Let's start to travel around Australia?

Let's start to travel around Australia?
Australia is the smallest continent in the world. It is also the 6th largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, China, USA, and Brazil.
There are over 20 million people living in Australia. Australia is divided into six states and two territories. The capital city is Canberra, which is in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

	Key Facts	More Info
Official Name	Commonwealth of Australia	Member of the British Commonwealth
Capital City	Canberra
Main Cities	Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin.
Area	7,682,300 sq. km
Climate	Ranges from tropical to temperate. Most of Australia is arid land or desert.	The extreme north is tropical; the southeast and southwest more mediterranean.
Population	21,575,341
Ethinic Makeup	Nationals from over 140 countries. Predominantly European descent.	40% of population are immigrants or children of immigrants; 25% were born overseas.
Language	English	Aboriginal and other languages are spoken at home and are available in government offices, banks, shops, etc.
Government	Democratic Federal system comprising six states and two territories.	The states are: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania. The territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.
Eletricity	240 volts	Three pronged plugs used. Adaptors needed for overseas appliances.
Telephone	Australia's country code is 61.	State area codes are NSW & ACT: 02; VIC & TAS: 03; SA, WA & NT: 08; QLD: 07
Currency	Australian Dollar
Time Difference	Australia has three time zones.	Western: GMT +8 hrs Central:GMT +9.5 hrs Eastern:GMT +10hrs

A little description of the geography
Australia is an island with most of its population living around its coastline. The coastline has many beaches and reefs that are popular with surfers and divers such as the Great Barrier Reef, Bondi Beach and Surfers Paradise. The centre of Australia is mostly desert with very little water. The famous Ayres Rock or Uluru is found here and is a popular tourist attraction.
The Australian Alps are on the south-east side of Australia. The highest mountain, Mount Kosciusko is a great place to go during the summer for hiking and skiing during the winter months.
In the North of Australia you can find rainforests and warmer weather as it is close to the tropics. The Daintree Rainforest is famous for its beauty and hiking trails.
Australia has a long history of farming and crop growing. In the outback, there are many farms that grow rice, wheat, and many vegetables. There are also many dairy and cattle farms that produce milk and beef for local use and to send overseas.
How is the weather?
Australian seasons are the reverse of the Europeans but the same of the Latin Americans. Thesummer months in Australia are from December to February and the Autumn months are duringMarch till May. Winter is from June to August with Spring in Australia from September till November.
Queensland and the Northern Territory are located closer to the tropics and generally havewarmer and humid weather all year round. New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, South Australia and Perth all experience the four seasons during the year. In Tasmania, the weather is colder than the rest of Australia because it is closer to Antarctica.
How many people live there?
Australia has about 21 million people, with the main population living in the South-East and East of Australia. 70 % of Australia’s population live less than one hour from the coast. Australians love the beach and surfing. They have a wonderful relaxed lifestyle.

STATE/TERRITORY	AREA		POPULATION  (at end Jun 2008)
	%	(km2)	%	(thousands)
Western Australia (WA)	33.0	2 529 875	9.9	2 163.2
Queensland (QLD)	22.5	1 730 648	19.8	4 279.4
Northern Territory (NT)	17.5	1 349 129	9.9	219.9
South Australia (SA)	12.7	983 482	9.9	1 601.8
New South Wales (NSW)	10.4	800 642	32.9	6 967.2
Victoria (VIC)	9.9	227 416	24.8	5 297.6
Tasmania (TAS)	9.9	68 401	9.9	498.2
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)	< 1	2 358	9.9	344.2
AUSTRALIA	-	7 692 024	-	21 374.0

Culture and life style - What is to be an Australian?
Australia is a multicultural country. People from around the world have migrated to Australia for many years and have brought with them their culture and wonderful food.
In Australia, the main language is English and the official currency is the Australian dollar (AU$).
A bit of history
Australia was firstly discovered by a Dutch explorer who named it New Holland. The Dutch explorer did not think the land was very interesting and did not explore it any further. It wasn’t until 1770 whenCaptain James Cook came and started using and exploring the land that he renamed it ‘New England’.
After 18 years, prisoners were sent to Australia from Britain to be used as a convict colony. Because there were so many prisoners, the land from the coast to the Blue Mountains was not enough and they needed to search for more land to fit them. This was when the first started to explore the other side of the Blue Mountains.
Between 1851 and 1852, goldfields were discovered in Victoria and New South Wales. This discovery attracted thousands of people that came to Australia to try their luck at finding gold.
In 1901, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia was started. The parliament was established as a federation of six states and two territories.
Canberra was chosen as the capital of Australia as they could not decide between Sydney and Melbourne. 
Did you know?
There are more than 40 millions of kangaroos in Australia now.This is more than the total population of Australia!
We have more sheep than kangaroos! There are about 140 million sheep. That's why Australia is worldwide famous for their wool quality.
Australia has the longest fence in the world. The fence is called the ‘Dingo Fence’ and is 5,531 kilometres long! The fence is only 1.8 meters tall with no gaps. It runs through the middle of Queensland and was built to protect the sheep from the dingo, an Australia dog
In Western Australia, they have the longest straight road in the world. It is 148 kilometres long!

