Australia Travel information for the Travellers to australia

After the gold rushes Australia went through several cedes of boom and bust, and the Depression of the 1890s saw the growth of new unions and their political arm, the Australian Labor Party, which protected worker's rights within Parliament and was the most successful social democratic party in the world, forming a government in 1908. Australian men at the turn of the last century were called "Cornstalks." The Cornstalk was typically two meters (six feet) tall, wearing corded pants, red shirt, a wide blue sash and a cabbage tree hat, high boots and a stock whip wrapped around his arm.

His character was described by a contemporary source as "slow, easy, indolent in the ordinary way, proud of his country and himself and capable of holding his own in anything in which he is interested." This popularly accepted view of Australians as country types was at odds with the trend towards urbanization by the start of the twentieth century nearly half the population lived in the six capital cities.

COMING OF AGE

 Australia's six independent colonies came together in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia. On the first day of the New Year a procession snaked its way through the streets of Sydney to the wild cheering of 150,000 celebrating onlookers. After Queen Victoria's proclamation was read in Centennial Park, a 21-gun salute announced the birth of the new nation. But despite its independent status,Australia remained loyal to the British Empire, and imperial foreign policy was slavishly followed.

The fireworks that saw Australia's true coming of age happened fourteen years later on the bloody battlefields of World War H. In the first major encounter involving Australian troops, they lost 8,000 men against a strong Turkish force on the beach at Gallipoli. This battle is remembered on Anzac Day (April 25), when veterans march through the streets of every capital city and major town.

 Australian soldiers, who in a nod to the country's gold-rush years were known as "diggers," went on to fight on the battlefields and in the trenches of France and Belgium. By the end of the war Australia had lost 59,000 men. Along with many other countries, Australia's fortunes slumped in the 1930s. The Depression set in, scarring a generation of Australians. Many men without permanent employment took to the road to survive, finding odd jobs as sheep shearers, cattle rustlers and laborers. 

Known as "swagmen," their swag being the small sack in which they kept all their worldly goods, they had a healthy disregard for authority. Their exploits were celebrated in folk songs, the most famous being Waltzing Matilda. World War H helped end the Depression. Japan conducted bombing raids against Australia's northern coastline between March 1942 and November 1943. With Britain fighting for its very survival and unable to help, the entry of the United States into the Pacific theater of war in 1941 was welcomed. Within weeks of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, 4,600 American troops arrived in Australia. On March 17, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur arrived to establish headquarters in Brisbane and over The next few years hundreds of thousands of American troops passed through.

Australia tourism places of interest-hotel bookings- travel packages- restaurants

The inside of the nearby pseudo-Gothic Garrison Church, built between 1840 and 1843, is adorned with the dusty flags of the British regiments who once worshiped here; the church is still used by the Australian Army. 

The main commuter terminal for harbor ferries, Circular Quay is also the only place Sydney's bus, ferry and train services intersect (it was originally called Semi-Circular Quay, which makes a lot more sense). To confuse visitors, its five wharves are numbered from two to six - Wharf 1 having succumbed to the gentrification of Circular Quay East.

Opposite the wharves, the imposing colonial Customs House building is now a cultural and gallery for those who dare, the Harbor Bridge Climb affords unparalleled views across central Sydney and the Opera House on Bennelong Point.  Diamu means "I am here" in the language of Sydney's traditional owners, the Yura houses the Australian Museum's collection of indigenous art and cultural exhibits from Australia and the South Pacific, the largest of its kind in Australia.

From The time to time the gallery hosts free cultural programs, including concerts and Aboriginal storytelling. Past Circular Quay, in Bennelong Point, is the pearl-like sails of Australia's most famous urban icon, the Sydney Opera House. Inlaid in the paving from the Quay towards the Opera House are tributes to writers,Who are from or have written about Australia, among them Banjo Patterson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ted Hughes (of The Fatal Shore), 

Mark Twain, and dozens of others.

