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Australia is the only country that has a whole continent to itself. World famous for its natural wonders and wide open spaces (beaches, deserts and "the bush" or "the Outback"), Australia is ironically one of the world's most highly urbanised countries and is well known for the cosmopolitan attractions of its globally significant cities, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and the Australian capital city Canberra. Australia is also a major tourist destination, and is one of the world's wealthiest countries. The country is renowned worldwide for its vast, untouched landscape and its unique culture.

Cities

Canberra - the purpose-built, planned national capital of Australia

Adelaide - the City of Churches, a relaxed South Australian alternative to the big eastern cities

Brisbane - sun-drenched capital of Queensland, and known for its party atmosphere.

Cairns - gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Port Douglas, the Atherton Tablelands, Daintree National Park, and many beautiful beaches and resorts.

Darwin - Australia's smallest and northern-most capital, at the top of the Northern Territory

Hobart - small but fascinating capital of Tasmania

Melbourne - Australia's second largest city and the nation's first capital city.

Canberra - the purpose-built, planned national capital of Australia

Adelaide - the City of Churches, a relaxed South Australian alternative to the big eastern cities

Brisbane - sun-drenched capital of Queensland, and known for its party atmosphere.

Cairns - gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Port Douglas, the Atherton Tablelands, Daintree National Park, and many beautiful beaches and resorts.

Darwin - Australia's smallest and northern-most capital, at the top of the Northern Territory

Hobart - small but fascinating capital of Tasmania

Melbourne - Australia's second largest city and the nation's first capital city. Melbourne is arguably the culinary, sporting and cultural capital

Perth - the most remote continental capital city on earth, on the south-western edge of Western Australia

Sydney - Australia's first and largest city, the capital of New South Wales

Other cities can be found under their respective state articles.

Other destinations

Queensland's Sunshine Coast, including Caloundra, Noosa, Maroochydore and Mooloolaba.

The Outback: Australia's red centre

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, located in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a gigantic wind-swept rock.

Background

Geography

Australia is the world's smallest continent but sixth-largest country; it's slightly smaller than the 48 contiguous United States. The highly urbanised population is heavily concentrated along the eastern and south-eastern coasts. Australia is bordered on the northwest, west, and southwest by the Indian Ocean, and on the east by the South Pacific Ocean. The Tasman Sea lies to the southeast, while the Great Barrier Reef lies to the northeast. Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Indonesia are Australia's northern neighbors, separated from Australia by the Arafura Sea and the Timor Sea.
Australia is mostly arid and semi-arid: the center is desert and much agricultural land is poor quality by the standards of continents with richer soil. The south east is temperate and the north tropical. Australia was massively deforested for agricultural purposes: forest areas survive in extensive national parks and some other areas.
Australia is prone to severe drought and water restrictions are currently in place in some areas, however these shouldn't affect travellers as they mostly relate to watering gardens and washing cars.
A common perception of Australia is that it is always hot and sunny: wrong! Both Sydney and Melbourne can experience days or even weeks of almost continual rainfall, while Western Tasmania has a climate that closely resembles that of England, although Tasmania's capital, Hobart, is the second driest Australian capital.

