1.
Mount Connor
–
It reaches to 859 metres above sea level and to 300 metres above ground level. Mount Conner is a flat-topped and horseshoe-shaped inselberg/mesa, part of the same vast rocky substrate thought to be beneath Uluru/Ayers Rock and it can easily be confused with Uluru, since it can be seen from the road to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, when approaching from Alice Springs. It was named Mount Conner by William Gosse in 1873 after South Australian politician M. L. Conner, attila is close to the site of Kungkarangkalpa, the Seven Sisters Dreaming. Mt Conner consists of conglomerates, sandstones, siltstones, and mudstones of the Late Ediacaran–Early Cambrian Winnall beds, the Winnall beds form the upper part of Mt Conner. The summit consists of grey to coarse-grained sandstone with layers and minor beds of pebble conglomerate. The Winnall beds that underlie this scarp is a unit composed of dark brown micaceous siltstone, mudstone. The lower part of Mt. Conner consists of planar and trough cross-bedded, medium to coarse-grained, grey-brown sandstones, dark brown siltstones, the upper part of the Inindia beds are fluvial deposits. The sides of Mt Conner are also blanketed by scree and its top is blanketed by colluvium, the base of Mt Conner is surrounded by alluvium. The summit of Mt Conner, along with the summits of low domes in the Kata Tjuta complex and it is considered to a classic example of an inselberg created by erosion of surrounding strata. A Guide to the Geology and Landforms of Central Australia, Alice Springs, Northern Territory Geological Survey
2.
Tourism
–
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business, also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the travellers country, Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a countrys balance of payments. Today, tourism is a source of income for many countries. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2011, the ITB Berlin is the worlds leading tourism trade fair. The word tourist was used by 1772 and tourism by 1811. It is formed from the tour, which is derived from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare, to turn on a lathe. Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs, in 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours. Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945 and it includes movements for all purposes. In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home, in this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited, by contrast, traveler is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the values underpinning these distinctions. International tourist arrivals reached 1.035 billion in 2012, up from over 996 million in 2011, the World Tourism Organization reports the following ten destinations as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers in 2016. International tourism receipts grew to US$1.2 trillion in 2014, based upon air traffic, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index reports the following cities as the top ten most popular destinations of international tourism worldwide. MasterCard reports the following cities as the top ten biggest earners on international tourism worldwide in 2015, as early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building waystations for travelers. During the Roman Republic, spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae were popular among the rich, pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the 2nd century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, the Islamic hajj is still central to its faith and Chaucers Canterbury Tales and Wu Chengens Journey to the West remain classics of English and Chinese literature. The 10th- to 13th-century Song dynasty also saw secular travel writers such as Su Shi, under the Ming, Xu Xiake continued the practice
3.
Yalgoo, Western Australia
–
Yalgoo is a town in the Murchison region,499 kilometres north-north-east of Perth and 118 kilometres east-north-east of Mullewa. Before it was settled as a town the Yalgoo area was used as grazing land for European settlers including the Morrissey, flocks of sheep were herded onto the rich pastures during the wet growing season and driven back to coastal properties for shearing before summer. Over time the graziers saw the value in the Yalgoo land, Yalgoo is also a local government area in Western Australia. Gold was discovered in the area in the early 1890s, the goldfield warden asked for a townsite to be surveyed and gazetted, and following survey the townsite of Yalgu was gazetted in January 1896. It was once the location of an important railway station on the Northern Railway, yalgoos importance declined in the years after World War II after the forging of an all-weather road between Wubin and Paynes Find, across Lake Moore. In early 1898 the population of the town was 650,500 males and 150 females, the timber framed school building was dismantled and removed. The derelict chapel was restored and re-opened in 1981, erection of a state battery commenced in July 1931 and was completed in October of the same year Yalgoo is an Aboriginal name first recorded for Yalgoo Peak by the surveyor John Forrest in 1876. The name is said to mean blood or place of blood, an alternative view is that it is derived from the Yalguru bush which abounds in the area, and has blood red sap. The spelling Yalgu was used because of spelling rules for Aboriginal names adopted by the Lands & Surveys Department, within a month the Lands & Surveys had decided reluctantly to use the original Yalgoo spelling, and this spelling has been used ever since. Some doubt about the spelling being officially changed resulted in an amendment from Yalgu to Yalgoo being gazetted in 1938, Yalgoo has a hot desert climate with hot summers and mild winters. The name Yalgoo is also used as a name for a crater on the planet Mars, Yalgoo - the ecological region Thundelarra Shire of Yalgoo - the local government region Northern Railway December 2010 Gascoyne River flood Western Australian Land Information Authority
4.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
5.
Australian bush
–
The bush is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in certain countries. The concept of the bush has become iconic in Australia, in reference to the landscape, bush refers to any sparsely-inhabited region, regardless of vegetation. The bush in this sense was something that was uniquely Australian, the term Outback is also used, but usually in association with the more arid inland areas of Australia. The Bush also refers to any populated region outside of the metropolitan areas, including mining. Consequently, it is not unusual to have a town in the desert such as Port Hedland referred to as the bush within the media. Romanticising the bush in this way was a big step forward for Australians in their steps towards self-identity, the legacy is a folklore rich in the spirit of the bush. Australians affix the term bush to any number of entities or activities to describe their rural, country or folk nature, e. g. Bush Cricket, Bush Music, Bush Doof. The New Zealand usage of bush probably comes from the word bosch, used by Dutch settlers in South Africa, much of Stewart Island/Rakiura is bush-covered. From the word comes many phrases including, bush-bash – to make way through the forest. Bush shirt – a woollen shirt or Swanndri, often worn by forest workers, Bush lawyer – the name of a number of native climbing plants or a layman who expounds on legal matters. Bush walk – short day walks in the bush going bush – to live in the bush for a period of time. Bushman - Used in the 19th century for New Zealand loggers, the term still stands for someone that lives in the bush as a means of preferable lifestyle. In South Africa, the term has specific connotations of rural areas which are not open veld, generally it refers to areas in the north of the country that would be called savanna. Going to The Bush often refers to going to a park or game reserve. Areas most commonly referred to as The Bush are the Mpumalanga and Limpopo Lowveld, The Limpopo River Valley, the Bush in Alaska is generally described as any community not on the road system, making it accessible only by more elaborate transportation. Usage is similar in Canada, it is called la brousse, or colloquially le bois, the term to go bush has several similar meanings all connected with the supposed wildness of the bush. The term bushwhacker is used in Australia and New Zealand to mean someone who spends his or her time in the bush. Another related term used in Australia is Sydney or the bush and this usage appears in several Peanuts cartoons, causing Charlie Brown much confusion
6.
Urban area
–
An urban area is a human settlement with high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, in urbanism, the term contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets and in urban sociology or urban anthropology it contrasts with natural environment. The worlds urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has increased to 3.9 billion in the decades since, in 2009, the number of people living in urban areas surpassed the number living in rural areas and since then the world has become more urban than rural. This was the first time that the majority of the population lived in a city. In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization. Urban areas are measured for various purposes, including analyzing population density, historian John Gurda writes, I have tried to uncover Milwaukees civic bedrock - the shifting foundation on which individuals have built their lives and the community has constructed its identity. There is no doubt that the deepest layer of bedrock is economic. In every age, people have chosen to live in areas not because of their climates or landmarks or cultural attractions. It was economic opportunity that brought people to Milwaukee, and it is economic opportunity that keeps them there, I define cities as concentrations of people animated by concentrations of capital. More simply put, money is the root of all cities, official definitions vary somewhat between nations. The ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population, about 3 million people live in Buenos Aires City and the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world. The metropolitan areas of Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza and Tucumán have around 1.3 million inhabitants each and La Plata, seven other provinces have over one million people each, Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. According to IBGE urban areas already concentrate 84. 35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte — all in the Southeastern Region — with 20,12, and 5 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, there are also non-capital metropolitan areas in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. According to Statistics Canada, an area in Canada is an area with a population of at least 1,000 people where the density is no fewer than 400 persons per square kilometre. If two or more areas are within 2 km of each other by road, they are merged into a single urban area. Accordingly, the new definition set out three types of population centres, small, medium and large
7.