Australia is a country in the Southern hemisphere between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Its official name is theCommonwealth of Australia. Australia is the sixth biggest country in the world by landmass, and is part of the Oceanic andAustralasian regions. The Australian emblem is a flower called the Golden Wattle.

23–24 million people live in Australia, and about 80% of them live on the east coast. About 60% live in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Australia's capital city is Canberra.
Australia is known for its mining and for its production of wool. Australia is the world's largest producer of bauxite.[10]
Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and other islands on the Australian tectonic plate are together called Australasia. They form one of the world's great ecozones. When other Pacific islands are included, the term is Oceania.
Geography[change | change source]

Map of Australia
Australia's landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometers is on the Indo-Australian plate.[11] The continent of Australia, including the island of Tasmania, was separated from the other continents of the world many millions of years ago Because of this, many animals and plantslive in Australia that do not live anywhere else. These include animals like the kangaroo, thekoala, the emu, the kookaburra, and the platypus.
People first arrived in Australia more than 50,000 years ago. These native Australians are called the Australian Aborigines. For the history of Australia, see History of Australia.
Most of the Australian colonies, having been settled from Britain, became mostly independent democratic states in the 1850s and all six combined as a federation on 1 January 1901. The first Prime Minister of Australia was Edmund Barton in 1901. Australia is a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia and Head of State and a Governor-General who is chosen by the Prime Minister to carry out all the duties of the Queen in Australia.
Regions and cities[change | change source]
See also: List of Cities in Australia
Australia has six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland,South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia.[12] The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and theAustralian Capital Territory (ACT).
In 2013 according to world bank Australia had just over 23.13 million people. Most Australians live in cities along the coast, such asSydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Hobart and Adelaide. The largest inland city is Canberra, which is also the nation's capital. The largest city is Sydney.[13]
Australia is a very big country, but much of the land is very dry, and the middle of the continent is mostly desert. Only the areas around the east, west and south coast have enough rain and a suitable climate (not too hot) for many farms and cities.
History[change | change source]
Aboriginal people[change | change source]

Photograph of Arrernte men of Central Australia in a Corroboree in 1900.
The Australian Aboriginal people arrived in Australia more than 50,000 years ago.[14] Until the arrival of British settlers in 1788, the Aboriginal people lived by hunting and gathering food from the land. They lived in all sorts of climates and managed the land in different ways. An example of Aboriginal land management was the Cumberland Plain where Sydney is now. Every few years the Aboriginal people would burn the grass and small trees. This meant that a lot of grass grew back, but not many big trees. Kangaroos like to live on grassy plains, but not in forests. The kangaroos that lived on the plain were a good food supply for the Aboriginal people. Sometimes, Aborigines would name a person after an animal, and they could not eat that animal to help level out the food population.
Aboriginal people did not usually build houses, except huts of grass, leaves and bark. They did not usually build walls or fences, and there were no horses, cows or sheep in Australia that needed to be kept in pens. The only Aboriginal buildings that are known are fish-traps made from stones piled up in the river, and the remains of a few stone huts in Victoria and Tasmania. The Aboriginal people did not use metal or make pottery or use bows and arrows or weave cloth. In some parts of Australia the people used sharp flaked-stone spearheads, but most Aboriginal spears were made of sharply pointed wood. Australia has a lot of trees that have very hard wood that was good for spear making. The boomerang was used in some areas for sport and for hunting.
The Aboriginal people did not think that the land belonged to them. They believed that they had grown from the land, so it was like their mother, and they belonged to the land.
Terra Australis[change | change source]
In the 1600s, Dutch merchants traded with the islands of Batavia (now Indonesia), to the north of Australia and several different Dutch ships touched on the coast of Australia. The Dutch Governor, van Diemen, sent Abel Tasman on a voyage of discovery and he found Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land. Its name was later changed to honour the man who discovered it.
The British Government were sure that there must be a very large land in the south, that had not been explored. They sent Captain James Cook to the Pacific Ocean. His ship,HMS Endeavour, carried the famous scientists, Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander who were going to Tahiti where they would watch the planet Venus pass in front of the Sun. Captain Cook's secret mission was to find "Terra Australis" (the Land of the South).
The voyage of discovery was very successful, because they found New Zealand and sailed right around it. Then they sailed westward. At last, a boy, William Hicks, who was up the mast spotted land on the horizon. Captain Cook named that bit of land Point Hicks. They sailed up the coast and Captain Cook named the land that he saw "New South Wales". At last they sailed into a large open bay which was full of fish and stingrays which the sailors speared for food. Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and were astonished to find that they did not know what any of the plants or birds or animals that they saw were. They collected hundreds of plants to take back to England.
Captain Cook saw the Aboriginal people with their simple way of life. He saw them fishing and hunting and collecting grass seeds and fruit. But there were no houses and no fences. In most parts of the world, people put up a house and a fence or some marker to show that they own the land. But the Aboriginal people did not own the land in that way. They belonged to the land, like a baby belongs to its mother. Captain Cook went home to England and told the Government that no-one owned the land. This would later cause a terrible problem for the Aboriginal people.
Settlement[change | change source]