History

The continent of Australia was apparently first settled more than 40,000 years ago with successive waves of immigration of Aboriginal peoples from south and south-east Asia. With rising sea levels after the last Ice Age, Australia became largely isolated from the rest of the world and the Aboriginal tribes developed a variety of cultures, based on a close (spiritual) relationship with the land and nature, and extended kinship. Australian aborigines maintained a hunter/gatherer culture for thousands of years in association with a complex artistic and cultural life - including a very rich 'story-telling' tradition. While the 'modern impression' of Australian Aborigines is largely built around an image of the 'desert people' who have adapted to some of the harshest conditions on the planet (equivalent to the bushmen of the Kalahari), Australia provided a 'comfortable living' for the bulk of aborigines amongst the bountiful flora and fauna on the Australian coast - until the arrival of Europeans.
Although a lucrative Chinese market for shells and beche de mere had encouraged Indonesian fishermen to visit Northern Australia for centuries it was unknown to Europeans until the 1600's, when Dutch traders to Asia began to 'bump' into the Western Coast. Early Dutch impressions of this extremely harsh, dry country were unfavourable, and Australia remained for them something simply a road sign pointing north to the much richer (and lucrative) East Indies (modern Indonesia). Deliberate exploration of the Australian coast was then largely taken over by the French and the British. Consequently place names of bays, headlands and rivers around the coastline reflect a range of Dutch, French, British, and Aboriginal languages.
In 1770, the expedition of the Endeavour under command of James Cook navigated and charted the east coast of Australia, making first landfall at Botany Bay on April 29, 1770. Cook continued northwards, and before leaving put ashore on Possession Island in the Torres Strait off Cape York on August 22, 1770. Here he formally claimed the eastern coastline he had discovered for the British Crown, naming it New South Wales. Given that Cook's discoveries would lead to the first European settlement of Australia, he is often popularly conceived as its European discoverer, although he had been preceded by more than 160 years.
Following the exploration period, the first wave of British settlers came to Australia in 1788, starting a process of colonisation that almost entirely displaced the Aboriginal people who inhabited the land. This reduced indigenous populations drastically and marginalised them to the fringes of society.
While Australia began its modern history as a British penal colony, the vast majority of people who came to Australia after 1788 were free settlers, mainly from Britain and Ireland, but also from other European countries. Convict settlements were along the east coast, Adelaide and Perth being settled by free settlers. Many Asian and Eastern European people also came to Australia in the 1850s, during the Gold Rush that started Australia's first resource boom. Although such diverse immigration diminished greatly during the xenophobic years of the White Australia policy, Australia welcomed a successive series of immigration from Europe, the Mediterranean and later Asia to formulate a highly diverse and multicultural society by the late 20th century.
The system of separate colonies federated to form an independent country in 1901, each colony now becoming a state of Australia. The new country was able to take advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and made a proportionally huge contribution (considering its small size of population) to the Allied war effort in World Wars I and II. Australian troops also made a valuable, if sometimes controversial, contribution to the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Australian Diggers retain a reputation as some of the hardest fighting troops along with a great social spirit.
Long-term Australian concerns include salinity, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef. Government in Australia is based on a federal system (with States and a National Governments) similar to the USA, but these Governments follow a British model, with two elected houses (similar to the US House and Senate) with an unelected representative of the Queen of The United Kingdom in the (notionally powerless) executive position 'above' the parliament. A referendum to change Australia's status to a republic was narrowly defeated in 1999, largely due to a split between those seeking a directly elected President (the majority) and those who believed the President should be elected by the Government. Demand for another vote has been discouraged by the current conservative Government, but it is likely to resurface.
Most of the population is concentrated in the south-east of the country, to the east of the Great Dividing Range. This is because the inland and western areas of the country are at best semi-habitable desert, known as the Outback. The most-inhabited states are Victoria and New South Wales, but by far the largest in land area is Western Australia.

Culture

Modern culture of Australia largely reflects its British origins, Anglo Australians are very protective of their culture and country. Australia has a small multicultural minority, its citizens' families originating in seemingly all over the world, and practising almost every religion and lifestyle. Over one-fifth of Australians were born to immigrant parents, and there are approximately half a million Australians of Aboriginal descent.
The most multicultural city is the largest: Sydney, closely followed by Melbourne. Both cities are renowned for the variety and quality of global foods available in their many restaurants, and Melbourne especially has been at pains to promote itself as a centre for the arts world-wide. That said, whilst smaller "Outback" and rural settlements might still reflect a majority Anglo-Celtic monoculture (often with a small Aboriginal population), virtually every large Australian city and town reflects the immigration from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific that occurred after World War II and continued into the 1970s. The changes that might involve can be appreciated by the fact that, in the half century after the war, Australia's population boomed from roughly 7 million to just over 20 million people.

