Richard Feidler

It's a really kind of an irritating thing I find every time I've gone to America.

Americans will say, oh, I can't possibly go to Australia.

I'll get killed in five seconds.

Everything in Australia is trying to kill you.

What do you make of all that, this culture of Australia is like the junkyard of God's mistakes, you know?

What they're letting down the side or something, the mammals.

I always say to Americans, you've got bears in your country, man.

They're like sharks that can walk on land.

And they come into your backyard and eat your trash.

I mean, no sharks.

It's like, are you crazy?

Your toe won't get nibbled off by a Tasmanian devil?

But it's interesting when you look back at the first responses the British had when they came to Australia, to the natural world of Australia.

They were often arriving in places as beautiful as Sydney Harbour, the Derwent River, the Swan River.

And you can see in some of the records, sometimes they went, oh, this is interesting.

Incredibly beautiful place.

This is stunning.

But then there are others like Barron Field, who wrote this poem called Kangaroo.

I'm just going to quote the first stanza of it for you.

It might be the only stanza, actually.