Captain Arthur Phillip raises the British flag at Sydney in 1788.
In the 1700s, in England, laws were tough, many people were poor and gaols (jails) were full. A person could be sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread. Many people were hanged for small crimes. But usually they were just thrown in gaol. Often they were sent away to the British Colonies in America. But in the 1770s, the colonies in America became the United States. They were free from British rule and would not take England's convicts any more.
By the 1780s the gaols of England were so full that convicts were often chained up in rotting old ships. The Government decided to make a settlement in New South Wales and send some of the convicts there. In 1788 the First Fleet of eleven ships set sail from Portsmouthcarrying convicts, sailors, marines, a few free settlers and enough food to last for two years. Their leader was Captain Arthur Phillip. They were to make a new colony at the place that Captain Cook had discovered, named Botany Bay because of all the unknown plants found there by the two scientists.
Captain Phillip found that Botany Bay was flat and windy. There was not much fresh water. He went with two ships up the coast and sailed into a great harbour which he said was "the finest harbour in the world!" There were many small bays on the harbour so he decided on one which had a good stream of fresh water and some flat shore to land on. On the 26th January, 1788, the flag was raised and New South Wales was claimed in the name of King George III of England, and the new settlement was called Sydney.
For the first few years of the settlement, things were very difficult. No-one in the British Government had thought very hard about what sort of convicts should be sent to make a new colony. Nobody had chosen them carefully. There was only one man who was a farmer. There was no-one among the convicts who was a builder, a brickmaker or a blacksmith. No-one knew how to fix the tools when they broke. The cattle all escaped. There were no cooking pots. All the plants were different so no-one knew which ones could be eaten. There was a grave danger that everyone in the new colony would die of starvation.
Somehow, the little group of tents with a hut for the Governor, Arthur Phillip, and another hut for the supply of food, grew into a small town with streets, a bridge over the stream, a windmill for grinding grain and wharves for ships. By the 1820s there was a fine brick house for the Governor. There was also a hospital and a convict barracks and a beautiful church which are still standing today. Settlements had spread out from Sydney, firstly to Norfolk Island and to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and also up the coast to Newcastle, where coal was discovered, and inland where the missing cattle were found to have grown to a large herd. Spanish Merino sheep had been brought to Sydney, and by 1820, farmers were raising fat lambs for meat and also sending fine wool back to the factories of England.
While the settlement was growing in New South Wales, it was also growing in Tasmania. The climate in Tasmania was more like that in England, and farmers found it easy to grow crops there.
Exploration[change | change source]

