1.
Sydney
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Sydney /ˈsɪdni/ is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australias east coast, the metropolis surrounds the worlds largest natural harbour, residents of Sydney are known as Sydneysiders. The Sydney area has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years, the first British settlers, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived in 1788 to found Sydney as a penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Since convict transportation ended in the century, the city has transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural. As at June 2016 Sydneys estimated population was 5,005,358, in the 2011 census,34 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, representing many different nationalities and making Sydney one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are more than 250 different languages spoken in Sydney and about one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home and it is classified as an Alpha+ World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has a market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing. Its gross regional product was $337 billion in 2013, the largest in Australia, there is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as one of Asia Pacifics leading financial hubs. Its natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, man-made attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are also well known to international visitors. The first people to inhabit the now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago, the earliest British settlers called them Eora people. Eora is the term the indigenous used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is from this place, prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan, the principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells. Development has destroyed much of the citys history including that of the first inhabitants, there continues to be examples of rock art and engravings located in the protected Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The first meeting between the people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. He noted in his journal that they were confused and somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors, Cook was on a mission of exploration and was not commissioned to start a settlement
2.
New South Wales
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New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south and it has a coast line with the Tasman Sea on its east side. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state, New South Wales state capital is Sydney, which is also Australias most populous city. In March 2014, the population of New South Wales was 7.5 million. Just under two-thirds of the population,4.67 million. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen, the Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised a more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825, in addition, the colony also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemens Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand. However, the Swan River Colony has never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal Territory, as have the now known as the Australian Capital Territory. The prior inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi Wodi people are the custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. The Bundjalung people are the custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland. In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land New Wales, however, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he revised the wording to New South Wales. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, macquaries legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria. Responsible government was granted to the New South Wales colony in 1855, following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840
3.
Medium wave
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Medium wave is the part of the medium frequency radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. Practical groundwave reception typically extends to 200–300 miles, with distances over terrain with higher ground conductivity. Most broadcast stations use groundwave to cover their listening area, Medium waves can also reflect off charged particle layers in the ionosphere and return to Earth at much greater distances, this is called the skywave. At night, especially in winter months and at times of low solar activity, when this happens, MF radio waves can easily be received many hundreds or even thousands of miles away as the signal will be reflected by the higher F layer. This can allow very long-distance broadcasting, but can also interfere with distant local stations, due to the limited number of available channels in the MW broadcast band, the same frequencies are re-allocated to different broadcasting stations several hundred miles apart. On nights of good skywave propagation, the signals of distant station may interfere with the signals of local stations on the same frequency. These channels are called clear channels, and they are required to broadcast at higher powers of 10 to 50 kW and this arrangement had numerous practical difficulties. The Commerce Department rarely intervened in such cases but left it up to stations to enter into voluntary timesharing agreements amongst themselves, the addition of a third entertainment wavelength,400 meters, did little to solve this overcrowding. In 1923, the Commerce Department realized that as more and more stations were applying for commercial licenses, on 15 May 1923, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover announced a new bandplan which set aside 81 frequencies, in 10 kHz steps, from 550 kHz to 1350 kHz. Each station would be assigned one frequency, no longer having to broadcast weather, class A and B stations were segregated into sub-bands. Today in most of the Americas, mediumwave broadcast stations are separated by 10 kHz and have two sidebands of up to ±5 kHz in theory, in the rest of the world, the separation is 9 kHz, with sidebands of ±4.5 kHz. Both provide adequate quality for voice, but are insufficient for high-fidelity broadcasting. In the US and Canada the maximum power is restricted to 50 kilowatts. Those stations which shut down completely at night are known as daytimers. In most cases there are two limits, a lower one for omnidirectional and a higher one for directional radiation with minima in certain directions. The power limit can also be depending on daytime and it is possible, other countries may only operate low-powered transmitters on the same frequency, again subject to agreement. For example, Russia operates a transmitter, located in its Kaliningrad exclave and used for external broadcasting. Due to the demand for frequencies in Europe, many countries operate single frequency networks, in Britain
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
6.