Tropical climate
–
A tropical climate in the Köppen climate classification it is a non-arid climate in which all twelve months have mean temperatures of at least 18 °C. In tropical climates there is only two seasons, a wet season and a dry season. Tropical climates are frost-free and changes in the angle are small. In tropical climates temperature remains constant throughout the year. Within the tropical climate there are distinct varieties based on precipitation, In the Tropical rainforest climate. These climates usually occur within 5–10° latitude of the equator, in some eastern coast areas, they may extend to as much as over 26° away from the equator. This climate is dominated by the doldrums Low Pressure System all year round and it is dominated by the monsoon winds which change direction according to the seasons. This climate has a driest month with less than 60 millimetres. Examples, Southern part of Arabian Peninsula, mountaintops within the tropics, e. g. Mount Kenya, can be cold. However, like lowlands in the tropics, there is seasonal variation of temperature. Because of the effect of sun angle on climate most areas within the tropics are hot year-round, the ITCZ is shown, for July average, in the graphic. Areas of ascending air have heavy rainfall, areas of descending air are dry, the ITCZ somewhat follows the solar equator throughout the year, but with geographical variations, and in some areas is heavily influenced by local large-scale monsoons
8.
Semi-arid
–
A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
9.
Temperate climate
–
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of Earth lie between the tropics and the polar regions. The temperatures in these regions are relatively moderate, rather than extremely hot or cold. The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer to the Arctic Circle, the south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic Circle. In some climate classifications, the zone is often divided into several smaller climate zones. These include Humid subtropical climate, Mediterranean climate, oceanic, subtropical climates are located between 23. 5° and 35. 0° north or south latitude on the eastern or leeward sides of landmasses. This climate has long, generally hot, summers and short, mild winters and these climates may occur in southern Asia, the southeastern United States, parts of eastern Australia, and in eastern coastal South America. Mediterranean climates, occur between 30° and 42° north and south latitude, on the sides of landmasses. This climate has hot summers and short mild winters, however, seasonal rainfall is the opposite of that of the subtropical humid type. These climates occur near the rimlands of the Mediterranean Sea, in western Australia, in California, the oceanic climates occur in the higher middle latitudes, between 45° and 60° north and south latitude. They are created by the flow from the cool high latitude oceans to their west. This causes the climate to have cool summers and cool winters, annual rainfall is spread throughout the entire year. Regions with this climate include Western Europe, northwestern North America, the Continental climates occur in middle latitudes, between 35° or 40° to 55°. These climates are normally inland or on sides of landmasses. They feature warm to hot summers and cold winters, with a large temperature variation. Regions with this climate include northern temperate Asia, the northern United States, southern Canada, the vast majority of the worlds human population resides in temperate zones, especially in the northern hemisphere, due to its greater mass of land. The richest temperate flora in the world is found in southern Africa, geographical zone Habitat Köppen climate classification Middle latitudes Polar circle Subtropics
10.
Pastoralism
–
Pastoralism is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry, the care, tending and use of such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas. Pastoralism generally has an aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture. Pastoralism is a strategy to support a population on less productive land. For example, in savannas, pastoralists and their animals gather when rain water is abundant, pastoralists often use their herds to affect their environment. Grazing herds on savannas can ensure the biodiversity of the savannas, pastoralists may also use fire to make ecosystems more suitable for their food animals. For instance, the Turkana people of northwest Kenya use fire to prevent the invasion of the savanna by woody plant species, biomass of the domesticated and wild animals was increased by a higher quality of grass. Pastoralism is found in many variations throughout the world, composition of herds, management practices, social organization and all other aspects of pastoralism vary between areas and between social groups. Many traditional practices have also had to adapt to the circumstance of the modern world. Ranches of the United States and sheep stations and cattle stations of Australia are seen by some as modern variations, one theory is that pastoralism was created from mixed farming. Bates and Lees proposed that it was the incorporation of irrigation into farming which ensued in specialization, advantages of mixed farming include reducing risk of failure, spreading labour, and re-utilizing resources. The increased productivity of agriculture led to an increase in population. Bordering areas of land remained in use for animal breeding and this meant that large distances had to be covered by herds to collect sufficient forage. Specialization occurred as a result of the importance of both intensive agriculture and pastoralism. Both agriculture and pastoralism developed alongside other, with continuous interactions. There is another theory that suggests pastoralism evolved from hunting and gathering, hunters of wild goats and sheep were knowledgeable about herd mobility and the needs of the animals. Such hunters were mobile and followed the herds on their seasonal rounds, undomesticated herds were chosen to become more controllable for the proto-pastoralist nomadic hunter and gatherer groups by taming and domesticating them. Hunter-gatherers strategies in the past have been diverse and contingent upon the local environment conditions
11.
Q150
–
Q150 was the sequicentenary of the Separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859. Separation established the Colony of Queensland which became the State of Queensland in 1901 as part of the Federation of Australia, many local communities celebrated Q150 in various ways. In Coominya, the heritage society commissioned a series of murals depicting early life at the town. Archived from the original on 26 April 2010
12.
Dingo Fence
–
It is one of the longest structures in the world and is the worlds longest fence. It has been successful, though dingoes can still be found in parts of the southern states. The 2,500 km section of the fence in Queensland is also known as the Great Barrier Fence or Wild Dog Barrier Fence 11 and it is administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Water. The Wild Dog Barrier Fence staff consists of 23 employees, including two-person teams which patrol a 300 km section of the fence once every week, there are depots at Quilpie and Roma. The Queensland Border Fence stretches for 394 km westwards along the border with New South Wales, the fence passes the point where the three states of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia meet. At this point, it connects with the South Australian Border Fence and it then joins a section known as the Dog Fence in South Australia, which is 2,225 km long. Mostly it is made of 180 cm high wire mesh but some sections in South Australia comprise multi-strand electric fence, the fence line on both sides is cleared to a 5 m width. Sheep and cattle stations in Australia protected by the fence are astoundingly large, while varying in size, some stations can be larger than some small European countries. One station alone in South Australia lost over 11,000 sheep in a due to dingo attacks before the completion of the fence. As recently as 1991, one station lost 3000 sheep in a year, sheep farmers fought back by using poisoning, shooting, and eventually constructing the longest fence in the world. Aerial poison bait drops are used today. Parts of the Dingo Fence are lit at night by 86 mm cold cathode fluorescent lamps which are alternately red and they are powered by long life batteries which are charged by photovoltaic cells during the day. At minor and farm crossings, a series of gates allow vehicles to pass through the fence, where the fence intersects major roads and highways, Cattle grids are used to allow high-speed vehicles through. The earliest pest exclusion fences in Australia were created to protect small plots of cropland from the predation by marsupials, in the 1860s and 1870s, introduced rabbit populations began to spread rapidly across southern Australia. By 1884, a fence was built. In 1930, an estimated 32,000 km of dog netting in Queensland alone was being used on top of rabbit fences. Prior to 1948, the idea of a Dingo Barrier Fence Scheme had not come into fruition as a project for which annual maintenance. Since this time, there have been pushes to move away from a method of barrier-exclusion to complete extinction of the dingo, poisoning the species with compound 1080 baits has been seen as a much cheaper alternative than fence maintenance
13.
Coober Pedy
–
Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia,846 km north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. According to the 2011 census, its population was 1,695, the town is sometimes referred to as the opal capital of the world because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. Coober Pedy is renowned for its residences, called dugouts. The name Coober Pedy comes from the local Aboriginal term kupa-piti, Opal was found in Coober Pedy on 1 February 1915, since then the town has been supplying most of the worlds gem-quality opal. Coober Pedy today relies as much on tourism as the mining industry to provide the community with employment. Coober Pedy has over seventy opal fields and is the largest opal mining area in the world, Aboriginal people have a long-standing connection with the area. Miners first moved in about 1916, by 1999, there were more than 250,000 mine shaft entrances in the area and a law discouraged large-scale mining by allowing each prospector a 165-square-foot claim. The harsh summer temperatures mean that many residents prefer to live in caves bored into the hillsides. A standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a price to building a house on the surface. However, dugouts remain at a constant temperature, while surface buildings need air conditioning, especially during the summer months, the relative humidity rarely gets over 20% on these hot days, and the skies are usually cloud-free. The average maximum temperature is 30–32 °C, but it can get cool in the winter. Coober Pedy is a small town, about halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs. It has become a stopover point and tourist destination, especially since 1987. Visitors attractions in Coober Pedy include the mines, the graveyard, the first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town, approximately 60% of the people are European, migrating from southern and eastern Europe after the Second World War. In all, there are more than 45 nationalities represented, the local golf course – mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime temperatures – is completely free of grass, and golfers take a small piece of turf around to use for teeing off. As a result of correspondence between the two clubs, the Coober Pedy golf club is the club in the world to enjoy reciprocal rights at The Royal. The town also has an Australian rules football club, the Coober Pedy Saints, due to the towns extreme isolation, to play matches the Saints must make round trips of over 900 kilometres to Roxby Downs, where the rest of the leagues teams are located
14.