 Although the first Opera House performance was in 1960, when militant unionists invited black American singer and activist Paul Robeson to sing at the building site, work wasn't completed until 1973. The building has weathered heavy criticism over its design, its cost ($105 million vs. an original budget of $6.7 million,) and its acoustics. The design has since grown on Sydneysiders, the interior has recently been overhauled and its acoustics fine- tuned. 

In addition, free lunchtime organ recitals in the 25-m-high (85-ft) Concert Hall, which seats 2,700, have opened it to the public.

The Opera House now holds 3,000 opera, theater, dance and concert performances a year. Guided one-hour tours depart from the tour office on the lower forecourt from 9 AM to 4 PM, except during performances or rehearsals. Built during the Crimean War in 1857 as a defense post against any possible Russian invasion, Fort Denison sits incongruously on tiny Pinchgut Island, east of the Opera House. It’s One O'clock Cannon is still fired daily.

The island was once used to punish recalcitrant convicts. Marooned here in chains, they were given meager supplies of bread and water, hence the island's name. There are tours to the island from Circular Quay, but you get a reasonably good view of it from the Manly, Rose Bay or Watsons Bay ferries. 

Darling Harbor 

A lot of money has been spent on attracting tourist dollars to the newly developed Darling Harbor area, easily reached by Monorail from the city center. It suffers a little from its very commercial orientation and the monolithic Star City casino complex Pyrmont Street, open 24 hours and adds the little charm to the area.

Nevertheless, some of Sydney's must-sees are in the Darling Harbor area. Although the restaurants in the Harborside Marketplace are average and over- priced, the wide boardwalk is pleasant on a warm evening, with the city skyline sparkling across the small harbor. Across the Monorail walk-bridge, the Cockle Bay development boasts better restaurants and a couple of urban-chic bars. A celebration of science, technology, and popular culture, the ever-changing Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, is housed in a converted power station.

Its dynamic exhibitions include hands-on interactive displays often combining videos and computer gadgetry. Open daily 10 AM to 5 PM; adults $8, children $5. Exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum Murray Street range from Aboriginal canoes to First Fleet and more modern naval vessels. Most memorable, though, are tours on the working vessels moored outside: a Vietnamese refugee boat, the 1983 America's up winning Australia racing yacht. Plexiglas tunnels give a fish-eye view of the harbor at the Sydney Aquarium Pier, Darling Harbor. 

Australia Tourism information Sydney places of interest travel packages-hotel bookings with discounts

BACKGROUND CREATIVE, ELOQUENT AND VIVIDLY DESCRWIWE

Captain James Cook must have had an off day when he named New South Wales in 1770. The man who came up with "Botany Bay," "Cape Tribulation," "Whitsunday Passage," "Glass House Mountains," and "Magnetic Island," might have been overwhelmed by the responsibility of attaching a label to the 4,000 km (2,500 miles) of lushly forested tropical and subtropical coastline, sandy coves and coral islands and cays he had spent four months navigating. 

The new-found land was neither new nor more than vaguely resembled South Wales, but the misnomer stuck.

Britain showed little interest in the far-off land at first - giving the Yura and Dharuk Aboriginal people of the lands around Botany Bay and Port ski fields of the Snowy Mountains near the Victorian border, including Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciusko at 2,228 m (7,310 ft). The Great Dividing Range's proximity to the coast gives birth to broad fast-flowing rivers, carving the deep bays and magnificent harbors that are the most identifiable feature of the New South Wales coast. Along the north coast, the blue-green eucalyptus forests mingle with more extroverted of the subtropical rainforest. Cooler coastal weather patterns rarely make it across the divide; sudden downpours are common in Sydney - when it rains it pours - but over the rains, the dry western plains of the wheat belt gradually merge into the legendary outback.