Holidays

The national holidays in Australia are:

January 1: New Years' Day

January 26: Australia Day, marking the anniversary of the First Fleet's landing in Sydney Cove in 1788.

Easter weekend ("Good Friday", "Easter Saturday", "Easter Sunday" and "Easter Monday"): a four day long weekend in March or April set according to the Western Christian dates.

April 25: ANZAC Day, honouring military veterans

Second Monday in June: Queen's birthday holiday (not celebrated in Western Australia, which observes Foundation Day a week earlier)

December 25: Christmas Day

December 26: Boxing Day

Many states observe Labour Day, but on completely separate days. Most states have one or two additional state-wide holidays.
When a public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday (Easter excepted), the following Monday (and Tuesday if necessary) are declared holidays in lieu, although both the celebrations and the major retail shutdowns will occur on the day itself. Most tourist attractions are closed on public holidays. Supermarkets and other stores may open for limited hours on some public holidays and on holidays in lieu, but are almost always closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, ANZAC Day and Christmas Day.
Salaried Australians have four weeks of annual leave every year. There is no fixed time to take it, but many take the three working days between Christmas and New Year and the following week. Domestic tourism is strongest during January and the Easter school holidays.

Economy

Australia has a prosperous Western-style capitalist economy, with a per capita GDP on par with the four dominant West European economies. Rising output in the domestic economy has been offsetting the global slump, and business and consumer confidence remains robust. The Federal government's emphasis on reform is another factor behind the economy's strength. The recent upturn in global commodity prices has helped Australia's economy grow since 2000.
While income disparities grew throughout the 80s, especially in outer suburban areas, strong employment growth and mandated minimum conditions for workers ensured that overall living standards kept growing until the 1990s.

Time zones

Mainland Australia has three time zones, on account of its large geographical range:

Eastern Standard Time (EST) - operates in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland, 10 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)

Central Standard Time (CST) - operates in South Australia and the Northern Territory (half an hour behind EST, 9.5 hours ahead of GMT)

Western Standard Time (WST) - operates in Western Australia (two hours behind EST, 8 hours ahead of GMT).

Several Australian states observe daylight saving time during the summer season. In NSW, ACT, VIC, SA and WA, daylight savings time applies from the end of October to the end of March and in Tasmania from the beginning of October to the end of March. (In 2006 only, daylight saving begins on December 3 in WA). Queensland and the Northern Territory do not use daylight savings time. Due to the half hour difference between CST and EST, this means that during summer there are five different time zones operating in Australia: GMT+9 (WA), GMT+9.5 (NT), GMT+10 (Qld), GMT+10.5 (SA) and GMT+11 (NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas).

Note 2 - The city of Broken Hill (NSW) operates on CST and the few roadhouses along the Eyre Highway in southeastern WA operate on an unofficial intermediate timezone between CST and WST (three quarters of an hour behind CST and three quarters of an hour ahead of WST).

Electricity

240V 50Hz. On paper, 230V with the introduction of AS60038-2000 in line with European countries. Outlets are of the Australian AS-3112 standard, which features two angled flat blades and a third vertical flat blade for grounding. The configuration of the electrical contacts is similar to that found in Argentina and mainland China. Lamp sockets are predominantly bayonet (B22d), though Edison screw (E27)is used for some specialised or imported fittings.
European and other travellers with 230V 50Hz appliances need only a plug adapter. U.S., Canadian and travellers from other 60Hz countries need to check whether their power adapters can handle both 230V/50Hz and 110V/60Hz. If so, they only need a plug adapter. If not then step down transformer is required. Many laptops, shavers and iPod-type chargers can handle both voltages and frequencies.

From Wikitravel, the free encyclopedia

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