Norway mocks Australia’s very serious travel warning

Norway mocks Australia’s very serious travel warning
By Hannah Edensor


As Australians, we’re very used to foreigners being terrified of our monstrous native animals.

We like to make jokes with our fellow Aussies in front of travellers about the vicious ‘drop bears’ and talk about the numerous sharks we’ve fended off with only our fists.

So it feels somewhat strange to be laughed at by another country for fearing its wildlife. But alas, we continue.

A recent warning from Australia’s Smart Traveller site, which warns Aussies of possible polar bear attacks in Norway has garnered some very unlikely attention, from Norway itself.

The warning, which was posted on 11 January 2018, states:

“There are risks for travellers to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard relating to avalanches, glacier accidents, boating incidents and polar bear encounters. The level of our advice has not changed. Exercise normal safety precautions in Norway.”

We direct your attention of course, to the mention of “polar bear encounters”.

Catching wind of this very serious warning, Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly took to Twitter to, well let’s not dance around the facts, they laughed at us.

The home of the crocodile, myriad poisonous snakes and the box jellyfish, we are now being poked fun at on an international level for our – potentially overdramatic – fear of another country’s fauna.

In the tweet, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said, “Thank you Australia for your concern. We can assure you that in mainland Norway all polar bears are stuffed and poses only limited risk.”

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To humiliate just a little bit more, the Tweet was accompanied by an image of a stuffed polar bear from inside the Prime Minister’s office.

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Come on Australia.

 

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