Sydney Royal Easter Show
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The Sydney Royal Easter Show, also known as the Royal Easter Show or simply The Easter Show or The Royal, is an annual show held in Sydney, Australia over two weeks around Easter. It is run by the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales and was first held in 1823, queen Victoria awarded the society and its show the right to use the word Royal in its name. The Show is historically an event where city meets country and the industries of Australia can be shown. The Show comprises an agricultural show, an amusement park and a fair and combines the elements of each, showcasing the judging of livestock and produce. This comprehensive fair has many competitions including arts and crafts, photography and cookery, as well as tests of strength and skill such as wood chopping. The Show also has shopping, restaurants, commercial stands and exhibits, a display, a national accredited conformation dog show and cat show. In 2015,769,000 people attended the show, the Sydney Royal Easter Show is the largest event held in Australia, and the sixth largest in the world. The first Easter Show was held in 1823 by the newly formed Agricultural Society of New South Wales, the site was at Parramatta,24 kilometres west of the town of Sydney, and the display included horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. In 1998, the Show moved to a new showground within the Sydney Olympic Park precinct at Homebush Bay, the former Sydney Showground at Moore Park has since been converted into Fox Studios Australia with associated development known as The Entertainment Quarter. The Show has been every year since 1869 except during the severe outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1919. However, on one occasion a steer broke loose and plunged into the quarters of the Royal Agricultural Society. The Grand Parade continues to place, though on a somewhat smaller scale. Yielding to pressure from the public, the Show was later to be opened on Sundays, with the move to Homebush Bay, the Show was extended to two weeks. In 2007, a program took into account changes to NSW School Holidays. If Easter falls in March the Show is held outside of school holidays, the first purpose of the Show is specifically to encourage agriculture. One of the most popular sights at the show is the District Exhibits competition and these displays are set up by four districts of NSW and South East Queensland. Also displayed are other products such as fleeces, carcases of beef, wine, honey, cheese. There is also a show at which are judged both horticultural specimens and floral displays
7.
Ben Chifley
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Joseph Benedict Ben Chifley was an Australian politician who was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. One of the few successful referendums to modify the Australian Constitution, born on 22 September 1885 in Bathurst, New South Wales, Chifley was the son of a blacksmith of Irish Roman Catholic descent. Chifley was raised mostly by his grandfather for nine years and his grandfather had lost his savings in the bank crash of 1892/93, and Chifley acquired a lifelong dislike of private banks at an early age. He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in Bathurst and joined the New South Wales Railways at age 15 and he was one of the founders of the AFULE and an active member of the Labor Party. In 1914 he married Elizabeth McKenzie, a staunch Presbyterian, the couple exchanged wedding vows in a Presbyterian church. Chifley remained a practising Catholic, but his marriage to a non-Catholic ignited criticism in certain Roman Catholic circles, in 1917 he was one of the leaders of a prolonged strike, which resulted in his dismissal. He was reinstated by Jack Langs New South Wales Labor government, Chifley represented his union before industrial tribunals and taught himself industrial law. In 1928, at his second try, Chifley won the seat of Macquarie in the House of Representatives, which covered Bathurst, Lithgow, and he was in general a supporter of the James Scullin governments economic policies, and in 1931 he became Minister for Defence. At the 1931 general election, the Scullin government was defeated in a landslide, during the Depression he survived on his wifes familys money and his part-ownership of the Bathurst newspaper the National Advocate. In 1935 the Lyons government appointed him a member of the Royal Commission on Banking and he submitted a minority report advocating that the private banks be nationalised. Although Frank Forde was nominally the number-two-man in the government, Chifley became the minister Curtin most relied on and he controlled most domestic policy while Curtin was preoccupied with the war effort. When Curtin died in July 1945, Forde became Prime Minister for eight days, Chifley defeated him in the leadership ballot, replacing him as Prime Minister and Curtin as Labor leader. It was the first time that a Labor government had elected to a second full term. In the post-war years, Chifley maintained wartime economic controls, including the highly unpopular petrol rationing and he did this partly to help Britain in its postwar economic difficulties. Feeling secure in power, Chifley decided it was time to advance towards Labors objective of democratic socialism and this was successfully opposed in the Australian High Court by the British Medical Association. The subsequent federal legislation in relation to benefits was deemed constitutional by the High Court. This paved the way for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, an important component of Australias modern public health system, the Mental Institutions Benefits Act paid the states a benefit equal to the charges upon the relatives of mental hospital patients, in return for free treatment. This legislation marked the entry of the Commonwealth into mental health funding, militant mining unions had caused industrial upsets for decades previously
8.