History of Indigenous Australians
–
The history of Aboriginal Australians is thought to have spanned 30,000 to 45,000 years, although some estimates have put the figure at up to 60,000 years before European settlement. The Aboriginal Australians lived with a dependence on the land. Each group developed skills for the area in which they would live – hunting or fishing or gathering, in the early 1900s it was commonly believed that the Indigenous population of Australia was going to become extinct. There are no clear tribes or an accepted origin of the people of Australia. Although they likely migrated to Australia through Southeast Asia they are not demonstrably related to any known Asian or Polynesian population. It is believed that the first human migration to Australia was achieved when this landmass formed part of the Sahul continent and it is also possible that people came by island hopping via an island chain between Sulawesi and New Guinea and the other reaches North Western Australia via Timor. The exact timing of the arrival of the ancestors of the Aboriginal Australians has been a matter of dispute among archaeologists, the most generally accepted date for first arrival is between 40, 000–80,000 years BP. Near Penrith in New South Wales, since 1971 numerous Aboriginal stone tools have been found in Cranebrook Terraces gravel sediments having dates of 45,000 to 50,000 years BP. When these results were new they were controversial, but more recent dating of the strata in 1987 and 2003 has corroborated these dates. A48,000 BC date is based on a few sites in northern Australia dated using thermoluminescence, a large number of sites have been radiocarbon dated to around 38,000 BC, leading some researchers to doubt the accuracy of the thermoluminescence technique. Radiocarbon dating is limited to an age of around 40,000 years. Some estimates have given as widely as from 30,000 to 68,000 BC. Earlier dates are requiring new such as optically stimulated luminescence and accelerator mass spectrometry. Charles Dortch has dated recent finds on Rottnest Island, Western Australia at 70,000 years BP, the rock shelters at Malakunanja II and of Nauwalabila I show evidence of used pieces of ochre – evidence for paint used by artists 60,000 years ago. Using OSL Rhys Jones has obtained a date for stone tools in these horizons dating from 53, thermoluminescence dating of the Jinmium site in the Northern Territory suggested a date of 200,000 BCE. Although this result received wide coverage, it is not accepted by most archaeologists. Only Africa has older physical evidence of habitation by modern humans, humans reached Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age. After the seas rose about 12,000 years ago and covered the land bridge, short statured aboriginal tribes inhabited the rainforests of North Queensland, of which the best known group is probably the Tjapukai of the Cairns area
15.
European exploration of Australia
–
The European exploration of Australia was the exploration of Australia by Europeans or white explorers, encompassing several waves of seafarers and land explorers. While Australias territory never became an actual Dutch settlement or colony, Dutch navigators were the first to undisputedly explore, in the 17th century, the Dutch East India Companys navigators and explorers charted almost three-quarters of Australias coastline, except its east coast. The Dutch ship, Duyfken, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606, explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for some years after settlement. Some writers have advanced the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight Australia in the 1520s, a number of relics and remains have been interpreted as evidence that the Portuguese reached Australia. However, most historians do not accept this theory, and the interpretation of the Dieppe maps is highly contentious. The French navigator Binot Paulmier de Gonneville claimed to have landed at a land he described as east of the Cape of Good Hope in 1504, for some time it had been thought he discovered Australia, but the place he landed has now been shown to be Brazil. The Dutch East India Company was set up in 1602 and traded extensively with the islands now form parts of Indonesia. The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February or early March 1606, Janszoon charted the Australian coast and met with Aboriginal people. On 26 February 1606, Janszoon and his party made landfall near the town of Weipa and the Pennefather River. Janszoon proceeded down the coast for some 350 km and he stopped in some places, but was met by hostile natives and some of his men were killed. These events were recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day, here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place later being called Cape Keerweer, Dutch for turnabout. Later that year, De Quiros deputy Luís Vaez de Torres sailed to the north of Australia through Torres Strait, charting New Guineas southern coast, and possibly sighting Cape York in October 1606. In 1611 Hendrik Brouwer, working for VOC, discovered that sailing from Europe to Batavia was much quicker if the Roaring Forties were used. Up to that point, the Dutch had followed a route copied from Arab and Portuguese sailors who followed the coasts of Africa, Mauritius and Ceylon. The Brouwer Route involved sailing south from the Cape of Good Hope into the Roaring Forties then sailing east before turning north to Java using the South Indian Ocean Current, the Brouwer Route became compulsory for Dutch vessels in 1617. Most of these landfalls were unplanned, the first such landfall was in 1616, when Dirk Hartog, employed by VOC, reached land at Shark Bay off the coast of Western Australia. Finding nothing of interest, Hartog continued sailing northwards along this previously undiscovered coastline of Western Australia and he then left the coast and continued on to Batavia. He called Australia T Landt van dEendracht, after his ship, in 1619 Frederik de Houtman, in the VOC ship Dordrecht, and Jacob dEdel, in another VOC ship Amsterdam, sighted land on the Australian coast near present-day Perth which they called dEdelsland
16.
Blue Mountains (Australia)
–
The Blue Mountains is a mountainous region and a mountain range located in New South Wales, Australia. The region borders on Sydneys metropolitan area, its foothills starting about 50 kilometres west of the state capital, the publics understanding of the extent of the Blue Mountains is varied, as it forms only part of an extensive mountainous area associated with the Great Dividing Range. Geologically, it is situated in the parts of the Sydney Basin. For about two thirds of its length it is traversed by the Great Western Highway and the Main Western railway line, several established towns are situated on its heights, including Katoomba, Blackheath, Mount Victoria, and Springwood. The range forms the watershed between Coxs River to the south and the Grose and Wolgan rivers to the north, the range contains the Explorer Range and the Bell Range. The Blue Mountains area includes the government areas of the City of Blue Mountains, the City of Hawkesbury. Following European settlement of the Sydney area, the area was named the Carmarthen, the Carmarthen Hills were in the north of the region and the Lansdowne Hills were in the south. The name Blue Mountains, however, was preferred and is derived from the blue tinge the range takes on when viewed from a distance. Volatile terpenoids emitted in large quantities by the abundant eucalyptus trees in the Blue Mountains may cause Mie scattering, gundungurra Tribal Council Aboriginal Corporation has a registered Native Title Claim since 1995 over their traditional lands, which include the Blue Mountains and surrounding areas. Examples of Aboriginal habitation can be found in many places, in the Red Hands Cave, a rock shelter near Glenbrook, the walls contain hand stencils from adults and children. On the southern side of Queen Elizabeth Drive, at Wentworth Falls, there are also carved images of animal tracks and an occupation cave. The site is known as Kings Tableland Aboriginal Site and dates back 22,000 years, Arthur Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales, first glimpsed the extent of the Blue Mountains from a ridge at the site of todays Oakhill College, Castle Hill. He named them the Carmarthen Hills, some forty to sixty miles distant, and he reckoned that the ground was most suitable for government stock. This is the location where Gidley King in 1799 established a town for political prisoners from Ireland and Scotland. The first documented use of the name Blue Mountains appears in Captain John Hunter’s account of Phillip’s 1789 expedition up the Hawkesbury River and it could be followed upstream to the open plains of the Kanimbla Valley, the type of country that farmers prize. European settlers initially considered that fertile lands lay beyond the mountains, as was China in the belief of many convicts and this idea was, to some extent, convenient for local authorities. An insurmountable barrier would deter convicts from trying to escape in that direction, a former convict, John Wilson, may have been the first European to cross the Blue Mountains. It is also believed that Mathew Everingham,1795, may have also been partly based on letters he wrote at the time which came to light in the late 1980s
17.