SYDNEY

Canberra may be Australia's capital, but Sydney is its heart. Most flights to Australia arrive at its Kingsford-Smith Airport, looping down over the city on their final descent towards runways that jut into Botany Bay. On a clear day, this is the best introduction to Australia. Against a backdrop of densely forested mountains and fronted by the Pacific Ocean, leafy suburbs and red-tiled rooftops gradually give way to the urban landscape of inner Sydney.

The first fingers of water seem unconnected:spotsofdeep blue edged with parkland that break up the concrete and traffic. But quickly the water widens out to the expanse of Port Jackson, held together at its narrowest point by the arch of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Near the bridge, flashes of sunlight on the oversized seashell that is the Sydney Opera House shine white against the blue of the harbor's deep waters, which are dotted with islands and peppered with sailing boats, ferries, windsurfers, motorboats and tilting seaplanes. 

Sydney is a sprawling city with over four million inhabitants.

 It was Australia's first city and remains its largest, measuring 70 km (43.5 miles) from north to south and 55 km (34 miles) east to west. To the rest of Australia it's a fast-paced urban jungle. By international standards, however, Sydney is definitely laid-back, Far more San Francisco than New York, and with a better bay. Sydneysiders enjoy almost year-round sunshine, without the tropical humidity of Brisbane and Cairns - or only rarely. With such a combination of climate and topography, it's hardly surprising they are such outdoors fanatics.

The never-ending estuaries, coves, islands and inlets of Port Jackson (or Sydney Harbor) form a watery maze that divides the city in two, and today's Sydneysiders live by, on, in, above and occasionally below the sparkling waters of its harbor. They commute by ferry or drive over its soaring bridge. They roller blade, skateboard, cycle, jog or simply lunch along its banks. Office parties and even weddings are frequently held on boats, and cafes along Bondi and Manly beaches open early to serve coffee and breakfast to the body-conscious who brave the surf from sunrise year-round. For its legitimate claims as a cosmopolitan, multicultural, innovative and exciting city, Sydney is above all, the best this planet has to illustrate the maxim most dear to sun-seekers: "life's a beach." It has 70 of them, Jackson few years grace. But by the mid-1780s, following the loss of their colonies in the 1776 American War of Independence, 

London's prisons and workhouses were overflowing. The solution chosen by the British dramatically and irrevocably altered Aboriginal history.

The first fleet of convicts and settlers arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788, and the colony of New South Wales grew rapidly to cover over half of Australia -encompassing modern-day Queensland, Victoria and parts of South Australia. Although today the state occupies only 10°;', of the continent - it's roughly the size of California - over a third of Australia's population live here, 96% of them within an hour’s drive of the coast. Geographically, New South Wales has a bit of everything.

The rugged Great Dividing Range stretches along the state's eastern seaboard. 

Marked by vertiginous outcrops, deep gorges, and rich soil supporting diverse cultivation, it rises to form the 74 For many visitors New South Wales is a land of perfect beaches, great surf and outstanding nature (its 70 national parks cover nearly 40,000 SQ km or 15,400 SQ miles). Yet the state has a rich, multi-faceted and often brutal history. Archeological relics, Dreamtime stories, and rock paintings remind visitors of the complex culture of the numerous Aboriginal clans who lived freely on these lands until 1770. The early penal colony, which eventually became the city of Sydney, constructed solid Georgian buildings that remain today - inmates' quarters, churches, and government buildings.

The subsequent era of exploration, free settlement and westward expansion, followed by the colorful gold rush years, left in its wake historic townships and tall tales throughout the state. 

BACKGROUND Captain Cook sailed into Botany Bay in 1770, naming it after botanist Joseph Banks' excitement at the strange and lush plant growth. Cook noted what he thought was a smaller harboring a little further north, .1I1d named this Port Jackson.

Australia tourism and travel packages air ticketing and places of tourism interest

Aborigines' claims to their traditional lands remain a festering sore. The Australia Aboriginal Lands Rights Act of 1976 returned large tracts of land to traditional owners, including over 50% of the Northern Territory. A High Court decision in the 1990s overturned the legal concept that Australia was occupied as term "nullius" and opened the way for Aboriginal land rights. While "white mans' law" remains valid on Aboriginal lands - this is another point of contention among many groups - individual Land Councils evoke their own supplementary laws which must be respected by Tim residents and visitors.

