Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what, mengo, what's that?
Speaker 2: Well? I have to tell you. You know, today I
Speaker 2: was flat out like a lizard drinking. I was a
Speaker 2: real battler who needed to calm my farm.
Speaker 1: Wait, what's going on.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm practicing my Australian slang. But you know
Speaker 2: one thing I'm not doing doing it in an Australian accent.
Speaker 2: I'm sparing you of that. But just so you know
Speaker 2: what I was saying. I just told you that I
Speaker 2: worked super hard today, but I pushed through even though
Speaker 2: I probably should have relaxed.
Speaker 1: You see where I went there. Yeah, I hope they
Speaker 1: have this category to do a lingo soon.
Speaker 2: Oh it's gonna be so good. Yeah, it's only a
Speaker 2: matter of time. I'm sure. You know, people visiting Australia
Speaker 2: need to be prepared. I'm in support of this, but
Speaker 2: of course we know all the cliches like it ay
Speaker 2: made and there's a barbie for barbecue, made famous of
Speaker 2: course by Paul Hogan's Australian tourism ads back in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties. But there are a lot of lesser known ones.
Speaker 2: So let's see if you can guess a couple. What's
Speaker 2: a slippery.
Speaker 1: Dip going for a swim?
Speaker 2: It's actually a playground slide. How about a arvo?
Speaker 1: Are you just trying to make me feel dumb?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my that was actually my goal. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't feel great about myself today, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna make mango feel dumb and arvo?
Speaker 1: Is that something to do with avocados?
Speaker 2: Well, it means afternoon. So Australians are big fans of
Speaker 2: shortening words and adding an o to the end of it.
Speaker 2: So a gas station is a servo, an ambulance is
Speaker 2: an ambo, and a liquor store is a bottle.
Speaker 1: Of I'm not sure I'm ready to incorporate those into
Speaker 1: my vocabo.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, you nailed it. That was That was pretty great.
Speaker 2: We do want to study up because today we're taking
Speaker 2: a virtual trip through US Australia, which is both the
Speaker 2: world's smallest continent and the sixth largest country, and we've
Speaker 2: got a lot of ground to cover, literally, so let's
Speaker 2: dive in.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend Mangush hot ticketter, and over there in the booth
Speaker 2: is our Palin producer Dylan Fagan. Now this is interesting.
Speaker 2: He has a wolverine claw on one hand and in
Speaker 2: the other he seems to be holding it looks like
Speaker 2: Thor's hammer.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing this is a reference to the great Australian
Speaker 1: actors Hugh Jackman Chris hemsquare. Then he's also holding up
Speaker 1: a barbie dog that has to be for Margot Robbie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how he's doing all this just
Speaker 2: two hands, but you know, Dylan, he's so impressed.
Speaker 1: He is really talented. And today's episode is pretty amazing too.
Speaker 1: We are gallivanting across Australia, stopping for nine fascinating facts
Speaker 1: along the way. Before we get going, I just want
Speaker 1: to say that Ruby, my kid played an Australian bird
Speaker 1: and their school play last year.
Speaker 2: I can't think of anybody better to play it.
Speaker 1: It was just a bird, but they decided to put
Speaker 1: on an Australian access. Oh this is good, and it
Speaker 1: sounded Chinese sometimes Indians.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a little a little problematic here there, but
Speaker 2: it was amazing. That's pretty terrific. I need to see
Speaker 2: a clip of.
Speaker 1: This, so let us get started by planning our transportation.
Speaker 1: So how do you feel about train travel?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean train travel is one of the things
Speaker 2: I love, the idea of it, right, you know, I
Speaker 2: love I do love sort of shorter train travel trips
Speaker 2: that are like a couple hours. I've done the like
Speaker 2: really long train trips in the US when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, and I used to go up to Virginia
Speaker 2: during the summers and what would be like a ten
Speaker 2: to eleven hour drive would just be like almost a
Speaker 2: full day train. So that sort of thing got a
Speaker 2: little long. But I do still have this sort of
Speaker 2: ideal version or idea of train travel, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of nice or romantic to think about.
Speaker 1: How about you, Yeah, I really have a similar sort
Speaker 1: of like romance with train travel. My grandfather was a writer.