John Curtin
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John Joseph Ambrose Curtin was the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1941 to 1945, and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1935 to 1945. Having first formed a minority government in 1941, Curtin led Labor to victory at the 1943 election, as the Member for Fremantle, Curtin was the first and to date only prime minister to represent an electorate outside the Eastern states. With the end of the war in sight, Curtin died in office on 5 July 1945 and was succeeded briefly by Frank Forde, Curtin was born in Creswick, Victoria in 1885. His father was an officer of Irish descent, and Curtin was initially raised a Roman Catholic. Curtin attended school until the age of 13, when he left to start working for a newspaper in Creswick and he soon became active in both the Australian Labor Party and the Victorian Socialist Party, which was a Marxist organisation. He wrote for radical and socialist newspapers and it is believed that Curtins first bid for elected office came at this time, when he stood for the position of secretary of the Brunswick Football Club and was defeated. He had earlier played for Brunswick between 1903 and 1907 and he also at this time stood as the Labor candidate for Balaclava in 1914. The strain of this led him to drink heavily and regularly. In 1917, he married Elsie Needham, the sister of Labor Senator Ted Needham, Curtin moved to Cottesloe near Perth in 1917 to become an editor for the Westralian Worker, the official trade union newspaper. He enjoyed the less pressured life of Western Australia and his views gradually moderated. He joined the Australian Journalists Association in 1917 and was elected Western Australian President in 1920 and he wore his AJA badge every day he was prime minister. In addition to his stance on rights, Curtin was also a strong advocate for the rights of women and children. In 1927, the Federal Government convened a Royal Commission on Child Endowment, Curtin was appointed as a member of that commission. Curtin stood for Parliament a second time in 1925, this time for Fremantle, Watson retired in 1928, and Curtin ran again, this time winning on the second count. William Watson chose to come out of retirement in 1931. After the loss, Curtin became the advocate for the Western Australian Government with the Commonwealth Grants Commission and he stood for his old seat in 1934 after Watson announced his retirement for the second time, and was able to win it back. When Scullin resigned as Labor Leader in 1935, Curtin stood in the election to replace him and his opponent was Frank Forde, a well known MP who had been closely associated with the economic policies of the Scullin Government. This led left wing factions and trade unions to support Curtin, in an attempt to block Forde from getting the leadership, with their support, Curtin was able to defeat Forde by just one vote to become Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition
9.
Call sign
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In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitter station. In North America, they are used for all FCC licensed transmitters, a call sign can be formally assigned by a government agency, informally adopted by individuals or organizations, or even cryptographically encoded to disguise a stations identity. The use of signs as unique identifiers dates to the landline railroad telegraph system. Because there was only one line linking all railroad stations. In order to time, two-letter identifiers were adopted for this purpose. This pattern continued in operation, radio companies initially assigned two-letter identifiers to coastal stations and stations aboard ships at sea. These were not globally unique, so a company identifier was later added. Merchant and naval vessels are assigned call signs by their national licensing authorities, in the case of states such as Liberia or Panama, which are flags of convenience for ship registration, call signs for larger vessels consist of the national prefix plus three letters. United States merchant vessels are given call signs beginning with the letters W or K while US naval ships are assigned callsigns beginning with N, leisure craft with VHF radios may not be assigned call signs, in which case the name of the vessel is used instead. Ships in the US wishing to have a radio licence anyway are under F. C. C, class SA, Ship recreational or voluntarily equipped. Those calls follow the land mobile format of the initial letter K or W followed by 1 or 2 letters followed by 3 or 4 numbers. U. S. Coast Guard small boats have a number that is shown on both bows in which the first two digits indicate the length of the boat in feet. For example, Coast Guard 47021 refers to the 21st in the series of 47 foot motor lifeboats, the call sign might be abbreviated to the final two or three numbers during operations, for example, Coast Guard zero two one. Call signs in aviation are derived from several different policies, depending upon the type of flight operation, in most countries, unscheduled general aviation flights identify themselves using the call sign corresponding to the aircrafts registration number. In this case, the sign is spoken using the International Civil Aviation Organization phonetic alphabet. Aircraft registration numbers internationally follow the pattern of a country prefix, for example, an aircraft registered as N978CP conducting a general aviation flight would use the call sign November-niner-seven-eight-Charlie-Papa. However, in the United States a pilot of an aircraft would normally omit saying November, at times, general aviation pilots might omit additional preceding numbers and use only the last three numbers and letters. This is especially true at uncontrolled fields when reporting traffic pattern positions, for example, Skyhawk eight-Charlie-Papa, left base
10.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
11.
