dunnies

Australians colloquially refer to a trip to the lavatory as ‘going to the dunny’. They also say ‘going to the John’, ‘the bog’, ‘the outhouse’, ‘the shed up the back’ ‘visit the smallest room in the house’, and ‘the shit house’ (sometimes described simply as ‘shouse’. On their arrival they ‘point Percy at the porcelain’ (Barry Humphries), ‘have a slash’, ‘have a piss’, ‘do number one or two’ (two being rhyming slang for ‘poo’), ‘take a crap’, ‘shake the wife’s best friend’. A visit to the toilet is also referred to as ‘going to the dike’ or ‘the loo’ or ‘going to the can’ – however such use is limited to the toilet block being used as a urinal. Dike was first documented in 1923 ‘Le Slang’
A dunny is essentially a toilet out the back of a house or public building, never inside. In the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, most Australian houses had the lavatory strategically placed at the rear of their house, and usually in the garden. It was usually a pit or can toilet and, understandably smelly, which, obviously, was a good reason to build it separate from the house.
The word dunny appears to come from the French word Dunegan meaning privy – Dunnakin.
The first Australian print reference was in 1952. T. A. G. Hungerford in ‘The Ridge & the River’: “Right now there might be a Shinto under every bush, and me stuck out like a dunny in a desert.”
The outhouse building gained a reputation as being identifiably Australian - Paul Hogan, the Australian comedian, was once described as being as ‘Australian as a slab off a dunny door.”