Gregory Blaxland
–
Gregory Blaxland was an English pioneer farmer and explorer in Australia, noted especially for initiating and co-leading the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains by European settlers. N. Gregory attended The Kings School, Canterbury, in July 1799 in the church of St George the Martyr there, he married 20-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of John Spurdon, they had five sons and two daughters. The Blaxlands were friends of Sir Joseph Banks who appears to have influenced the decision of Gregory and his eldest brother, John. The government promised them land, convict servants and free passages, in accord with its policy of encouraging settlers of responsibility and he owned a farm at the South Creek. The crossing took 21 days, and 6 days to return, in recognition of the successful crossing, all three explorers were granted by Macquarie 1,000 acres of land west of the mountains. Blaxland is also noted as one of the first settlers to plant grapes for wine-making purposes and he was engaged during the next few years in wine-making. He had brought vines from the Cape of Good Hope and found a species resistant to blight, Blaxlands diaries show that he had a clear grasp of the scale upon which agricultural and pastoral activities would be profitable in Australia. Macquarie would not agree nor would he allow Blaxland land in the interior for his own flocks, Blaxland then had to dispose of his livestock, and joined the colonial opposition to Macquarie, and in 1819 sharply criticized his administration to Commissioner John Thomas Bigge. Blaxland visited England in 1822 taking with him a sample of his wine, while in England he published in February 1823 his Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains. Later the same year, Blaxland was awarded the medal of the Royal Society of Arts for the wine he had brought to London. His wife died in December 1826 and he successfully petitioned the Colonial Office for a drawback on the import duty on brandy imported into the colony and actually used in the manufacture of wine. Always a man of moody and mercurial character, Blaxland devoted his colonial activities almost entirely to the pursuit of his agricultural and viticultural interests and he committed suicide on 1 January 1853 in New South Wales and was buried in All Saints Cemetery in Parramatta. His son John was a prominent businessman and member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, in 1963 he was honoured, together with Lawson and Wentworth, on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post depicting the Blue Mountains crossing
18.
John Oxley
–
John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of British colonisation. John Oxley was born in 1785 at Kirkham Abbey near Westow in Yorkshire and he was baptised in Bulmer in Yorkshire on 6 July 1785. In 1799, he entered the Royal Navy when he was aged 15 as a midshipman on the Venerable and he travelled to Australia in October 1802 as masters mate of the naval vessel Buffalo, which carried out coastal surveying. In 1805 Governor King appointed him acting lieutenant in charge of the Buffalo, in 1806 he commanded the Estramina on a trip to Van Diemens Land. He returned to England in 1807 and was appointed first lieutenant of Porpoise, in 1809 Porpoise visited Van Diemens Land, carrying as a passenger Governor William Bligh, who had been deposed in the Rum Rebellion. Oxley had obtained an order from the Colonial Office for a grant of 600 acres near the Nepean River, Oxley had to surrender these in 1810, but Governor Macquarie granted him 600 acres near Camden which he increased in 1815 to 1,000 acres again. In 1810 he wrote a report on the settlements in Van Diemens Land before sailing for England in Porpoise in May. In London he applied for the post of Naval Officer in Sydney, Oxley denied that he had been a partisan of Macarthur when Bligh was deposed, but his letters show that he was on very intimate terms with the rebel leader. In 1812 he became engaged to Elizabeth Macarthur, this was broken off when her father discovered the extent of Oxleys debts, by that time, through the influence of Macarthurs friend Walter Davidson, Oxleys second application for the surveyor-generalship had been successful. In 1811 he had retired from the navy, and in May 1812 sailed for Sydney in the Minstrel to take up his new duties, in March 1817 John Oxley was instructed to take charge of an expedition to explore and survey the course of the Lachlan River. He left Sydney on 6 April with George Evans as second-in-command, Evans had discovered a portion of the Lachlan River west of Bathurst in 1815. Oxleys party reached Bathurst after a week, where they were detained by bad weather. They reached the Lachlan River Depot on 25 April 1817 and commenced to follow its course, as the exploring party travelled westward the country surrounding the rising river was found to be increasingly inundated. On 12 May, west of the present township of Forbes and they travelled down a northern branch of the river to Mt Mulguthery they were forced to return up the river. By the end of May the party found themselves in a dry scrubby country north east of Yenda where they ascended several peaks in the Cocoparra National Park, shortage of water and the death of two horses forced Oxleys return passing near Rankins Springs to the Lachlan River. On 23 June the Lachlan River near Merrigal Bridge was reached and they followed the course of the Lachlan River through Hillston and Booligal for a fortnight. The party encountered much flooded country, and reached a point 5km south west of Booligal which was their last camp site, Oxley resolved to turn back and after resting for two days Oxleys party began to retrace their steps along the Lachlan River. Oxley travelled to Dubbo on 12 June 1818 and he wrote that he had passed that day over a very beautiful country, thinly wooded and apparently safe from the highest floods
19.
Charles Sturt
–
Captain Charles Napier Sturt was a British explorer of Australia, and part of the European exploration of Australia. He led several expeditions into the interior of the continent, starting from both Sydney and later from Adelaide and his expeditions traced several of the westward-flowing rivers, establishing that they all merged into the Murray River. He was searching to determine if there was an inland sea, Charles Sturt was born in Bengal, British India, the eldest son of Thomas Lenox Napier Sturt, a judge under the British East India Company. At the age of five, Charles was sent to relations in England to be educated, an aunt made an appeal to the Prince Regent and, on 9 September 1813, Sturt was gazetted as an ensign with the 39th Regiment of Foot in the British Army. Sturt saw action with the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War and against the Americans in Canada, Sturt was gazetted lieutenant on 7 April 1823 and promoted captain on 15 December 1825. With a detachment from his regiment, Sturt escorted convicts aboard the Mariner to New South Wales, Sturt found the conditions and climate in New South Wales much better than he expected and he developed a great interest in the country. The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling, formed an opinion of Sturt and appointed him major of brigade. Sturt became friendly with John Oxley, Allan Cunningham, Hamilton Hume, Sturt was keen to explore the Australian interior, especially its rivers. Sturt received approval from Governor Darling on 4 November 1828 to explore the area of the Macquarie River in western New South Wales and it was not, however, until 10 November that the party started out. It consisted of Sturt, his servant Joseph Harris, three soldiers and eight convicts, on 27 November Sturt was joined by Hamilton Hume as his first assistant, humes experience proved to be very useful. A week was spent at Wellington Valley breaking in oxen and horses, 1828–29 was a period of drought and there was difficulty in getting sufficient water. The courses of the Macquarie, Bogan and Castlereagh rivers had been followed, and though its importance was scarcely sufficiently realized, the party returned to Wellington Valley on 21 April 1829. The expedition proved that northern New South Wales was not an inland sea, in 1829 Governor Darling approved an expedition to solve this mystery. Sturt proposed to travel down the Murrumbidgee River, whose upper reaches had been seen by the Hume, in place of Hume, who was unable to join the party, George Macleay went as a companion rather than as an assistant. A whaleboat built in sections was carried with them which was assembled, in January 1830 Sturts party reached the confluence of the Murrumbidgee and a much larger river, which Sturt named the Murray River. It was in fact the river which Hume and Hovell had crossed further upstream. Several times the party was in danger from the Aborigines but Sturt always succeeded in appeasing them, Sturt then proceeded down the Murray, until he reached the rivers confluence with the Darling. Sturt had now proved that all the western-flowing rivers eventually flowed into the Murray, in February 1830, the party reached a large lake which Sturt called Lake Alexandrina
20.
