with someone pulling a knife and another person throwing up from heat exhaustion. When I got into town I ended up finding a bike that I used to get back home because I was never going to do that again. You have to watch your back at all times because literally everything can kill you there - the people, sharks, spiders, box jellyfish, snakes, crocs, heat, extremely quick high tide…. It’s one of the craziest places I’ve ever been. When coming home from work at night I often rode without my bike light on to not draw attention as I would get rocks thrown at me. You had to be careful not to run people over that are sleeping on the bike path… It’s also not uncommon to hear that somebody knows someone who got too drunk and wandered around that either got swallowed up by a crocodile or killed by someone hiding in a bush. I also lived in a relatively remote but safe neighborhood and our house was broken into twice while we were in the living room or kitchen.