Mr. Bus Driver likes to Talk!

I have some facts for you!!!
     How do I know ALL of these facts?  Because I, being the lucky person that I am, was assigned seat 1A for the bus ride from Canberra to Sydney.  I was excited about the extra leg room until I realized that it was beside the driver.  Actually, let me rephrase this: I was excited about the extra leg room until I realized that the driver COULD TALK FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!!
     The bus ride from Canberra to Sydney takes 3.5 hours.  About halfway through, I took a 30 minute nap, but the rest of the time I was talking (more so listening) to the bus driver.  Do you want to know the history of Australia?  Just ask me.  Do you want to know about movies filmed in Sydney? Ask me!  I feel like I was well-informed about Australia, but now I pretty much know a ton of useless facts about Australia.
      And I happened to have my folder and a pen out during the conversation so I have decided to list for you the topics of our conversation.  I think the fact that I was taking notes encouraged the bus driver to continue talking, and I was actually really enjoying it.  (It only made me nervouse when he took his eyes off the road during our conversation to make sure that I understood!)  Here is a list of the diverse topics that came up in conversation:
1.  Koalas eat 11 of the 634 varieties of Eucalyptus trees.
2.  688 Different Dialects of the Aboriginal language
3.  Mount Kosciuszko is great- it is the highest mountain in Australia and located in New South Wales
4. Sydney is like San Francisco because both cities are at lower elevation than the surrounding land. 
5.  Lord Sydney was the Lord of British Admiral (I don't know what else he said about him. . .the bus driver was talking so fast and going over a ton of information!)
6.  Manly was discovered by Governor Philip.  Governor Philip ROCKS!!! (I added that part!)
7.  Camel Racing
8.  The kangaroo population is 21 MILLION in Australia.  To give you a relative idea, 22 million people live in Australia!
9.  Kangaroo meat is shipped to Holland and Germany
10. Australia has two natural enemies: Cyclones and Bushfires
11. The northern hemisphere is involved with conflict and Australia stays out of conflict most of the time
12. There is sugar cane and pineapple near Brisbane (HOW DID WE GET ON THIS TOPIC?  I don't know how we jumped from wars to pineapple!)
13. Climate Change
14. Lake George is on the top of the largest volcano in Australia.  The volcano was active, but now it is totally extinct.  We were passing Lake George when he said that!
15. There is volcanic rock
16. Story about the volcanic rock.  It was a dramatic story.  Volcanic Rock fell on a car when a woman was driving by and she died.
17. The bus driver thinks that, "Queen Victoria was either on drugs or an alcoholic" because Australia is a pretty nice place to send convicts!
18. Australia is a south Pacific Paradise
19. We passed Nicole Kidman's vacation home (actually, we passed the town that it is in!)
20. There are 28 beaches in Sydney
21.  Macquarie Place
22. Mission Impossible 2 was shot in The Rocks (Sydney)
23. Titanic was shot in Bondi (Sydney)
24. There are two police: state police and commonwealth police
25. There are 2 territories and 5 states in Australia.

*Though I am not a history major, I feel like I should be now!  Thank you, Mr. Bus Driver!*