Murray River
–
The Murray River is Australias longest river, at 2,508 kilometres in length. It turns south at Morgan for its final 315 kilometres, reaching the ocean at Lake Alexandrina, despite discharging considerable volumes of water at times, particularly before the advent of largescale river regulation, the mouth has always been comparatively small and shallow. As of 2010, the Murray River system receives 58 percent of its natural flow and it is perhaps Australias most important irrigated region, and it is widely known as the food bowl of the nation. The Murray River forms part of the 3,750 km long combined Murray–Darling river system drains most of inland Victoria, New South Wales. Overall the catchment area is one seventh of Australias total land mass, the Murray carries only a small fraction of the water of comparably-sized rivers in other parts of the world, and with a great annual variability of its flow. The Murray River makes up most of the border between the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales, where it does, the border is the top of the bank of the southern side of the river. This boundary definition can be ambiguous, since the river changes its course over time and this was due to a miscalculation during the 1840s, when the border was originally surveyed. Past this point, the Murray River is entirely within the state of South Australia, the Murray River also supports fringing corridors and forests of the river red gum. Recent extreme droughts have put significant stress on river red gum forests, the Murray has also flooded on occasion, the most significant of which was the flood of 1956, which inundated many towns on the lower Murray and which lasted for up to six months. In some segments of the Murray River, carp have become the species found. Between 2.5 and 0.5 million years ago the Murray River terminated in a vast freshwater lake called Lake Bungunnia, Lake Bungunnia was formed by earth movements that blocked the Murray River near Swan Reach during this period of time. At its maximum extent Lake Bungunnia covered 33,000 km2, extending to near the Menindee Lakes in the north, the draining of Lake Bungunnia occurred approximately 600,000 years ago. Deep clays deposited by the lake are evident in cliffs around Chowilla in South Australia, a species of Neoceratodus lungfish existed in Lake Bungunnia, today Neoceratodus lungfish are only found in several Queensland rivers. The noted Barmah Red Gum Forests owe their existence to the Cadell Fault, about 25,000 years ago, displacement occurred along the Cadell fault, raising the eastern edge of the fault, which runs north-south,8 to 12 m above the floodplain. This created a series of events. A section of the original Murray River channel immediately behind the fault was abandoned, the Goulburn River was dammed by the southern end of the fault to create a natural lake. The Murray River flowed to the north around the Cadell Fault, creating the channel of the Edward River which exists today and these conditions are perfect for River Red Gums, which rapidly formed forests in the area. Thus the displacement of the Cadell Fault 25,000 BP led directly to the formation of the famous Barmah River Red Gum Forests, the Barmah Choke and The Narrows mean the amount of water that can travel down this part of the Murray River is restricted
21.
Darling River
–
The Darling River is the third longest river in Australia, measuring 1,472 kilometres from its source in northern New South Wales to its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth, New South Wales. Including its longest contiguous tributaries it is 2,844 km long, making it the longest river system in Australia, the Darling River is the outbacks most famous waterway. The Darling has been in health, suffering from overuse of its waters, pollution from pesticide runoff. In some years it has barely flowed at all, the river has a high salt content and declining water quality. Increased rainfall in its catchment in 2010 has improved flow, the Division of Darling, Division of Riverina-Darling, Electoral district of Darling and Electoral district of Lachlan and Lower Darling were named after the river. The Queensland headwaters of the Darling were gradually colonised from 1815 onward, in 1828 the explorer Charles Sturt and Hamilton Hume were sent by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling, to investigate the course of the Macquarie River. He discovered the Bogan River and then, early in 1829, the upper Darling, in 1835, Major Thomas Mitchell travelled a 483-kilometre portion of the Darling River. Although his party never reached the junction with the Murray River he correctly assumed the rivers joined, in 1856, the Blandowski Expedition set off for the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers to discover and collect fish species for the National Museum. The expedition was a success with 17,400 specimens arriving in Adelaide the next year, but over the past century the rivers importance as a transportation route has declined. In 1992, the Darling River suffered from severe cyanobacterial bloom that stretched the length of the river, the presence of phosphorus was essential for the toxic algae to flourish. Flow rates, turbulence, turbidity and temperature were other contributing factors, in 2008, the Federal government purchased Toorale Station in northern New South Wales for A$23 million. The purchase allowed the government to return 11 gigalitres of environmental flows back into the Darling and its meandering course is three times longer than the direct distance it traverses. Much of the land that the Darling flows through are plains and is relatively flat. Other rivers join the Darling near Bourke or below - the Bogan River, South east of Broken Hill, the Menindee Lakes are a series of lakes that were once connected to the Darling River by short creeks. The Menindee Lake Scheme has reduced the frequency of flooding in the Menindee Lakes, as a result, about 13,800 hectares of lignum and 8,700 hectares of Black box have been destroyed. Weirs and constant low flows have fragmented the river system and blocked fish passage, the Darling River runs south-south-west, leaving the Far West region of New South Wales, to join the Murray River on the New South Wales - Victoria border at Wentworth, New South Wales. The Barrier Highway at Wilcania, the Silver City Highway at Wentworth, part of the river north of Menindee marks the border of Kinchega National Park. In response to the 1956 Murray River flood a weir was constructed at Menindee to mitigate flows from the Darling River, the north of the Darling River is in the Southeast Australia temperate savanna ecoregion and the south west of the Darling is part of the Murray Darling Depression ecoregion
22.
John McDouall Stuart
–
John McDouall Stuart, often referred to as simply McDouall Stuart, was a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished of all Australias inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return and his experience and the care he showed for his team ensured he never lost a man, despite the harshness of the country he encountered. The explorations of Stuart eventually resulted in the 1863 annexation of an area of country to the Government of South Australia. This area became known as the Northern Territory, in 1911 the Commonwealth of Australia assumed responsibility for that area. In 1871-72 the Australian Overland Telegraph Line was constructed along Stuarts route, the principal road from Port Augusta to Darwin was also established essentially on his route and is now known as the Stuart Highway in his honour. Born in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, Stuart was the youngest of nine children and his father William Stuart was a retired army captain serving as a customs officer. Stuarts parents died when he was in his teens and he came under the care of relatives. He graduated from the Scottish Naval and Military Academy as an engineer before emigrating to Australia at the age of 23. Stuart was a slight, delicately built young man, standing about 56 tall, in January 1839 he arrived in the three-year-old frontier colony of South Australia, at that time little more than a single crowded outpost of tents and dirt-floored wooden huts. Stuart soon found employment with the colonys Surveyor-General, working in the scrub of the newly settled districts marking out blocks for settlers and miners. Stuart remained with the Survey Department until 1842 and then worked in the Mount Lofty Ranges as a private surveyor, in 1844 Captain Sturt embarked on an expedition into the arid interior, and engaged Stuart as a draughtsman. Sturts expedition penetrated further north than any attempt, at the cost of great hardship. Instead of the inland sea, the explorers found two of the most fearsome arid areas anywhere in Australia, Sturt Stony Desert and the Simpson Desert. After second-in-command James Poole died of scurvy, Sturt appointed Stuart in his place, both men survived to return to Adelaide, but suffered greatly from scurvy. Sturt never really recovered and soon returned to England, the younger Stuart was unable to work or travel for a year, on 14 May 1858, with financial backing from William Finke, Stuart set off on the first of his six major expeditions. His aim was to find minerals, a land which the Aborigines called Wingillpinin, from the Flinders Ranges, Stuart travelled west, passing to the south of Lake Torrens, then north along the western edge of Lake Torrens. He found a chain of semi-permanent waterholes which he named Chambers Creek. It later became important as a staging post for expeditions to the arid centre of the continent
23.
Burke and Wills expedition
–
At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers. The expedition left Melbourne in winter, bad weather, poor roads and broken-down wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River Burke made good progress, the expedition established a depot camp at the Cooper, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast. The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out, all contributing new geographical findings, all together, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, the Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne. Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to an influx of migrants. The colony became very wealthy and Melbourne grew rapidly to become Australias largest city, the boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as marvellous Melbourne. The influx of educated gold seekers from England, Ireland and Germany led to growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries. The University of Melbourne was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria in 1856, the Philosophical Institute of Victoria was founded in 1854 and became the Royal Society of Victoria after receiving a Royal Charter in 1859. By 1855 there was speculation about possible routes for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line to connect Australia to the new cable in Java. There was fierce competition between the colonies over the route with governments recognising the benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. The Victorian government organised the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent in 1860, the South Australian government offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast. In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an Exploration Committee with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition, while interest in inland exploration was strong in the neighbouring colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, in Victoria enthusiasm was limited. The Exploration Committee called for offers of interest for a leader for the Victorian Exploring Expedition, only two members of the Committee, Ferdinand von Mueller and Wilhelm Blandowski, had any experience in exploration but due to factionalism both were consistently outvoted. Several people were considered for the post of leader and the Society held a range of meetings in early 1860, robert OHara Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, and William John Wills was recommended as surveyor, navigator and third-in-command. Burke had no experience in exploration and it is strange that he was chosen to lead the expedition, Burke was an Irish-born ex-officer with the Austrian army, and later became police superintendent with virtually no skills in bushcraft. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, rather than take cattle to be slaughtered during the trip the Committee decided to experiment with dried meat. The weight required three extra wagons and was to slow the expedition down appreciably, the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria included, Sir William Foster Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria Dr David Elliott Wilkie MD
24.
