Australians and Bulls

From Australia comes a note about just how addicted to adventure the Aussies seem to be.

It talks about the Australian "casualties" at the San Fermines in Iruñea:

The running of the bulls takes place in early July in Pamplona, the Basque town in northern Spain. They've been holding this ritual for more than 400 years, but in recent decades a new tradition has evolved there - the running of the Australians.

Lauren Bowey, 21, of Adelaide, jogged through the streets of Pamplona on July 5, the day before the bulls were let loose, along with a group of others wearing nothing but a pair of horns and a red basque scarf. The naked protest was meant to draw attention to the treatment of the bulls, maimed and killed during the bullfight festival.

The previous year, another young Australian woman, Karen More, 24, was one of three people who suffered head injuries sustained during the running of the bulls. The year before that, three people were gored and, once again, one was an Australian, Nicolas Headlam, 29. In 2002, another three people were hospitalised after being gored. Yet again, one was an Australian.

Detect a pattern? Young Australians gravitate to the most dangerous rite in Europe, in disproportionate numbers, and with disproportionate bravado. One travel company in London which services Aussie backpackers proudly accentuated the danger in its ads for Pamplona this year: "Every year many people are injured and some killed."

Actually, 13 people have been killed since records began in 1924. The last fatality occurred 10 years ago, a 22-year-old American, but there have been thousands of casualties. It is one of many, many ways Australians manage to put themselves in harm's way for a dare, for the adrenalin, all over the world, all the time. On July 21, an Australian, Darcy Zoitsas, a veteran BASE jumper (jumping off mountains or tall structures, with a parachute) leapt off the Kjerag clifftop in Norway, and became the ninth person in 10 years to die off Kjerag when his parachute failed to open. Another Australian, Roland "Slim" Simpson, died in a BASE jump off the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai last October. The list just keeps ticking over.

I recommend you read the entire article, it is quite interesting.

And whenever you see a pack of Australians, stay out of harms way.

Just kidding!

* There is a copy of the article "A Nation Addicted to Adventure" at Artxiboak

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