According to the Temperance Society-produced vintage photographs, drunkenness has five stages.

(Image: Museum of Victoria)

earthstory: This is the Welcome Stranger Nugget.

Discovered in 1869 by Cornishmen John Deason and Richard Oates in Victoria, Australia, it is the largest gold nugget ever discovered.

It weighed in at 69kg (152.1 lb.) and measured 61x31cm (24×12.2″) and it was found just a couple of metres below the surface.

At the time no scale was big enough to weight the nugget so it was broken into 3 pieces and each piece weighed separately.

At today’s Gold Value the nugget would be worth

$3,786,257.01 AUD (Correct 21/09/2012 Perth Royal Mint)

To read more:

Museum Victoria

Australia Historical Finds and Discoveries

Australian Gold

VisitMaryBorough.com

Via Ratak Monodosico.

Hat tip to Clarice Feldman.

Eastern Brown (Pseudonaja textilis), the world’s second most venomous land snake.

54-year-old Rod Sommerville, bitten by an Eastern Brown in his backyard in Yeppoon last month, responded by first whacking his attacker on the head with a shovel, and then self-medicating with a beer while waiting for the ambulance.

“I said to myself, if I’m going to cark it I’m going to have a beer, so I got a Goldie out of the fridge and drank that; ’cause you know eastern browns are the second most venomous snake in the world,” Rod said.

Australian Morning Bulletin

Rod Sommerville

A 10 foot water python (Liasis fuscus) was filmed, and made international news, on Sunday at Lake Moondara in Queensland, Australia defeating and then devouring a small three foot crocodile.

Brisbane Times

BBC

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Rather heavy-handed Australian PSA.

In Australia, a juvenile White-breasted Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) found that somebody had lost a cool video camera near the crocodile-infested Margaret River.

Naturally, he picked it up, took it home, and took some selfies. Wouldn’t you?

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

More here.

Hat tip to Star Belsen.

Worldnews NBC:

An Australian camper was missing and presumed dead after being snatched by a crocodile in front of onlookers as he swam across a river with a friend, police told local media Sunday.

The 24-year-old was swimming with a friend on Saturday afternoon near the Mary River Wilderness Retreat, about 80 miles east of Darwin in the country’s Northern Territory.

The pair swam to the middle of the muddy river and were on their way back when the crocodile lunged, taking the victim below the surface, news site NT News reported.

Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to 23 feet long and weigh more than a tonne, are a common feature of Australia’s tropical north, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The local man was celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday at the outback tourist destination, Senior Sergeant Geoff Bahnert told The Associated Press.

“Several of the group in the party witnessed the male being taken in the jaws of the croc for a period of time, and then he was out of sight,” Bahnert said.

“The Mary River is known worldwide to have the greatest saturation of adult saltwater crocodiles in the world. You don’t swim in the Mary River,” he said.

Alcohol may have played a part in the decision to swim, he said.

Raymond Borzelli does not let age or lack of income get him down.

Hat tip to “>Vanderleun.

A 4.4 meter-14 3/4′ (or 4.8 meter–15 3/4′, depending whom you believe) saltwater crocodile which had made a habit of menacing schoolchildren for two years in the vicinity of Palumpa, in the Daly River Reserve of Australia’s Northern Territory, kept up its local reign of terror too long. After a final incident of the big croc preventing children crossing a causeway to attend school, police and council members trapped the beast in a local billabong last week and shot him.

ABC Australia

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