Overland Telegraph
–
The Australian Overland Telegraph Line was a 3200 km telegraph line that connected Darwin with Port Augusta in South Australia. Completed in 1872, the Overland Telegraph Line allowed fast communication between Australia and the rest of the world, an additional section was added in 1877 with the completion of the Western Australian section of the line. It was one of the engineering feats of 19th century Australia. By 1855 speculation had intensified about possible routes for the connection of Australia to the new cable in Java. Competition between the colonies over the route was fierce, the Victorian government organised an expedition led by Burke and Wills to cross the continent from Menindee to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860. Although the route was traversed, the expedition ended in disaster, the South Australian government recognised the economic benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. It offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast, John McDouall Stuart had meanwhile also been endeavouring to cross the continent starting from the northern Flinders Ranges, and was successful on his sixth attempt in 1862. James Chambers had gained an interest in the concept of a line across the outback. He paid the costs for Stuarts expeditions into northern Australia, Stuart had the proposed telegraph line in mind as he travelled across the desert, noting the best places for river crossings, sources of timber for telegraph poles, and water supplies. On 24 July his expedition reached the north coast at a place Stuart named Chambers Bay, after his employer. South Australian Governor Richard MacDonnell gave his support to the project. In 1863 an Order in Council transferred Northern Territory to South Australia and this move provoked outrage in Queensland amongst advocates of the Darwin–Burketown route. The latter was to be finished on 31 December 1871, the South Australian Superintendent of Telegraphs, Charles Todd, was appointed head of the project, and devised a timetable to complete the immense project on schedule. Todd had built South Australias first telegraph line and extended it to Melbourne, the contract stipulated a total cost of no more than ₤128,000 and two years construction time. He divided the route into three regions, northern and southern sections to be handled by contractors, and a central section which would be constructed by his own department. The telegraph line would comprise more than 30,000 wrought iron poles, insulators, batteries, wire and other equipment, the poles were placed 80 m apart and repeater stations built every 250 km. Todd assembled a team of men from all walks of life, surveyors, linesmen, carpenters, labourers, the team left Adelaide with horses, bullocks and carts loaded with provisions and equipment for many weeks. The central section would be surveyed by the explorer John Ross and Alfred Giles, william Dalwood and Joseph Derwent arrived in Darwin on board the SS Omeo with eighty men and the equipment required to construct the Northern section of the line from Darwin to Tennant Creek
25.
George Goyder
–
George Woodroffe Goyder was a surveyor in South Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Goyder was born in Liverpool, England to Sarah and David George Goyder and he moved to Glasgow with his family where he worked with an engineering firm and studied surveying. In 1848, at the age of 22, Goyder followed his sister and brother-in-law, George Galbraith McLachlan and he spent time working with an auctioneering firm and moved to Adelaide in 1851, obtaining work as a civil service draftsman. His rose rapidly in the service, becoming Assistant Surveyor-General by 1856. He is remembered today for Goyders Line of rainfall, a used in South Australia to demarcate land climatically suitable for arable farming from that suitable only for light grazing. He married Frances Mary Smith on 10 December 1851 at Christ Church, North Adelaide, Frances died on 8 April 1870 and George married her sister Ellen Priscilla Smith, who had been looking after the children, on 20 November 1871. With Ellen, George had three children, a son and twin daughters, by the late 1880s, however, Goyders health was declining and, with no improvement in sight, he resigned the post of Surveyor-General at the end of 1893. He died at his home Warrakilla, at Mylor near Aldgate in the Adelaide Hills on 2 November 1898 and was buried in the Stirling District Cemetery. He wrote many letters to newly established pastoralists who had moved into the regions for the states north. Pastoralists were hit by a drought in the middle of the decade and complained severely. Goyder was also faced with the despair of his wife, Frances Mary Smith, however, the 1864–65 drought put paid, at least temporarily, to these ambitions. Goyder was, in the midst of his work in the zone, asked to do a report on the problem. The northernmost point at which crops had not failed was marked as Goyders Line of Rainfall, Goyder recommended that farmers not attempt to farm cereal crops anywhere north of this line. Goyder is otherwise remembered for the siting, planning and initial development of Darwin, the site was chosen for its exceptionally good water supply, and potential for easy communication with the rest of the continent through land or sea transportation. The site was chosen after Finnisss choice at Escape Cliffs had been rejected, Goyder was sent by the government of South Australia, to lay out the street plans for a capital to be named Palmerston. He and his team of around 128 men left Port Adelaide on the Moonta around 26 December 1868 and he selected the site on Fort Point near Port Darwin, and nearby townships to be named Daly, Southport and Virginia. They began the work in 1869, completing all four in 18 months, Goyder returned on the Gulnare to Adelaide in November 1869 with around thirty men, with the greater part of his party returning in October 1870, though many remained to fill positions in the town. Others, including Dan Daly and Paul Foelsche, were to return within a few years
26.
Goyder's Line
–
Goyders Line is a line that runs roughly east-west across South Australia and, in effect, joins places with an average annual rainfall of 10 inches. North of Goyders Line, annual rainfall is too low to support cropping. Related to that, the line also marks a change in vegetation. To the south, it is composed mainly of mallee scrub, with barely 30 years knowledge of this new country, farmers needed reliable information about the climate and growing conditions. In 1865 George Goyder, the then Surveyor-General of the colony, was asked to map the boundary between areas that received good rainfall and those experiencing drought. After traversing an estimated 3200 km on horseback in November 1865, he submitted his report, the map included a line of demarcation, the areas north of which being those Goyder judged liable to drought, with the areas to the south deemed arable. He discouraged farmers from planting crops north of his line, declaring this land only for light grazing. Ample rains fell in 1865, prompting farmers to ignore Goyders report and settle in the north, starting farms, the idea that rain follows the plow, developed during the contemporaneous westward expansion of cropping in the United States, encouraged this trend. A few years later, many had to abandon their properties, the land was indeed unsuitable for crops, and Goyder was proved correct. Many farmhouse ruins can still be seen in the vicinity of Goyders line, there were other periods of development north of the line but, invariably, adverse conditions proved decisive. Entire towns and farms were abandoned when there was a return to average rainfall patterns. The line has proven highly accurate, a feat given the relatively limited knowledge of the local climate at the time it was surveyed. Goyders Line starts on the west coast near Ceduna and runs south-east across the Eyre Peninsula to strike Spencer Gulf near Arno Bay. It continues from near Moonta north to Crystal Brook and Orroroo, then south-east past Peterborough and Burra to the Victorian border near Pinnaroo, agriculture is possible north of the line near the Murray River, only because of irrigation using water drawn from the river. When flying over the area, the change in flora makes it possible to see the approximate path of Goyders Line. Goyders Line became a National Trust of Australia Heritage Icon in 2003, the Goyder Line was also mentioned in the Redgum song Virgin Ground from the 1980 album of the same name, and in the song Spark of the Heart, from their 1984 album Frontline. Dust Bowl Pallisers Triangle Semi-arid climate Readers Digest Illustrated Guide to Australian Places, on The Margins Of The Good Earth, The South Australian Wheat Frontier, 1869-1884. History Trust of South Australia, Government of South Australia, photograph of a memorial cairn commemorating Goyders Line
27.
