The length of mainland Australia's coastline is about 33,535 km. If it was possible to drive non-stop along the entire coast at 60 km/h it would take 23 days to reach your starting point. Driving on the left side of the road, naturally. Were you to drive on the right hand side, psychologists estimate the journey would take you two and a half days longer.
The reason for this, psychologists surmise, is that as you drive around an island it is easier to keep the ocean on one's left than right due to the rotation of the earth. As a result, there are some fifty islands on which people drive on the left chief among which are Britain, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia.
Blue Poles
Years of litigation have dogged this most famous of Jackson Pollock's paintings. Right up to his death the painter demanded of the Australian National Gallery that they hang his masterpiece right way up and back to front as he originally intended it.
The story of this, the saddest of episodes had its origins at a time when Pollock, in a fit of depression, created Blue Poles, hated it, turned it around and did Yellow Poles on the reverse, which then became his favourite work. Pollock's biographer claims the artist's dying words to have been: "The good stuff's at the back."
Zippety Doodah
The largest cemetery in the world is located in Australia - Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney's west is the only cemetery in the world that has its own postcode. Regularly letters, mail and bills for deceased people are forwarded there and these are handled by the Lidcombe Post Office whose staff have to make the invidious decision whether to return to sender or deliver. Most of them, however, are returned with a standard apology and a polite suggestion that the sender may care to try another cemetery.
Patterson's Curse
Patterson's Curse is known to many as a purple weed which has taken over railway sidings in Australia. What people don't know is that Patterson was one of the fiercest bushrangers and train robbers. Frank Patterson tried everything he could to escape the hangman's noose once he got caught, much of it with threats, or even maledictions. Hence, when he was hung, he cursed the town of Ironbark and the Australian Government. His family planted the beautiful English purple flower, , as a memorial tribute on his grave, which spread through the town, the State, and then the country. Australia now spends 23 million dollars a year eradicating Patterson's Curse. Patterson was hung for the theft of 4 pounds.
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