“Queensland is the world’s last bastion of political incorrectness,” Steve declared into a microphone as he steered the truck north on the four-lane highway, leaving behind a small city comprised largely of backpackers’ (hostels) and bars. The vehicle’s front looked like the head of a Return of the Jedi AT-AT. Inside, a rectangular frame separated it from the representatives of a smorgasbord of European countries, plus a few Americans and Koreans, in neat Greyhound-style rows. “…and on the right is the last American embassy. There aren't any north of here,” he said with obvious enjoyment, as a McDonald’s came into view. He was decked out in true bushman’s gear: tan wide-rimmed hat, tan short-sleeved button-down cotton shirt tucked into not-quite-knee-length shorts of the same color and sturdy hiking boots. This was notsomeone you came across in Melbourne’s business district. This was a “real” Australian—“true blue;” the kind of person I’d hoped to meet in this part of the country. Not long after the embassy, he pointed out a group of wallabies displaced by development grazing in a small field next to a large tract of suburban-style housing. Australia is a country roughly the size of the mainland U.S. with a population of 20 million (the U.S. has 300 million). The country is so dry that 18 of the 20 million live in coastal cities, making it one of the world’s most urbanized nations. Over the next hour-and-a-half, Steve enlightened us concerning Australia, snakes and lizards (in addition to being a tour guide, he’s also a practicing herpetologist) and the Daintree Rainforest, our destination two hours north of Cairns. He mixed in a bevy of jokes, targeting groups including Germans and Chinese, homosexuals and Australians. Wait-a-while, or Lawyer Vine, uses the many sharp spines on its leaves to climb other trees in order to access sunlight in the rainforest canopy. If caught in it and attempting to walk forward, one’s clothes may be torn to shreds. In a serious moment, he claimed to have grown up with Steve Irwin, who had died weeks earlier, and recalled that, owing to his being as hyperactive at every moment of his life as he was on TV, our guide’s father “more than once had to put Stevey over his knee.” He then launched into an onslaught of Steve Irwin jokes and was on his third (“People say crocs were Steve’s favorite animal, but it’s clear now that rays were much closer to his heart”) when my sense of propriety overcame me. I asked why Australians did not appear to respect Steve Irwin, despite his successful efforts to pass legislation protecting wildlife and large monetary contributions to the cause. Our guide explained that, the more beloved and respected a person was in Australia, the faster the jokes popped up after he/she died. He said there were innumerable side-busters after Princess Diana passed away, but spared us examples. The world’s most venomous snake, the Inland Taipan, is found only in Central Australia’s Simpson Desert, an environment so uninhabitable that, as far as is known, the snake has never killed anyone. I imagined the Australian sense of humor to somehow be in careful ecological balance with the terrain. It seemed formed out of the Outback: in sharp, high rocks and long sand-stretches, bred alongside wide-eyed nocturnal marsupials and beady-eyed diurnal ones, both of which you can’t find anywhere else in the world. They have a way of moving, springing up-and-forward on stems like right angles, which lion-, tiger- and bear-fearing “Yankees” cannot quite imagine. Their movements are as foreign as the things we do with our mouths to pronounce words like “kangaroo.” The cap on the day was a croc-spotting river cruise. If walking along a river, keep five meters from the edge. Crocodiles can use their tails to propel themselves two-to-three meters out of obscuring water up a riverbank. Returning to the dock, we were informed that, in the event that one of us should leave a camera aboard, to “please leave the instruction manual with it. It’s easier to sell that way.”   Robbie Brenner will take Melbourne over Sydney any day. You can reach him at r-brenner-1@northwestern.edu