Len Beadell
–
Born in West Pennant Hills, New South Wales, Beadell is sometimes called the last true Australian explorer. Beadells paternal grandparents came from England in the mid 1870s and his father Fred Algernon Beadell, was born in Sydney and mother Viola Pearl Mackay was from Townsville. They were married in Townsville in December 1914, and soon moved to the Sydney area, a daughter Phyllis was born in 1917, followed by Len in April 1923. Beadells primary education began at Gladesville Public School, Ryde in 1928 and continued at Burwood Public School in 1930, both suburbs of Sydney. At the suggestion of a friend, Beadell joined the 1st Burwood Scout Troop where he met the scoutmaster John Richmond. Richmond had served in the army during World War I, and was employed as a draughtsman and surveyor for the Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board in Sydney. During the years 1931 to 1941, Beadell spent most weekends on bush survey trips with other scouts and Richmond and he learnt about the technical aspects of astronomical sightings and how to use a theodolite. At the age of 18 in 1941, Beadell received his call up notice for the army, the service period was specified as the length of the war plus twelve months. His initial service was in the Army Service Corps at Bathurst, New South Wales, in February 1942 he went to the 2nd Australian Field Survey Company AIF, and carried out contour surveys for army maps. In October he sailed for New Guinea with the 8th Field Survey Section, most of 1943 was spent in the Milne Bay locality and it was here that Beadell developed his artistic skills by watching army artists whose job was to draw maps from information supplied by surveyors. He returned to Sydney in December for a period of leave, by March 1945 he was back in New Guinea at Lae with the 3rd Field Survey Company. The company moved by ship to Wewak where there was an enemy presence. Their assigned tasks were to map the area, and build a new airstrip. The strip was completed in August 1945, just as the war came to an end, Beadell wasted no time in accepting the appointment. When that assignment was completed in November, he was asked once more to waive his discharge, the British and Australian governments had decided to build a rocket testing range in outback Australia, and Beadell was chosen to locate a suitable site. He accepted the challenge, and began work with a team in the central desert area of South Australia. He chose the site became known as Woomera in March 1947. Further work was required to select and survey launching pad sites, the centreline of fire for rockets, the site of the future village was also chosen, allowing for approach paths of the runway and natural drainage
28.
Nuclear weapons tests in Australia
–
The United Kingdom conducted 12 major nuclear weapons tests in Australia between 1952 and 1957. These explosions occurred at the Montebello Islands, Emu Field and Maralinga, several books have been written about nuclear weapons testing in Australia. These include Britain, Australia and the Bomb, Maralinga, Australias Nuclear Waste Cover-up and My Australian Story, Atomic Testing, The Diary of Anthony Brown, Woomera,1953. In 2006 Wakefield Press published Beyond belief, the British bomb tests, Australias veterans speak out by Roger Cross and veteran and whistleblower, the British conducted testing in the Pacific Ocean at Malden Island and Kiritimati known at the time as Christmas Island between 1957 and 1958. These were airbursts mostly occurring over water or suspended a few hundred metres above the ground by balloon, in Australia there were three sites. Testing was carried out between 1952 and 1957 and was mostly done at the surface, a few hundred smaller scale tests were conducted at both Emu Creek and Maralinga between 1953 and 1963. A testing site at Maralinga was established in 1955, close to a siding along the Trans-Australian Railway, because supplies could be brought to the site via rail, it was preferred over Emu Creek. A total of seven tests were conducted at Maralinga. Both the Federal government and Australian newspapers at the time were very supportive of the tests, in 1952, the Liberal Government passed legislation, the Defence Act 1952, which allowed the British Government access to remote parts of Australia to undertake atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. The general public were unaware of the risks from the testing program, stemming from official secrecy about the testing program. Before the tests could begin the Maralinga Tjarutja, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, had to be removed. An air base at nearby Woomera, which had used for rocket testing, was initially used as a base from which planes were flown for testing of the bomb clouds. Some resourceful investigative journalists emerged and political scrutiny became more intense, in June 1993, New Scientist journalist Ian Anderson wrote an article entitled Britains dirty deeds at Maralinga and several related articles. Opposition to the tests grew throughout the 1950s, a poll in 1957 found that almost half the population were against them
29.
Emu Field
–
Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at 28°41′54″S 132°22′17″E. Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of tests conducted by the British government in October 1953. The site was surveyed by Len Beadell in 1952, a village and airstrip were constructed for the subsequent testing program. Two atomic tests were conducted at the site, Totem 1 was detonated on 15 October 1953 and Totem 2 was detonated on 27 October 1953. The devices were both sited on towers and yielded 9 kilotons and 7 kilotons respectively, the site was also used in September–October 1953 for some of the Kitten series of tests, which were conventional explosions used to evaluate neutron initiators. It was later found that the cloud from the first detonation did not disperse as expected. There are now stone monuments at the points, which can be visited by tourists. Evidence of the explosions may still be seen at ground-zero in the form of vitrified sand, atomic Forum - An illustrated history of nuclear weapons
30.
Maralinga, South Australia
–
Maralinga in the remote western areas of South Australia was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. Maralinga was the site of the secret British nuclear tests in the 1950s, the site measures about 3,300 km² in area. In 2003 South Australian Premier Mike Rann and Education Minister Trish White opened a new school at Oak Valley replacing what had been described as the worst school in Australia. In May 2004, following the passage of legislation, Premier Rann handed back title to 21,000 square kilometres of land to the Maralinga Tjarutja. The land,1000 km northwest of Adelaide and abutting the Western Australia border, was called the Unnamed Conservation Park and it is now known as Mamungari Conservation Park. It includes the Serpentine Lakes and was the largest land return since Premier John Bannons hand over of Maralinga lands in 1984. Under an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia, efforts were made to clean up the site before the Maralinga people resettled on the land in 1995 and they named their new community Oak Valley, it is approximately 128 km NNW of the original township. The effectiveness of the cleanup has been disputed on a number of occasions, the population is generally around 23–50. During special cultural activities with visitors from neighbouring communities, it rises to 1,500 people, Maralinga was the scene of UK nuclear testing and was contaminated with radioactive waste in the 1950s and early 1960s. Maralinga was surveyed by Len Beadell in the early 1950s, and followed the survey of Emu Field, which was further north, on 27 September 1956, Operation Buffalo commenced at Maralinga, as Emu Field was found to be too remote a site. The operation consisted of the testing of four fission bombs, two were exploded from towers, one at ground level and one was released by a Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant bomber from a height of 30,000 ft. This was the first launching of a British atomic weapon from an aircraft, antler was designed to test the triggering mechanisms of the weapons. The first two tests were conducted from towers, the last was suspended from balloons, yields from the weapons were 1 kiloton,6 kilotons and 25 kilotons respectively. Participants in the test program were prohibited from disclosing details of its undertakings, risking incarceration, nuclear veteran Avon Hudson became a whistle-blower and spoke out to the media in the 1970s. His disclosures helped pave the way towards a public inquiry into the tests, the McClelland Royal Commission of 1984–1985 identified significant residual contamination at some sites. British and Australian servicemen were exposed to fallout from the blasts. Previously many of these facts were kept from the public, temperature from 6.5 °C in winter to 44.7 °C in summer, overnight minimum of -3 C in winter. Rainfall average 0.75 mm –1.25 mm Parkinson, Maralinga, Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up Tame, Adrian & Robotham, F. P. J
31.
Woomera Prohibited Area
–
The RAAF Woomera Test Range is a weapons testing range operated by the Royal Australian Air Force Air Warfare Centre. The day-to-day operation and administration of the WTR is the responsibility of Headquarters, RAAF Woomera Test Range, the range facility is located in South Australia, in that States north-west pastoral region. The gateway to the Range is the Defence support base Woomera long referred to as Woomera Village, Woomera is located approximately 500 kilometres north-west of Adelaide. The Range, however, covers an area, and is the largest land-based weapons test facility in the western world. The range complex is made up of the Woomera Prohibited Area, the Woomera Restricted Airspace, the village of Woomera, RAAF Woomera Airfield, and Camp Rapier. The nearby Nurrungar Test Area Woomera, which was the site of the USAF/ADF Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar, is now also part of the wider Woomera Test Range complex. Woomera village has a population of 150 to 200 people. Although the range is closed to the public, Woomera village is open to the public, the groundspace of the range is known as the Woomera Prohibited Area and measures 122,188 km2. It was first declared an area in 1947. Access is managed by the Department of Defence Woomera Prohibited Area Coordination Office using a permit system, modern mines within the area include the Challenger gold mine, Peculiar Knob iron ore mine, Prominent Hill copper mine and the Cairn Hill iron ore mine. As of 2016, only Challenger is operational, Peculiar Knob is in care and maintenance owing to a weak iron ore price, while ore bodies at Prominent Hill and Cairn Hill have been exhausted. As of 2016, WPA Advisory Board membership includes, Minutes of the Board from 2012–2016 were partially released following a Freedom of Information request in 2016, approximately 65,000 tourists a year visit Woomera, with about half of that number going on to visit Roxby Downs. Germanys use of V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets during World War II prompted the British to establish their own rocket testing programme. However, the density of population in the United Kingdom made testing risky, so the British turned to Australia, the two nations joined in the Anglo-Australian Joint Project, a Commonwealth weapons design and test programme established in 1946. One of the Survey Corps members who commenced work there in 1947 was Len Beadell, the name of the facility, and the village of Woomera, came from the Aboriginal spear-throwing device. At its peak, the range had an area of 270,000 square kilometres, most of which was in South Australia and this was later scaled back to a total area of 127,000 square kilometres, still the largest land-based weapons test range in the western world. Facilities at Salisbury, South Australia supported the design and testing of many weapons, the Joint Project ran until 1980. Woomera then focused on supporting the nearby joint Australia-United States Joint Defence Space Communications Station, as of the end of 2009, there were up to ten different tests occurring on the range daily, and bookings for access had been made as far in advance as 2023
32.