Speaker 1: He's say the best writing he did was when he
Speaker 1: was on trains. He'd get a lot of inspiration. And
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to take that train across the Canadian
Speaker 1: Rockies and also up to Montreal and the Fall to
Speaker 1: see the foliage from the train. But Australia is obviously
Speaker 1: a big place at around three million square miles. But
Speaker 1: there is a way to go straight across it, and
Speaker 1: that is the Indian Pacific Train. It is named for
Speaker 1: the fact that it goes all the way from the
Speaker 1: Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, which is a journey
Speaker 1: of about twenty seven hundred miles from Perth to Sydney. Wow,
Speaker 1: and it goes straight through the outback. At one point
Speaker 1: in the trip there are three hundred miles of straight track,
Speaker 1: which is the longest such stretch in the world. In fact,
Speaker 1: it stands out so much that this Australian astronaut his
Speaker 1: name is Andy Thomas, once said that you can even
Speaker 1: see it from space. He described it as quote like
Speaker 1: someone had drawn a very fine pencil line across the desert.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so interesting, I guess just because there weren't
Speaker 2: many obstacles they were having to deal with, they were
Speaker 2: just able to go go straight. I did not know this.
Speaker 2: So let's say I wanted to take this train ride,
Speaker 2: which honestly I kind of do. Now, how long does
Speaker 2: this trip take?
Speaker 1: It is five days and four nights. Actually, I had
Speaker 1: a friend who took it on a honeymoon and he
Speaker 1: said it felt a lot longer because he had a
Speaker 1: kangaroo steak and it sat in his stomach.
Speaker 2: Reminder not to do don't do that.
Speaker 1: But there are quite a few sightseeing stops along the way,
Speaker 1: so passengers visit Calgourly, a nineteenth century gold rush town,
Speaker 1: a remote outback city called Broken Hill that's home to
Speaker 1: the country's longest running mining operation, and in the Barossa Valley,
Speaker 1: a prominent Australian wine region known for its bold and
Speaker 1: full body cher us.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm mean I have to say that sounds like
Speaker 2: an incredible adventure. But even without a train ticket, I
Speaker 2: do know a bit about what that straight middle section
Speaker 2: of the outback looks like, you know, because I did
Speaker 2: some research. Mego, I did some research into Australia's topography,
Speaker 2: and what I learned is it's extremely flat, very flat mago.
Speaker 2: Australia is actually the flattest continent in the world, with
Speaker 2: an average elevation of under a thousand feet, and much
Speaker 2: of that is just plateau like right there in the
Speaker 2: middle of the continent. So you might be wondering, like,
Speaker 2: how did this happen geologically speaking? Well, it turns out
Speaker 2: Australia is located towards the center of a tectonic plate.
Speaker 2: So when two tectonic plates next to each other move,
Speaker 2: you know, pointy of things like mountains form, but if
Speaker 2: you're right there in the middle of a plate, you
Speaker 2: actually don't really get much of that effect.
Speaker 1: But there must be some mountains in Australia, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Its highest point is Mount Kozyuzko, with a peak of
Speaker 2: seven three hundred and ten feet. It's maybe a little
Speaker 2: bit taller than you imagined after this, but overall we're
Speaker 2: talking about a pretty flat place, especially in the middle
Speaker 2: part where the train tracks are running where we're describing there.
Speaker 2: It's one fifth of the country and it's just a
Speaker 2: big flat desert pancake, basically dessert pancakes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the fascinating things about Australia is how
Speaker 1: barren it is. Two thirds of Australia is considered too
Speaker 1: arid for settlement, which is kind of crazy when you
Speaker 1: think about it, which the country learned through trial and error. Actually,
Speaker 1: it turns out Australia is littered with ghost towns, which
Speaker 1: means that people did try to settle there and it
Speaker 1: didn't go that well for them. So back in the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, this guy named George Goiter, who was originally
Speaker 1: from Liverpool, became Surveyor General of Australia and after this
Speaker 1: big drought swept through South Australia in eighteen sixty four
Speaker 1: and eighteen sixty five, Goiter was directed to make a
Speaker 1: map of the affected region, and what he ended up
Speaker 1: doing was drawing this kind of curvy line that supposedly
Speaker 1: marked where rainfall was too unreliable to plant crops, and
Speaker 1: north of the line was no good. South of the
Speaker 1: line was okay.