Governor Lachlan Macquarie was the 5th Governor of New South Walesand one who though that Australia could be a rich and free place.
Because Australia is such a very large land, it was easy to think that it might be able to hold a very large number of people. In the early days of the colony, a great number of explorers went out, searching for good land to settle on. When the settlers looked west from Sydney, they saw a range of mountains which they called the Blue Mountains. They were not very high and did not look very rugged but for many years no-one could find their way through them. In 1813 Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and a 17 year-old called William Charles Wentworth crossed the Blue Mountains and found land on the other side which was good for farming. A road was built and the Governor, Lachlan Macquarie founded the town of Bathurst on the other side, 100 miles from Sydney.
Some people, like Captain Charles Sturt were sure that there must be a sea in the middle of Australia and set out to find it. Many of the explorers did not prepare very well, or else they went out to explore at the hottest time of year. Some died like Burke and Wills. Ludwig Leichhardt got lost twice. The second time, he was never seen again. Major Thomas Mitchell was one of the most successful explorers. He mapped the country as he went, and his maps remained in use for more than 100 years. He travelled all the way to what is now western Victoria, and to his surprise and annoyance found that he was not the first white person there. The Henty brothers had come fromTasmania, had built themselves a house, had a successful farm and fed the Major and his men on roast lamb and wine.
Self government[change | change source]
The goldrushes of New South Wales and Victoria started in 1851 leading to large numbers of people arriving to search for gold. The population grew across south east Australia and made great wealth and industry. By 1853 the goldrushes had made some poor people, very rich.
The transportation of convicts to Australia ended in the 1840s and 1850s and more changes came. The people in Australia wanted to run their own country, and not be told what to do from London. The first governments in the colonies were run by Governors chosen by London. Soon the settlers wanted local government and more democracy. William Wentworth started the Australian Patriotic Association (Australia's first political party) in 1835 to demand democratic government. In 1840, the city councils started and some people could vote. New South Wales Legislative Council had its first elections in 1843, again with some limits on who could vote. In 1855, limited self-government was given by London to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. In 1855, the right to vote was given to all men over 21 in South Australia. The other colonies soon followed. Women were given the vote in the Parliament of South Australia in 1895 and they became the first women in the world allowed to stand in elections.[15][16]
Australians had started parliamentary democracries all across the continent. But voices were getting louder for all of them to come together as one country with a national parliament.
The Commonwealth of Australia[change | change source]

A painting of the opening of the first Parliament of Australia, 9 May 1901, painted by Tom Roberts. Australia has had democracy since the 1850s.

Countries of birth of Australian estimated resident population, 2006.
Source:Australian Bureau of Statistics[17]
Until 1901, Australia was not a nation, it was six separate colonies governed by Britain. They voted to join together to form one new country, called the Commonwealth of Australia, in 1901. Australia was still part of the British Empire, and at first wanted only British or Europeans to come to Australia. But soon it had its own money, and its own Army and Navy.
In Australia at this time, the trade unions were very strong, and they started a political party, the Australian Labor Party. Australia passed many laws to help the workers.[18]
In 1914, the First World War started in Europe. Australia joined in on the side of Britain against Germany, Austria-Hungaryand Turkey. Australian soldiers were sent to Gallipoli, in Turkey. They fought bravely, but were beaten by the Turks. Today Australia remembers this battle every year on ANZAC Day. They also fought on the Western Front. More than 60,000 Australians were killed.
Australia had a really hard time in the Great Depression of the 1930s and joined Britain in a war against Nazi Germany when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. But in 1941 lots of Australian soldiers were captured in the Fall of Singapore by Japan. Then Japan started attacking Australia and people worried about invasion. But with help from the United States Navy, the Japanese were stopped. After the war, Australia became a close friend of the United States.
When the war ended, Australia felt that it needed many more people to fill the country up and to work. So the government said it would take in people from Europe who had lost their homes in the war. It did things like build the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Over the next 25 years, millions of people came to Australia. They came especially from Italy and Greece, other countries in Europe. Later they also came from countries like Turkey and Lebanon. An important new party, the Liberal Party of Australia was made by Robert Menzies in 1944 and it won lots of elections from 1949 until in 1972, then Gough Whitlamwon for the Labor Party. Whitlam made changes, but he made the Senate unhappy and the Governor-General sacked him and forced an election in 1975. Then Malcolm Fraser won a few elections for the Liberal Party.
In the 1960s many people began coming to Australia from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries in Asia. Australia became more multicultural. In the 1950s and 1960s Australia became one of the richest countries in the world, helped by mining and wool. Australia started trading more with America, then Japan. Australia supported the United States in wars against dictatorships in Korea and Vietnam and later Iraq. Australian soldiers also helped the United Nations in countries like East Timor in 1999.
In 1973, the famous Sydney Opera House opened. In the 1970s, 80s and 90s lots of Australian movies, actors and singers became famous around the world. In the year 2000,Sydney had the Summer Olympics.
In the 1980s and 90s, the Labor Party under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, then the Liberal Party under John Howard made lots of changes to the economy. Australia had a badrecession in 1991, but when other Western countries had trouble with their economies in 2008, Australia stayed strong.
Today Australia is a rich, peaceful and democratic country. But it still has problems. Around 4-5% of Australians could not get a job in 2010. A lot of land in Australia (like Uluru) has been returned to Aboriginal people, but lots of Aborigines are still poorer than everybody else. Every year the government chooses a big number of new people from all around the world to come as immigrants to live in Australia. These people may come because they want to do business, or to live in a democracy, to join their family, or because they are refugees. Australia took 6.5 million immigrants in the 60 years after World War Two, including around 660,000 refugees.[19]
Julia Gillard became the first woman Prime Minister of Australia in 2010 when she replaced her colleague Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party.
Politics[change | change source]

