Australia, the land where residents don’t bat an eyelash at killer octopi and jellyfish, and where towns have unusual names like Humpybong and Mount Buggery, is no stranger to the weird and wonderful. The same goes for the nation’s wild, oft unfamiliar and ever-shifting landscape. Here are five reasons why the land of Down Under is like nowhere else on planet Earth.
Pink Lakes
Um, how to explain this? In an nutshell these salt lakes that exist in various parts of Australia aren’t always pink. The rosy hue comes about when their green algae changes color as salinity levels rise higher than their sea water content, temps increase enough and the light is just right. The algae begins to accumulate beta carotene and… voila! You get a pink lake (or something like that).
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Morning glory clouds in Australia | Photo: By Mick Petroff, via Wikimedia Commons
Morning Glory Clouds
These tube-like clouds have occurred in various parts of the world, but only in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory are they observed with any regularity (from late September to early November to be exact). These roll clouds can be up to 620 miles long, sometimes travel in groups of up to ten and are spectacularly low, existing a mere 330 to 660 feet above ground.
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Raining Fish
Yes, this really did happen. In a remote part of the Australia outback a phenomenon happened several years ago which literally caused fish to rain down from the sky. Residents of Lajamanu were stunned when hundreds of spangled perch came pouring down, a likely result of having been picked up by a tornado which might’ve sucked up water and fish from elsewhere and dropped them over this tiny town.
Close up of spiderwebs in Wagga Wagga | Flickr CC: Ed Dunens
Fields of Web
Yes, this one is just as a creepy and fascinating as it looks. In 2012 in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales (southwest of Sydney), intense flooding caused the town’s spiders to seek higher ground and create an intricate network of webbing across the land that allowed them to travel safely above the flood waters. The process is called ballooning and is no friend to arachnophobes.
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Rainbow Eucalyptus Trees
How to explain this fascinating species of eucalyptus? As the bright green bark peels off it turns to dark green then purple and blue and lastly pink and orange. Because this happens in different phases around the tree it has a rainbow effect. Found in tropical Australia and also parts of South Asia. Amazing, right?