Speaker 2: It seems pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for a curvy line. But the problem was in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies the rain started falling, and by this
Speaker 1: time the government was using Goiter's line to designate where
Speaker 1: farmers could buy land on credit. But there wasn't much
Speaker 1: land left south of the line, so farmers started buying
Speaker 1: up land to the north. They were like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a line on a piece of paper. What
Speaker 1: does this guy know? And for a while things were okay,
Speaker 1: but by the early eighteen eighties Goiter was proven right.
Speaker 1: The rain to the north just turned out to be
Speaker 1: this fluke, and the land dried up and those farms
Speaker 1: started failing. Now you can still find the remains of
Speaker 1: towns that once appeared to be booming, with schools, bars,
Speaker 1: hotels all built up that are abandoned, and people actually
Speaker 1: enjoy visiting these ghost towns, but it doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to stick around for too long. And here's a little
Speaker 1: detail I can't stop thinking about. One of these towns
Speaker 1: was optimistically named Farina, the Latin word for wheat, which
Speaker 1: was the crop they thought the town would be famous
Speaker 1: for growing.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, that's kind of sad. So while we're
Speaker 2: on the topic of Australia's unpredictable weather, this seems like
Speaker 2: a good time to talk about the best months to visit. So,
Speaker 2: as many of us probably know, winter in the US
Speaker 2: is Australia's summer. So the hottest time of year there
Speaker 2: is December through February, which just throws me for a loop.
Speaker 2: No matter how many times I know that, it just
Speaker 2: seems impossible. So during those months, major cities will experience
Speaker 2: temperatures ranging from sixty eight to ninety nine degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: So it does get pretty hot. But you know, given
Speaker 2: that time of year, it might be your preference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you're trying to escape cold or wet
Speaker 1: or snowy winter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but just so everyone's fully informed of what they're
Speaker 2: getting into. I did look up Australia's hottest day on
Speaker 2: record that occurred in Onslow, a coastal town in Western
Speaker 2: Australia with around eight hundred residents, a pretty small place,
Speaker 2: so in January twenty twenty two, the town matched a
Speaker 2: previous high from nineteen sixty two. It was a record
Speaker 2: set in southern Australia with a temperature of one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty three point twenty six degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Wow. So maybe January and Anslow is something you skip.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do think that heat is a bit much,
Speaker 2: even for me. But if you're looking for a season
Speaker 2: with some milder temperatures, you might consider traveling during Australia's winter,
Speaker 2: which is June through August. So then the temperatures average
Speaker 2: between fifty two degrees fahrenheit in eighty six degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is more of my kind of weather and
Speaker 1: it reminds me a little of India. Speaking of which,
Speaker 1: does Australia have a monsoon?
Speaker 2: It does, so Northern Australia experience is a monsoon season
Speaker 2: from November to March or you know, in that range.
Speaker 2: So this causes weeks of heavy rain. But aside from that,
Speaker 2: Australia's climate is incredibly dry. In fact, it's actually the
Speaker 2: second driest continent on Earth, just after Antarctica. That's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: So the lesson is check the forecast before you go,
Speaker 1: which is good advice even if you're not craffling. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we have to take a quick break, but we've
Speaker 1: saved our.
Speaker 2: Best Ossi facts for last.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we've got Orca's bikes and a
Speaker 1: record breaking fence. Stay tuned, Welcome back to Part Time Genius,
Speaker 1: where we're counting down nine facts about traveling through Australia.
Speaker 1: I should note here in case anyone is wondering this
Speaker 1: episode is not sponsored by the Australian Tourism Board, but
Speaker 1: it could be Ossy travel Board. Reach out if you
Speaker 1: want us to do some on location work for you. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I love this next fact. If you visit Southeast Australia,
Speaker 1: you might bump into the world's longest fence. The wood
Speaker 1: and wire fence known as the Dingo Fence, is three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty eight miles long, which is about
Speaker 1: the distance between New York City and London.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is a very long I know.