The chamber of the Australian House of Representatives in Canberra.
Australia is made up of six states and three mainland territories. Each state and territory has its own Parliament and makes its own locallaws. The Parliament of Australia sits in Canberra and makes laws for the whole country, also known as the Commonwealth or Federation.
The Federal government is led by the Prime Minister of Australia, who is the member of Parliament chosen as leader. The current Prime Minister is Malcolm Turnbull.
The leader of Australia is the Prime Minister, although the Governor-General represents the Queen of Australia, who is also the Queen of Great Britain, as head of state. The Governor-General, currently, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, is chosen by the Prime Minister.
Culture[change | change source]

The Sydney Opera House was officially opened in 1973.
Australia was colonised by people from Britain,[20] but today people from all over the world live there. English is the main spoken language, and Christianity is the main religion though all religions are accepted and not everybody has a religion. Australia is multicultural, which means that all its people are helped to keep their different languages, religions and ways of life, while also learning English and joining in with other Australians.
Famous Australian writers include the bush balladeers Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson who wrote about life in the Australian bush. More modern famous writers include Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Colleen McCullough. In 1973, Patrick White won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Australian to have achieved this; he is seen as one of the great English-language writers of the twentieth century.
Australian music has had lots of world-wide stars, for example the opera singers Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland, the rock and roll bands Bee Gees, AC/DC and INXS, the folk-rocker Paul Kelly (musician), the pop singer Kylie Minogue and Australian country music starsSlim Dusty and John Williamson. Australian Aboriginal music is very special and very ancient: it has the famous digeridoo woodwind instrument.

didgeridoo
Australian TV has produced many successful programs for home and overseas - including Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Home and Awayand Neighbours - and produced such well known TV stars as Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) and The Wiggles. Major Australian subgroups such as the Bogan have been shown on Australian TV in shows such as Bogan Huntersand Kath & Kim.[21]
Australia has two public broadcasters (the ABC and the multi-cultural SBS), three commercial television networks, three pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has its daily newspapers, and there are two national daily newspapers, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review.
Australian movies have a very long history. The world's first feature movie was the Australian movie The Story of the Kelly Gang of 1906.[22] In 1933, In the Wake of the Bounty, directed by Charles Chauvel, had Errol Flynn as the main actor.[23] Flynn went on to a celebrated career in Hollywood. The first Australian Oscar was won by 1942's Kokoda Front Line!, directed by Ken G. Hall.[24] In the 1970s and 1980s lots of big Australian movies and movie stars became world famous with movies like Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli(with Mel Gibson), The Man From Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee.[25] Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger became global stars during the 1990s and Australiastarring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman made a lot of money in 2008.
Sport[change | change source]

Don Bradman.
Sport is an important part of Australian culture because the climate is good for outdoor activities. 23.5% Australians over the age of 15 regularly take part in organised sporting activities.[26] In international sports, Australia has very strong teams in cricket, hockey, netball, rugby league and rugby union, and performs well in cycling, rowing and swimming. Local popular sports include Australian Rules Football, horse racing, soccer and motor racing. Australia has participated in every summer Olympic Games since 1896, and every Commonwealth Games. Australia has hosted the 1956 and2000 Summer Olympics, and has ranked in the top five medal-winners since 2000. Australia has also hosted the 1938, 1962, 1982 and 2006 Commonwealth Games and are to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Other major international events held regularly in Australia include the Australian Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, annual international cricket matches and the Formula One Australian Grand Prix. Corporate and government sponsorship of many sports and elite athletes is common in Australia. Televised sport is popular; some of the highest-rated television programs include the Summer Olympic Games and the grand finals of local and international football competitions.
The main sporting leagues for males are the Australian Football League, National Rugby League, A-League and NBL. For women, they are ANZ Netball Championships, W-League and WNBL.
Famous Australian sports players include the cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, the swimmer Ian Thorpe and the athlete Cathy Freeman.