Wildlife one comes across in ones travels is one way to know you've arrived somewhere new. In Singapore, it was the geckos that climbed on our walls to take refuge behind the artwork.

In The Gambia, it was the pouch rats that jumped over the corrugate fence in my back yard or the enormous snake that I can still see in the circle of my flashlight as I was walking to my latrine one night--or that monkey that makes for a terrific tale. Later for that one.

If you're driving across West Virginia, you might see a black bear dash across the road like I did last summer when I was heading to Washington, D.C.

If you had been in Noonamah Tavern in Noonamah, Australia last Sunday, you'd have been drinking a beer with a crocodile acquaintance. Noonamah is near Litchfield National Park not far from Darwin.

The crocodile might have been underage though since it was only two feet long. According to the AP article on Salon.com, a grown-up can be 16 feet, much harder to get into a bar.

Three guys who saw the crocodile outside the tavern thought it would be neat to bring it inside and have a few. The crocodile didn't drink, though. They taped its mouth shut. Not a particularly hospitable way to treat a guest, but it was a crocodile with sharp teeth after all.

Happily, the story ends well. There is not a drinking and driving accident to report or anything like that. The salt water crocodile, a protected species, is now at a crocodile farm where it may have come from in the first place.

I wonder if it has come up with any jokes yet? "There were these three guys in a bar. . ."

They had been married for exactly 11 days and the husband already wanted to kill his wife? When they say everything happens faster nowadays, they are not kidding.

Yesterday, four and a half years after the Gabe and Gina Watson incident, a warrant was issued for Gabe. Australia has asked for his extradition from the US to stand trial for killing his young wife while diving in an apparent attempt to secure her life insurance payout, The Guardian reports.

The US newlyweds were on their honeymoon. Gabe Watson, an experienced rescue diver, was exploring a submerged wreck with his wife when she died. It was her first big diving trip, after she had been persuaded by her husband to explore the deep, turquoise waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

One witness said the couple appeared to be locked in an unnatural embrace at a depth of about 50ft before they separated, with Watson heading to the surface while his wife sank to the ocean floor. A leader of the dive spotted the stricken woman and brought her to the surface, but she could not be revived.

Gabe, however, severely underestimated the prevalence of underwater cameras these days. A couple people in their group just happened to take some revealing pictures (and videos) of the scene...

One for the scrapbook.

This is hard to believe, but I don't think The Sydney Morning Herald would make it up just to beat the US at something.

The Herald reports that, according to a new report, 26 per cent of adult Australians - almost 4 million people - are now obese, 1 million more than the last calculation in 1999.

The findings mean Australia is the world's most overweight nation, ahead of even Americans, who have a 25 per cent obesity rate.

The report says that 9 million adults have a body mass index over 25, making them overweight or obese, an increase from 7 million. Experts have called for obese people to be given gym discounts and for surgical waiting lists to be prioritized on the basis of weight loss.

I just don't really see it. I went to Australia in 2005 and I didn't see fat people anywhere. Seriously, where does Australia hide them all?

Anyone out there who's seen the movie "Open Water" knows just what British diver Richard Neely and his American girlfriend Allyson Dalton went through when they were recently stranded near Australia's Great Barrier Reef after their diving group left without them.

The couple was stranded for nearly 20 hours, in some of the most shark-infested waters in the world.

"I truly thought I was going to die. Sharks were on our mind the entire time - but neither of us mentioned the 'S' word," Neely told Britain's Sunday Mirror. "We just had to stay calm to help each other through the ordeal and not think about being eaten alive."

How did they manage to stay alive? By tying themselves together, placing a small dive buoy between them and shouting "I love you" to each other as the night wore on.

The scariest time, Neely said, was at daybreak, the most popular time for sharks to feed.

"Because I'd seen Open Water, I was very concerned about being stranded in the same way, but I didn't mention it to Ally. I could bring myself to mention it because that would have been too much. As a dive guide, I know the best time to see sharks out and about is the crack of dawn," he tells the Mirror.

"I knew when the sun is rising, the sharks look up to the surface and there were Ally and I floating and splashing, with my very big yellow marker buoy splashing on the surface.We were both very well aware of that but we didn't mention it to each other. Fortunately, we didn't see any shark fins in the water - not like in the movie."

The couple was rescued by helicopter by mid morning, apparently just after a poisonous sea snake began circling them.

How did this happen? The couple says they simply got swept away by a strong current, so that they were out of sight of their dive boat. However, some are questioning whether their ordeal wasn't some big publicity stunt.

According to the Washington Post, the couple brought along a water bottle -- pretty pointless with all that dive gear -- and wore full wet suits, unusual for the tropical waters around the GBR. Also, they sold their story to the British tabloids for millions.

Read about their entire ordeal here and decide for yourself.

The Today show has some video footage.

Cash and Treasures, as mentioned in a previous post, is a Travel Channel show that often features kid friendly places. Host Kirsten Gum, an engaging sort, heads to where you can dig up treasure. I've been watching every Wednesday for the past several weeks, finding out more and more about the bounty one can find above and below ground. The finder gets to keep all of it for a price.

Episode: Digging for black opals

What are they? Stones of a variety of color ranging from black to blue with the shades in between that shine up into various patterns and designs. The design influences their value. Most of the opals in the world--95% come from this part of the world.

Location: Lightning Ridge, Australia--a small mining town that's a bit of a poke to get to. Gum said it took 11 hours through the Outback.