Speaker 1: It actually started as a few separate fences primarily built
Speaker 1: to address all these wildlife related problems. The goals were
Speaker 1: to keep invasive rabbits from destroying crops and to stop
Speaker 1: dingos from going after sheep, and by the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: these fences got connected into one long dingo fence. Now
Speaker 1: it's so long that if you tried to walk around it,
Speaker 1: it would take you about six months. Thankfully, it has
Speaker 1: gates so you actually don't have to do that. But
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work keeping such a long fence
Speaker 1: in tip top shape. There's a staff of twenty three
Speaker 1: full time employees patrolling it, and it costs around seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year to maintain.
Speaker 2: So has it done the job it was intended to do?
Speaker 1: I mean, dingos do get through sometimes, but it has
Speaker 1: divided up the wildlife pretty effectively, so the dingo free
Speaker 1: side has a lot more kangaroos and EMUs and other
Speaker 1: things dingos like to eat. But one interesting recent piece
Speaker 1: of research found that young kangaroos outside the fence that's
Speaker 1: on the same side as the dingos are larger than
Speaker 1: the young kangaroos on the other side, who don't really
Speaker 1: have to worry about being dingo food. They'd actually evolved
Speaker 1: to be bigger to meet the demands of their environment.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, all right, Well, while
Speaker 2: we're on the topic of nature doing what nature does,
Speaker 2: we do have to talk about Australia's national parks. So,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, there are technically only five parks
Speaker 2: that are run by the Commonwealth of Australia, although there
Speaker 2: are plenty more that are run by Australian states or territories.
Speaker 1: There that's crazy, there are only five national parks. I
Speaker 1: remember your dad told me he used to memorize counties
Speaker 1: but he couldn't fall asleep. And I told him Delaware
Speaker 1: only had three counties. And You're just like, that would
Speaker 1: take me much time.
Speaker 2: I really wouldn't be that helpful.
Speaker 1: But five parks isn't that many, so I guess it
Speaker 1: makes it easier to visit them all if you want to.
Speaker 1: But what's the number one national park I should put
Speaker 1: on my bucket list if I'm going to Australia.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you have to pick one, I
Speaker 2: would say go with Kakadoo. It's the largest national park
Speaker 2: in Australia. The place is massive, seventies seven hundred square
Speaker 2: miles spreading across the Northern Territory. So to put that
Speaker 2: in perspective, Grand Canyon National Park is nineteen hundred square miles,
Speaker 2: so it's like four of those. It's a massive, massive park.
Speaker 2: So given how big it is, Kakadu is a great
Speaker 2: place to go if you want to experience a mind
Speaker 2: boggling variety of ecosystems. This one park contains floodplains, wetlands, woodlands, rainforests, savannahs,
Speaker 2: and so much more. And there are beautiful waterfalls, plenty
Speaker 2: of wildlife, from crocodiles to wallabies to pythons.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely want to see a wallaby. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about the other two.
Speaker 2: I was saying it to sound like I was brave,
Speaker 2: but I definitely don't want to see a python, especially
Speaker 2: I've seen plenty of crocodiles being near Florida. But something
Speaker 2: you'll definitely want to experience if you go there is
Speaker 2: the Aboriginal culture. So over half the park is Aboriginal land.
Speaker 2: The Binning and the Mungoi people have lived there in
Speaker 2: that region for more than sixty five thousand years and
Speaker 2: visiting is a great way to learn about their history.
Speaker 2: There are over five thousand Aboriginal rock art sites in
Speaker 2: the park, including some works that are over twenty thousand
Speaker 2: years old, which is incredible. And then visiting Kakadu, you
Speaker 2: can choose a tour company with Aboriginal guides who share
Speaker 2: the sort of the cultural significance of the park and
Speaker 2: all of its art there. And I know you might
Speaker 2: be a little wary of encountering crocodiles there, and that's fine,
Speaker 2: But there is this one company that takes you on
Speaker 2: a boat tour up the East Alligator River, so along
Speaker 2: the way you get to learn about Aboriginal mythology, traditional
Speaker 2: plant medicine, and even bush survival skills. So pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. It's like it's called the East
Speaker 1: Alligator River. I guess you know what's going to be
Speaker 1: on it. Well, speaking of things in the water with
Speaker 1: very sharp teeth, Australia's waters are home to the largest
Speaker 1: orca congregation in the Southern hemisphere. So if you visit
Speaker 1: Bremer Bay, about three hundred miles south of Perth between
Speaker 1: January and April, you are actually guaranteed see orca.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I do love an orca guarantee. That's pretty Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty awesome. So what is it about this area
Speaker 2: that makes it such a great place for whales and
Speaker 2: people who appreciate them.