Such laws restrict access to sacred sites, promote respect for the land and its people, and respond to particular needs and beliefs of their communities. There are other changes heralding a period of reconciliation: school programs devote increasing attention to Aboriginal history and culture, contemporary Aboriginal art is shown in the best galleries and the relationship traditional Aborigines have with their land is starting to be appreciated by a world that has shown itself incapable of reaching a balance with nature.

Reconciliation between the Aboriginal people and the rest of the country has only just begun. There is a tentative optimism among Aborigines, but one tempered by 200 years of accumulated dis- appointments. In 2000, "walks for reconciliation" were held across the country, drawing unprecedented numbers of protestors from all political streams, demanding a formal apology from the federal government to Australia's indigenous people.

Although the retrogressive "One Nation" party regularly makes the headlines with their confrontational and racist assertions, the truth is they receive only a tiny percentage of the national vote, and that only in the north and far west of the country. The true political force that the two major parties have been obliged to acknowledge is the voice of the Greens, who in the 2001 elections emerged as a viable third alternative. As hosts of the 2000 Olympic Games, Australia entered the twenty-first century on a wave of optimism, amid a growing appreciation of the comfortable lifestyle shared by most Australians. 

But across the Australia country this is tempered with a widespread sense of the need to face up to unanswered questions, to acknowledge past mistakes and present inequities, and to work together to ensure that all Australians are given a "fair go." 

Australia Tourism information Aborigines tradition and culture

Captain Cook, on his voyage of discovery, wrote in his journal that the Aborigines "appear to be the most wretched people on the Earth, but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans." Despite Cook's insight, it did not stop him basing his claim on the eastern seaboard of Australia on the legal fiction that he had discovered a terra nullius - a land without people. At the time of Cook's visit, the Aboriginal population was probably between 500,000 and one million. The subsequent interaction between white settlers and Aborigines almost turned Cook's legal fiction into fact. Disease, high child mortality rates and persecution of the local inhabitants dramatically reduced their numbers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Aboriginal population was as low as 50,000. Today it is estimated that there are about 230,000 people of Aboriginal descent living in Australia. Aborigines were displaced, often by force, by early white settlers who spread out from their first settlements to secure grazing land for sheep. In Tasmania, dispossession turned to genocide, nearly wiping out its indigenous population. Only a few survived on offshore islands. The settlers' weapons easily overpowered those of the indigenous people, but the Aborigines did not simply give up their land without a fight.

In many areas of the country, guerrilla warfare tactics were used by Aboriginal people in retaliation The Country and Its People for the white settlers' transgressions of tribal law. In some areas with a high Aboriginal population, such as near Hobart and Sydney and Cooktown on Cape York, different tribes united to launch at- tacks on the colonists. The expansion of the colony, however, was not greatly hindered by Aboriginal resistance, much weakened by the diseases brought by Europeans.

The introduction of alcohol further debilitated their society. In 1905, the government adopted a policy of "protecting" the Aborigines by segregating them from the influences of European society. 

This formalized and accelerated a movement initiated in the 1870s of moving Aboriginal people to missions and reserves. This was, in fact, a reaction to wide- spread concern that Australia had witnessed the destruction of a race with the death of Truganini - purportedly "Tasmania's Last Aborigine" - in Hobart in 1876. Aborigines were removed from their traditional territories and different tribes were moved onto the same reserves without any regard to kinship or relationships.

The Aboriginals Ordinance in1918 placed many Aboriginal children of white fathers in the foster care of white families, as a way of ensuring the "purity" of Aboriginal communities.

