Who makes up these names? Seriously.

in travel •  7 years ago  (edited)

Australian's get around, I mean we tend to travel a lot. Go to pretty-much any country on the planet and you'll run into someone saying g'day, she'll be right, or crikey. Traveling is what we do when we're not doing something other than traveling.


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We also travel around our own big brown land in kombie vans, four wheel drives, motorbikes, trains, buses, planes and pretty-much anything that moves. I've done a great deal of traveling including within Australia and promise you'll not be disappointed with a road-trip around the country. Just plan a lot of time off work. It's big.

Something that never fails to entertain us on the road is place names. I mean, they are interesting, weird and unusual as often as being more traditional. I thought I'd give you a few examples in the hope you'll look some up yourself and find out a little more about each place. So, here goes:

Wonglepong: Queensland. (How could I not start with this gem?)
Useless Loop: Western Australia. (A salt mining area, so pretty useful if you ask me!)
Tittybong: Victoria. (Yeah, I'm not joking. It exists.)
Cock Wash: South Australia (Oh come on, seriously?)
Peculiar Knob: South Australia (WTF)
Iron Knob: South Australia (Seriously, what's wrong with South Australian's!)
Fannie Bay: Northern Territory (I have no words.)

Ok, so you get the idea, it's endless. Driving around this country is an amazing thing to do, theres so much to see and do and a lot of fun along the way. If you're planning a trip here, or simply curious, do a search and look up some our our interesting place names and the history behind them. Aussies can have a strange sense of humour at times so some of the stories behind the names are priceless.

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I made the mistake of mispronouncing a town name when traveling around Western Australia. Although friendly, the locals were quick to correct me lol.
Toodyay. However they pronounce it Toojay.

I swear a few too many beers went down before they finalized some of these names. 🙂

That's for sure!

you South Aus has gotta make you wonder.

Can't forget Woodenbong in QLD.
or
Delicate Nobby in NSW
and
Eggs and Bacon Bay in TAS

the list of Weird and humorous place names in Aus is huge.

Haha, us South Aussies huh? Some of the names are bloody hilarious as are the stories behind them. Thanks for reading. 🇦🇺

Haha :) thanks for the laugh. it was needed man, you are welcome too!.

Upvote for Iron Knob (clearly more aspirational than descriptive by those South Aussies!)

Bwahaha...There's a mine near Iron Knob called Peculiar Knob. What's with all the knobs? 🤣

Bunch a knobs made up those names for sure. ;-)

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Can't disagree.

In Pennsylvania, USA, we have several towns with strange names. Yes, these actually are town names.
-Big Beaver
-Bird in Hand
-Blue Ball
-Climax
-Intercourse
-Lickdale
-Mount Joy
-Moon
-Mars
-Puseyville
-Virginville
-Zip Down

You can imagine some of the jokes you can make when you combine a few into a story!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Blue Ball...Sounds terrible. 🤣🇦🇺🇺🇸Imagine all of those place names in the one sentence! 🤣🤣🤣

dont forget Broome.....

So many strange names to choose from...

funny odd world....

have fun on your tour. And thanks for this article

Thanks @meox ;)