Speaker 1: So, about forty miles off the coast of Bremmer Bay,
Speaker 1: there's an undersea canyon. It's a biodiversity hotspot where marine
Speaker 1: life booms and since things like zooplankton, fish, and squid
Speaker 1: all congregate there, bigger animals like to feed on those
Speaker 1: things and hang out there as well. So every year
Speaker 1: orcas flock to the Bremer Canyon and they use it
Speaker 1: as their hunting ground. You can actually take a sightseeing
Speaker 1: boat out across the bay to see them. People have
Speaker 1: reported seeing hundreds of orcas at a time. That's not
Speaker 1: the only large marine life that actually spends time there.
Speaker 1: You also find sperm whales, rare beaked whales, and plenty
Speaker 1: of shark species swim through the area as well. And actually,
Speaker 1: in the past few years, orcas have been observed killing
Speaker 1: blue whales in the region, which is sad, but you know,
Speaker 1: circle of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely is. All right, Well, let's wrap up
Speaker 2: our up with a different circle, and that is circumnavigating
Speaker 2: Australia by bike.
Speaker 1: That is insane. I feel like I get winded after
Speaker 1: twenty minutes on a city bike and I cannot imagine
Speaker 1: bicycling all the way around Australia.
Speaker 2: Well, get this, because the first time someone cycled Australia
Speaker 2: was way back in eighteen ninety nine. It took Arthur
Speaker 2: Richardson two hundred and forty five days to complete the journey. Then,
Speaker 2: in October of twenty twenty four, cyclist Lachlan Morton made
Speaker 2: the trip in thirty days, nine hours and fifty nine minutes,
Speaker 2: beating the previous record by over a week.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, like, it's amazing that it
Speaker 1: took the better part of a year to just circle
Speaker 1: the country. And then and then someone doesn't in thirty days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It still sounds entirely exhausting to me. So
Speaker 1: what does the route actually look like?
Speaker 2: All right? For to count as an official attempt to
Speaker 2: circumnavigate Australia, you must bike at least fourteen thousand two
Speaker 2: hundred kilometers, which is over eighty eight hundred miles. There
Speaker 2: are eight designated locations that you have to pass through,
Speaker 2: including Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, but you can go
Speaker 2: in any direction you want, though people usually go counterclockwise
Speaker 2: because of how the tailwinds work there. According to Morton,
Speaker 2: it was a great way to see Australia and quote
Speaker 2: get a real feel for the country. Now. He supported
Speaker 2: a local charity with his ride, raising over one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Oh I love that.
Speaker 1: But given Australia's wildlife, isn't it like a dangerous ride?
Speaker 2: It definitely can be, and Morton did have an unfortunate
Speaker 2: run in while he was there. He was biking through
Speaker 2: northern Queensland and he collided with a kangaroo, which I
Speaker 2: think probably wouldn't go very well. He did say later
Speaker 2: that he was on top of it before he even noticed,
Speaker 2: but luckily both he and the kangaroo were okay.
Speaker 1: Well, just because the kangaroo survived the incident, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to give you today's trophy. If it hadn't survived,
Speaker 1: I would have given it to Dylan.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. All right, well, thank
Speaker 2: you very much. I appreciate it, and I'd like to
Speaker 2: have Fish share this trophy with Lachlan Morton. I sat
Speaker 2: here and recorded a podcast. He biked around an entire continent.
Speaker 2: So I don't know who's to say who worked harder
Speaker 2: on this one, but thank you did that does it
Speaker 2: for today's episode. We'll be back next week with a
Speaker 2: new one. In the meantime, please be sure to subscribe
Speaker 2: to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Leave us
Speaker 2: a five star rating and review. Today's episode was written
Speaker 2: by Meredith Danko. Thanks Meredith, She's always a rock star,
Speaker 2: and from Dylan Gabe, Mary Mango and me thank you
Speaker 2: for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongschatikler
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produce
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.