Australia Day is one of the great holidays. What’s super about it is that it’s close enough to New Year’s that you’ve got a few left over beers in the fridge, yet close enough to February that people doing Dry January tend to play the near-enough-is-close-enough card. Oz Day sees thousands of backyards turned into makeshift cricket pitches, beaches become inundated with already-tanned office workers looking for a top-up, and public parks hosting mental amounts of parties complete with stereos and footballs. What a day!
It’s also a holiday that offers up a great opportunity to explore a new city (if you’re tempted, you can search for flights here). After all, there’s nothing like a party atmosphere to tempt out the tourist in you. And what’s a party without the people? If you’re heading to an Australia Day party this year, keep a keen eye out for these characters…
PS – if you fancy putting your knowledge of all things Australia to the test, check out our Australia Day quiz for the chance to win flights worth $1,000!
The overly-patriotic flag hat-wearer
You love Australia. We get it. We got it the moment we saw the union jack cape draped over your tribal tatt and the bucket hat with the southern cross flecked across the brim. However, due to some green and gold tunnel vision, caused from their polarised rainbow sunnies, this person seems to worry that we might not have picked up on their overly zealous patriotism and insists on laying the accent on even thicker and, with a magpie squeal inflection, crack open a tinnie and shriek about this being the best damn country in the world. Best to avoid.
The hottest-100-one-up fortune teller
The Hottest 100 party has become somewhat of a staple at Australia Day parties, as people too cheap to pay for Spotify Premium opt to listen to a dire mix of pop-fringe-songs and spend a large proportion of the day trying to guess what song is going to be next. Cue “No ways!” or, “I love this song!” or, if you’re me, “Seriously?” In any case, if you’re ever at a loss to figure out what song might come in at number #1, never fear, because there’ll almost certainly be a person there – usually wearing a felt hat – who has got the entire Hottest 100 plotted out in their head and will give you the next ten songs whether you like it or not. Their vision of the future is almost certainly going to be wrong, but they’ll overcompensate by rattling off bands you’ve never heard of and then gasp audibly when they’re not featured. They’ll be featured next year, they say, knowingly, sipping on a Pear Rekorderlig.
The token overseas backpacker who’s just happy to be invited
For the overseas traveller, Australia Day must seem like a Purge-esque day where people, already feeling unclean and unable to get through a single month of the new year, take a government sanctioned chill day with a tray of cheap snags, cartons of beer and a belief that no matter what they do will be forgiven for it in the morning. For the random overseas traveller who gets invited to an Oz Day BBQ, this must be a real culture shock. They’ve already had to experience a 40º Christmas and now they’re thrust into a Melbourne Bitter-sponsored Hunger Games where the last one standing gets the privilege of dealing with the resulting carnage. They’ll go one of two ways – embrace it by micky-flipping off the roof or freak out and huddle in a corner humming God Save the Queen until it all blows over (whilst perhaps searching for flights to somewhere a little more sane).
The takes-their-resolution-too-seriously buzzkill
For most of us, events such as Australia Day only reinforce our lack of self-control. The smell of grilling meats slowly cooking lure us into breaking any flimsy health-related resolution we made at the start of January. However, there are always some people who won’t hesitate to lecture everyone about their reasons for not throwing back the beers, why their vegan diet is taking priority over the barbie or why they need to be fresh for their 5 am CrossFit class. More often than not, they’ll be all self-righteous at 9am, but my midday, after a bottle of wine, six beers and a tequila shot, will be hunkered behind the garden shed inhaling everything in sight.
The guy who just doesn’t wanna be there
For some people, big random day parties are just not their thing. They’ll make an effort because it’s what you do, but in reality they’d rather be watching reruns of The O.C. and trying to figure out if they have more in common with Seth or Ryan. You’ll be able to tell who doesn’t want to be there because they’ll really struggle to name any of the songs in the Hottest 100 and will show a curl of disdain every time the next electro-tripe-dance-hit begins. They’ll also check their phone every five minutes and pretend they got a message, but really it’s their mum laying the smack down on Words with Friends. They’ll also sink beers faster than anyone because it’s a good way to kill twelve seconds and they’ll be so shy they come across as rude. Have you guessed who it is yet? It’s me. I’m describing me.
Happy Australia Day folks!
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