Why do Australians travel?

Nat is reading Swahili for the broken hearted, an absolutely fantastic book about Peter Moore I guy from Sydney making his way from the Cape to Cairo and getting into a whole lot of strife along the way. In the early stages of the book he mentions his hero, Alby Mangles. "Who is Alby Mangles?" she asked in a still quasi Canadian accent. I decided it was time to pay Blog tribute to a man who was a hero of mine too.

The genesis of the Alby Mangels story is told in the opening sequence of World Safari I. He and his mate John Field set off on their motorbikes from Adelaide on the 10th March, 1971. All they had was four hundred dollars cash, a film camera (16mm Bell and Howell, with apparently no sound-recording capability), and the desire for adventure. During the following six years they were to visit fifty-six countries across four continents, and be fortunate not to perish ten times over. Consequently, Alby became a national celebrity.

For some it was his laugh in the face of danger attitude, for others his adventurous spirit. For many it was his ability to pull hot chicks wherever he went (Mangels became famous for an array of attractive female traveling companions, with a quota per film approaching that of James Bond - wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alby_Mangels). I think it was a combo of these thing that Alby has passed on to a generation of travelers. Is this why so many Australians travel?