Australie

Part 1 Introduction.

Australia is a country that lies at the other side of the world. It was a colony from Great-Britain. You can see it at the flag, and at the money: they payed also with pounds. This big country is a 110 times bigger as Holland and Belgium togheter, but it has only 18 milli on inhabitants. The coastline of Australia is 36.700 kilometer. The heighes point is Mount Kosciuszko. This mountain is 2228 meter heigh. Australia has six states. That are: New south Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmanie, South Australia and Western Australia. The proud capitale of Australia is Canberra, but Sidney is the biggest and most important city of this country. The first inhabitants where the aboridginals. People from Europe have discovered Australia and they went to that country because of the gold. About that are we going to tell you in another part.

Part 2 The history of Australia.

About 50000 years ago, during the last icetime, the first people arrived at Australia. In that time it was very cold. So cold that a part of the sea was totally frozen. The sealevel descended and big peaces of the sea got dry. These dry peaces were used as bridges. Big groups of people have done that. These people are called aboridginals. When the last icetime was stopped 10000 years ago, the bridges disapeared, and the aboridginals developed their own lifestyle in Australia. Whit a a population from 300.000 people, the aboridginals were devided at 500 tribes. Every group stayed at another part of Australia and speaked another language or dialect. Sometimes the tribes become to ethoter, but mostly the tribes stayed at theire own territorium. At the famous tribes becomes: the Wurora, de Aranda, the Yir-yoronts, the Gurijnji, the Wailbri and the Murngin. The aboriginals lived 1000 years from the land. They trust at the animals, insects, fish and plants, what they found in the wilderness. They haved a important knowledge from the things in the nature they can eat and they can’t eat. Because they have such a good of relation with the nature, they believe that there lives ghost. They lived peacefully togheter, until the European people come to Australia.
The Greek Ptolemaeus the book Geographia wrote 150 Years after Christus. In this book he has told about an enormous country south of Europe and Asia. Since the fiftheenth century people have looked for this big country. At 1606 a Dutch schip has been found Australia. They called it New – Holland. At 29 april 1770 came a Englisch schip at Australia. They conqued New – Holland and since that time they were the master in Australia. At 1999 Australia people met agree with a breaking with Great Brittain.

Part 3 Economy

As a modern western country Australia has a free-market economy with the minimal interference of the authorities. Australia is an extremely prosperous country with an income of $ 23200 per person per year (in the year 2000).
Characteristic for the development of the Australian economy is the quick and far-reaching change of a mostly agricultural country to a modern industrial state.

The division of the Gross National Product (BNP in Dutch) in 1999 was as following:
Agriculture: 3 % (which was 15 % in the fifties of the twentieth century)
Industry: 26 %
Tertiary sector: 71 %

Because of the discovery of several minerals (for example bauxite, uranium and iron ore) the mining is developed very well. 40 % Of the total export denomination is a mining product.
In 1965 that was still 13 %.

The biggest incomes in the agricultural sector are the sheep-breeding, the breeding of for exaple maize, oats and barley. In the tropical virgin forests wood sorts of great value occur, like cedar, walnut and mahogany. In the interior lie great drought woods areas, here the eucalyptus is the economic most important tree specie.

Part 4 Tourism

The tourism has explosively developed since the seventies and forms a more and more considerable subject of the Australian economy.
The most touristy places lie in the eastern, in Queensland and New South Wales.
Sydney is particularly visited because of the large, kilometres long beaches which are within the city borders, and because of the Kuringgai Chase National Park, a very famous animal reserve. The most well known Australian mammal, the duck bill, is to see in the wild reserve Healesville, 65 km from Melbourne.
At the south of Canberra lie the Snowy Mountains, where the ski season starts in June.
Thredbo and Perisher are the most prominent winter sports centres.

The biggest touristy attraction of Australia is the Great Barrier Reef in
front of the north eastern coast.

The tourism also has his part in the sheep shearing; sheepshearers contests are very popular with the local people as well as with the tourists.

Great Reppel Island in the south is remarkably famous because of its white beaches.
The Gold Coast is the favourite holiday spot of the Australians and lies 80 km south of Brisbane.
In the centre of the Australian ‘outback’ lies the old colonist city Alice Springs, the only city in the neighbourhood of hundreds of kilometres.
Plentifully 350 km west of this city lies Ayers Rock (with pre-historical paintings) and the
gay coloured cliffs of Mount Olga.
On the green and fruitful Tasmania the landscape has a totally different view than any other place on this continent. Cradle Mountain in Lake Saint Claire National Park is the greatest nature area on Tasmania. It is in great request with trout fishermen.

In Port Arthur, a hundred km south eastern of Tasmania’s capital city Hobart, the ruins of prisons and watch-residences still lie there from the age of Australia being a punishment colony. Tourists need to have visa for going to Australia.
The best times for a visit are different for every region, so you couldn’t possibly visit all of Australia in one holiday.

Part 5 The climates

The seasons in Australia are different than in Europe. The spring starts in September and ends in November, the summer begins in December and ends in February. The autumn lasts from March to May. The winter begins in June and ends in August.
The position of the climate of Australia is principally subtropical. Only in the extreme north the climate is real tropical.
The whole year the temperature is very dry and all of the year there are tropical showers of rain. In the summer the wind blows in the north west monsoon.
Averagely here it rains about 1470mm.
Queensland is the wettest place of Australia. In 1979 it rained 11250mm. The middle of Australia has a real desert climate. The normal temperatures are there 45 degrees.
Australia has 2 peninsulas: Cape York-peninsula and Arnhemland. In the eastern of this country lie the coast mountains. This landscape consists of plateaus and becks and valleys.
In the middle of this landscape lie the Great Divided Range. Big cities like Sydney, Perth and Adelaide have a Mediterranean climate with hot summers and gentle winters. Victoria and Tasmania in the south have a moderate temperature.

Part 6 Animals

In Australia live very different animals than in Europe. For example the kangaroos who live on the dry domains. They can run about 50 kilometres an hour. Other animals are the so-called teddy bears, the koala bears, and they mainly eat bamboo wood. Australia also has an impressive undersea climate with very beautiful fish. There are also tropical coloured bird in the tropical climate.