Sydney central business district
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The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 km from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement in which the Sydney region was initially established, due to its pivotal role in Australias early history, it is one of the oldest established areas in the country. Geographically, its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in the south, at the 2011 Australian Census, the CBD recorded a population of 14,308. Sydney CBD is very used to refer not only to the CBD proper. The Sydney CBD is Australias main financial and economic centre, as well as a hub of economic activity for the Asia-Pacific region. The city centre employs approximately 13% of the Sydney regions workforce and it produced $64.1 billion worth of goods and services in 2011–12. Culturally, the city centre is Sydneys focal point for nightlife and it is also home to some of the citys most significant buildings and structures. The Sydney CBD is an area of very densely concentrated skyscrapers and other buildings, interspersed by parks such as Hyde Park, The Domain, Royal Botanic Gardens. George Street is the Sydney CBDs main north–south thoroughfare, the CBD runs along two ridge lines below Macquarie Street and York Streets. Between these ridges is Pitt Street, running close to the course of the original Tank Stream, bridge Street, took its name from the bridge running east–west that once crossed this stream. Pitt Street is the heart of the city which includes the Pitt Street Mall. Macquarie Street is a historic precinct that houses such buildings as the State Parliament House, administratively, the Sydney CBD falls under the authority of the local government area of the City of Sydney. The New South Wales state government also has authority over some aspects of the CBD, the Sydney CBD is home to some of the largest Australian companies, as well as serving as an Asia-Pacific headquarters for many large international companies. Sydneys CBD is serviced by rail, light rail, buses. There is a largely-underground CBD rail loop, accessed in both directions via Central, which services five additional CBD stations, plus a spur line to Bondi Junction which services two. The only light rail line currently operating links the southern part of the CBD, buses, both government-run and privately owned, service the CBD along several dozen routes to both inner and more remote suburbs. NightRide is an bus service that operates between midnight and 5, 00am, with most services running from George Street outside the Sydney Town Hall. Sydney Ferries operate largely from Circular Quay, on the edge of the CBD
12.
Neutral Bay, New South Wales
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Neutral Bay is a harbourside suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Neutral Bay is around 1.5 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, Neutral Bay takes its name from the bay on Sydney Harbour. Kurraba Point, formerly a locality in Neutral Bay, was declared a suburb in 2010. Surrounding suburbs include North Sydney, Cammeray, Milsons Point, Cremorne and Cremorne Point, the name Neutral Bay originates from the time of the early colonial period of Australia, where different bays of Sydney harbour were zoned for different incoming vessels. This bay was where all foreign vessels would dock, hence the name neutral, the Aboriginal name for the area was Wirra-birra. In 1789, soon after the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney, Governor Arthur Phillip declared this bay a neutral harbour where ships could anchor and take on water. Neutral Bay was far away from Sydney Cove to discourage convicts from escaping on these vessels. This style was an attempt to get away from mass production, notable examples soon appeared in the area. Brent Knowle, in Shellcove Road, was designed by Bertrand James Waterhouse and it influenced home design in the area for at least the next fifteen years and has a state heritage listing. A different style was used for The Cobbles, also in Shellcove Road, designed by Peddle and Thorp and built in 1918, it made great use of natural stones and pebbles to achieve the desired look. It is an Australian interpretation of the California Bungalow style and has a heritage listing. The Gables, in Spruson Street, was another Waterhouse design and was built in 1920 and it was influenced by the shingle style which was brought to Sydney by Horbury Hunt, and featured prominent gables and extensive use of shingles. More Waterhouse designs appeared in Shellcove Road in the vicinity of The Cobbles, an outstanding example is Ailsa, which was designed by Waterhouse for Captain Robert Craig and built in 1908. It has a heritage listing. Along with Keynsham, St Annes, and Gundimaine House, these form a significant heritage group and have a state heritage listing. Neutral Bay was also the home of the English-born childrens author and painter May Gibbs, who lived for a time in Derry, afterwards, she moved to the home Nutcote in nearby Kurraba Point. The main shopping district of Neutral Bay, known as Neutral Bay Junction, is along Military Road and it features many quality shops, restaurants and cafes. The Big Bear shopping centre is a mall that features a supermarket