Digging details: Gum started her quest by heading to Black Opal Tours located in Lightening Ridge. This tour establishment is a place to find out about the various types of opal patterns and their value, as well as the history of opal mining in the area. While Gum was in Lightning Ridge, besides digging, she hob-nobbed with some of the miners and downed some beers, "stubbies," to find out about the miners experience and secrets. They kept the secrets to themselves. None of them looked like they are getting rich.

I have been waiting for somebody to try this. They always tell to you to "poke a shark in the eye" if you get attacked, but it always seemed unreal to actually do it when it happens. The eye of a shark is pretty damn small, not to mention creepy.

Nonetheless, an Australian swimmer says he survived a mauling by a 16-foot shark by wrestling with the beast, finally getting free by poking it in the eye. The shark, believed to be a great white, seized Jason Cull by the left leg as he was swimming at Middleton Beach in southwestern Australia on Saturday, AP reports.

The shark was one of three that swimmers reported seeing at the beach Saturday. Officials closed the beach after the attack. From his hospital bed where he was treated for deep lacerations, Cull, 37, told reporters Sunday he saw a shadow moving in the water just before the attack and mistook it for a dolphin.

"It was much bigger than a dolphin when it came up," Cull said. "It banged straight into me. I realized what it was, it was a shark....I sort of punched it, and it grabbed me by the leg and dragged me under the water," he said. "I just remember being dragged backwards underwater. I felt along it, I found its eye and I poked it in the eye, and that's when it let go."

There you go. The eye method is obviously not just an urban legend. Now it's just a matter of being able to locate the eye of a shark (while being half-submerged in its jaws) and poking it . Got it.

[via WTOPnews.com]

Oh, my beloved Australia scores again!

An Australian has been fined after buckling in a case of beer with a seat belt but leaving a 5-year-old child to sit on the car's floor, NY Times reports. Police said they were ''shocked and appalled'' when he pulled over the unregistered car Friday in the central Australian town of Alice Springs and saw a 30-can beer case was strapped in between two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, but on the car's floor. The driver was fined 750 Australian dollars ($710).

''This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child,'' said the police officer in charge.

I hate to break it to them, but I am quite certain this is--sadly enough--not the first nor the last time beer has taken priority over a child.

Several botanical gardens are having Mother's Day events this Sunday. One of the advantages of going to a botanical garden, I've found, is that they usually have wonderful gift shops that are perfect places for picking up that last minute present.

If you've forgotten to buy your mother a gift, when she's not looking, perhaps, when she's basking in the fragrance of a floral paradise, slip into the shop to buy her a little something. Since the wedding season is upon us, pick up a wedding gift as well. Here are the first 10 botanical gardens I came across that listed a Mother's Day happening. Nine are in the U.S. and one is not.

(This photo is from a tribute to redbuds and mothers at the Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. My mom taught me to love redbuds too, so I thought this fitting.)

If you are in the midst of planning a beach vacation, this is bad timing. I was just about to tell you about the World's Most Dangerous Beaches, as compiled by Forbes.

In 2006 alone, American households apparently took nearly 55 million trips to the beach. Most of those trips were totally safe and pleasant. The rest of them....not so much.

Here are the World's Most Dangerous Beaches by Forbes:

• Shark Attacks/Bites: New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Fla., Runner Up: Hawaii
• Pollution: Hacks Point Beach, Kent County, Md./Beachwood Beach West, Ocean County, N.J.
• Jellyfish Attacks: Northern Australia
• Rip Current Drowning: Brevard County, Fla., Runner Up: Volusia County, Fla.
• Boating Accidents: Florida, Runner Up: California
• Lightning: Florida, Runner up: Colorado

Umm, Colorado? They have beaches in Colorado?

P.S. Is it just me or is this list a little US-centric?

"Why is it so hard to admit you like the good 'ole US of A?" asks Ben Groundwater, resident Backpacker Blogger at the Sydney Morning Herald.

As a non-American who spends a lot of time in the US, I wept with joy when I read his latest blog "The most underrated country in the world". OK, I didn't weep but I did enjoy it tremendously.

He gets into analyzing the American psyche, which--let's be honest here--has been the full-time job of many a backpacker worldwide. From my own modest experience psychoanalyzing the American "it", I advise against it. Unless of course you take pleasure in pissing people off. (Gadling is hiring, by the way)

Anyway, back to Ben. He shares his own observations about America: "I first touched down in the US as a kid, a time when it's impossible to hate the place....As you grow up, however, the place becomes harder and harder to love....My long-time travel buddy, the Hilton Hippy, has got the shits with the Yanks. Never going back there, he says. Doesn't want to be fingerprinted by some half-witted goon in immigration. Doesn't want to throw his tourist dollars into a place run by a glorified county sheriff....But let's cut to the biggest perceived problem with the US: the people.....They're meant to be loud-mouthed, rude, arrogant, and ridiculously insular."

Hold on here, be patient. This is where Ben goes positive on us. "Thing is, the Seppos get a bad wrap because of their behaviour when you meet them overseas, but at home, they're generous to the point of being overbearing. I've been driven across state lines by people I barely know, been offered directions by New Yorkers before I've even had a chance to pull out a map, had people beg me to come visit so they can show me their home town. Borat made those college kids look pretty damn stupid when he hitched a lift with them in the movie, but have a think about what was actually happening. Here was a bunch of kids heading off on holidays, picking up what was, to their minds at least, a middle-aged Kazakhstani hitchhiker, sharing their precious stash of beer with him and trading stories. Find me any Australians who would do that."

He's got a point there. Americans are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. (As a non-American I can actually say that and not sound like a totally clueless Yankee flag-waver.)

(Read Ben's entire The most underrated country in the world" blog here)