 This institutionalized racism continued until the 1930s and in some cases into the 1960s, resulting in a "stolen generation" of people, forcibly cut off from their Aboriginal heritage. There is a saying among Aborigines that he who loses his dreaming is lost. The arrival of Europeans almost ended the traditional Aboriginal way of life, and today most live in cities and towns or in isolated settlements near tribal lands. In the outback and urban communities, though, elders are making every effort to ensure that their children are told the secrets of the DrCamtirne so they do not lose touch with their religious and spiritual values.

Although few continue their nomadic ways, many of Australia's Aboriginal people still speak traditional languages at home, and there is a growing interest among younger people to learn more about the life, art, stories and music of their forefathers. In recent years, Australia has become more sensitive to the plight of Aborigines, resulting in increased health and educational services, greater recognition of Aboriginal land rights and a growing appreciation of Aboriginal culture. 

Australia Gold rush and settlements

BOOM AND BUST

The colonies experienced a major boost to their economies when gold was found, first in New South Wales in 1851 and then in prodigious quantities in Victoria. The ensuing gold rush had a dramatic effect, as men left the land and crews jumped ship to seek riches in the gold fields. Fortune-seekers arriving in overcrowded ships came from all corners of the globe.

 At its peak during the year 1852, over 86,000 people arrived from England alone. Untamed shanty towns were populated by men who worked hard during the day and at night dreamed of great fortunes, as they sat around the campfires or huddled in pubs to discuss their day with the other diggers. During this period, colonial Australia's first "heroes" were born - bushrangers, who were admired for challenging authority.

The term was coined in 1805 to describe escaped convicts who had turned to robbery to survive in the bush. Many poor farmers and laborers also tried their hand at bushranging. Some with colorful sobriquets such as "Yankee" Jack Ellis, Captain Moon- light and "Mad Dog" Morgan became household names while songs celebrating their exploits became popular.

The best-known bushranger was Ned Kelly who, after his mother was wrongfully arrested, ambushed and killed three troopers. Outlawed in 1878, he and his gang held up banks and success- fully evaded the police for two years. Ned Kelly was finally trapped in Clenrowan in June, 1880, where he defied the police, protecting himself with home- made armor. Realizing that they could not penetrate his plough-share mask they shot at his feet, which were unprotected. Captured, Kelly was sentenced to death and hanged in Melbourne on November 11, 1880. His last words were: "Such is life." The prosperity that gold brought to Australia accelerated the country's development.

 Roads and railway lines were laid down, linking the colonies and creating a new-found confidence around the nation. People began talking about an Australian identity that incorporated the ideas - born in the gold fields - of mateship and egalitarianism. A sense was developing that Australia, rather than Britain, was now home.

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT in Australia

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

After a shaky start as settlers adapted to an unfamiliar land, the settlement at Sydney Cove grew rapidly in the early years of the nineteenth century, as thousands of free settlers took advantage of land grants and promised riches. Britain's stringent inheritance laws, under which firstborn sons claimed all land titles, led second and later sons in particular to the chance to strike out for themselves in this land of opportunity. Adelaide, in 1836, and Melbourne, in 1837, was settled by just such opportunists. 

Transportation of convicts ended in 1864. It is estimated that around 1, 60,000 convicts were sent to Australia over 76 years, most of who stayed on once they were freed.

While the number of convicts was insignificant when compared to the free settlers who streamed into Australia in the latter half of the nineteenth century attracted by gold, cheap land, and the promise of a new life-convict labor played a major role in building Australia's nascent cities. Strict inheritance laws saw that land in Britain was passed from father to the eldest son and could not be subdivided. Younger sons traditionally entered the clergy or the military.

The promise of generous land grants in New South Wales drew the younger sons of England's wealthy to emigrate and establish stock stations of a magnitude they could never have imagined back home - many of which still exist today. As freed convicts joined the increasing number of settlers attracted to the promise of this burgeoning southern land (where labor was in great demand), many began to appreciate that they were better off than if had they stayed in an over- crowded and recently industrialized England. Together, these disparate colonials and their children battled hostile environments to establish an indigenous culture based on solidarity and a distaste for authority.