Broome, Western Australia
–
Broome is a coastal, pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia,2,240 km north of Perth. The urban population is estimated at 14,776, growing to over 45,000 per month during the tourist season, Broome International Airport provides transport to several domestic destinations. Broome is situated on the lands of the Yawuru people. It is often thought that the first European to visit Broome was William Dampier in 1688. In 1699 he explored the coast from Shark Bay to La Grange Bay, many of the coastal features of the area were later named for him. In 1879, Charles Harper suggested that the industry could be served by a port closer to the pearling grounds. In 1883, John Forrest chose the site for the town, and it was named after Sir Frederick Broome, in 1889, a telegraph undersea cable was laid from Broome to Singapore, connecting to England. Hence the name Cable Beach given to the landfall site, at first, aborigines were blackbirded and forced to dive naked, with little or no equipment. Pregnant girls were used as they were believed to have a superior lung capacity. In 2010 the Shire of Broome and Kimberley commissioned a Memorial to the Indigenous Female Pearl Divers, when slavery was abolished and diving suits were needed for deeper diving, Asians and islanders were given the dangerous job instead. Especially Japanese were valued for their experience, the riches from the pearl beds did not come cheaply, however, and the towns Japanese cemetery is the resting place of 919 Japanese divers who lost their lives working in the industry. Many more were lost at sea, and the number of deaths is unknown. The Japanese were only one of the ethnic groups who flocked to Broome to work on the luggers or the shore based activities supporting the harvesting of oysters from the waters around Broome. They were specialist divers and, despite being considered enemies, became a part of the industry until World War II. Broome was attacked at least four times by Japanese aircraft during World War II, the worst attack in terms of loss of life was an air raid on 3 March 1942 in which at least 86 people were killed. Twenty-two aircraft were destroyed, most of them flying boats, the remains of which can still be seen in the harbour at low tide, in 1950, Broome was the setting for Arthur Upfields novel The Widows of Broome, his 12th novel featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. The West Australian mining boom of the 1960s, as well as the growth of the industry, also helped Broome develop. At Gantheaume Point and 30 m out to sea are dinosaur footprints dated as Early Cretaceous in age, the tracks can be seen only during very low tide
33.
Cairns
–
Cairns is a major city on the east coast of Far North Queensland in Australia. The city is the 5th-most-populous in Queensland and ranks 14th overall in Australia, Cairns was founded in 1876 and named after William Wellington Cairns, Governor of Queensland from 1875 to 1877. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield and it later developed into a railhead and major port for exporting sugar cane, gold and other metals, minerals and agricultural products from surrounding coastal areas and the Atherton Tableland region. The estimated residential population of the Cairns urban area in 2015 was 147,993, based on 2015 data, the associated local government area has experienced an average annual growth rate of 2. 3% over the last 10 years. Cairns is a popular tourist destination because of its climate and access to the Great Barrier Reef. Prior to British settlement, the Cairns area was inhabited by the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people, the area is known in the local Yidiny language as Gimuy. In 1770, James Cook mapped the site of Cairns. Closer investigation by several official expeditions 100 years later established its potential for development into a port, Cairns was founded in 1876, hastened by the need to export gold discovered on the tablelands to the west of the inlet. The site was predominantly mangrove swamps and sand ridges, labourers gradually cleared the swamps, and the sand ridges were filled with dried mud, sawdust from local sawmills, and ballast from a quarry at Edge Hill. Debris from the construction of a railway to Herberton on the Atherton Tableland, the railway opened up land later used for agriculture on the lowlands, and for fruit and dairy production on the Tableland. The success of local agriculture helped establish Cairns as a port, on 25 April 1926, the Cairns Sailors and Soldiers War Memorial was unveiled by Alexander Frederick Draper, the mayor of the City of Cairns. Combat missions were flown out of Cairns in support of the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942, Edmonton and White Rock south of Cairns were major military supply areas and US Paratroopers trained at Gordonvale and the Goldsborough Valley. A Special Forces training base was established at the old Fairview homestead on Munros Hill and this base was officially known as the Z Experimental Station, but referred to informally as The House on the Hill. After World War II, Cairns gradually developed into a centre for tourism, the opening of the Cairns International Airport in 1984 helped establish the city as a desirable destination for international tourism. Cairns is located on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula on a strip between the Coral Sea and the Great Dividing Range. The northern part of the city is located on Trinity Bay, to the south of the Trinity Inlet lies the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah. Some of the suburbs are located on flood plains. The Mulgrave River and Barron River flow within the greater Cairns area, the citys centre foreshore is located on a mud flat
34.
Northern Territory
–
The Northern Territory is a federal Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, to the north, the territory is bordered by the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Despite its large area—over 1,349,129 square kilometres, the Northern Territorys population of 244,000 makes it the least populous of Australias eight major states and territories, having fewer than half as many people as Tasmania. The archaeological history of the Northern Territory begins over 40,000 years ago when Indigenous Australians settled the region, makassan traders began trading with the indigenous people of the Northern Territory for trepang from at least the 18th century onwards. The coast of the territory was first seen by Europeans in the 17th century, the British were the first Europeans to attempt to settle the coastal regions. After three failed attempts to establish a settlement, success was achieved in 1869 with the establishment of a settlement at Port Darwin. Today the economy is based on tourism, especially Kakadu National Park in the Top End and the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in central Australia, the capital and largest city is Darwin. The population is not concentrated in regions but rather along the Stuart Highway. The other major settlements are Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine, Nhulunbuy, residents of the Northern Territory are often known simply as Territorians and fully as Northern Territorians, or more informally as Top Enders and Centralians. With the coming of the British, there were four attempts to settle the harsh environment of the northern coast. The Northern Territory was part of colonial New South Wales from 1825 to 1863, except for a time from February to December 1846. It was part of South Australia from 1863 to 1911, under the administration of colonial South Australia, the overland telegraph was constructed between 1870 and 1872. A railway was built between Palmerston and Pine Creek between 1883 and 1889. The economic pattern of raising and mining was established so that by 1911 there were 513,000 cattle. Victoria River Downs was at one time the largest cattle station in the world, gold was found at Grove Hill in 1872 and at Pine Creek, Brocks Creek, Burrundi, and copper was found at Daly River. On 1 January 1911, a decade after federation, the Northern Territory was separated from South Australia, alfred Deakin opined at this time To me the question has been not so much commercial as national, first, second, third and last. Either we must accomplish the peopling of the territory or submit to its transfer to some other nation. In late 1912 there was growing sentiment that the name Northern Territory was unsatisfactory, the names Kingsland, Centralia and Territoria were proposed with Kingsland becoming the preferred choice in 1913
35.
Fitzgerald River National Park
–
Fitzgerald River National Park is a national park in Western Australia,419 kilometres southeast of Perth, in the Shire of Ravensthorpe and the Shire of Jerramungup. The park includes the Barren Mountains and Eyre Range and the Fitzgerald River as well as incorporating the Fitzgerald Biosphere, there are 62 plant species which are unique to the 329,882 hectares park and a further 48 are rarely found elsewhere. The investment is to be used to redevelop and seal 80 km of roads within the park, construct a walk trail from Bremer Bay to Hopetoun, point Ann is one of the two places along Australias coast where southern right whales come to calve during their winter migration. Within the National Park is the Quaalup Homestead Wilderness Retreat that was built in 1858 by the Wellstead Family, in 1890, the Hassell family took over the pastoral lease and the homestead. The park can be accessed from the side via Bremer Bay. The central area of the park is accessible with a four-wheel drive vehicle or on foot. Many of the peaks in the park are off limits to climbers to prevent the spread of dieback or root rot from Phytophthora cinnamomi, the park forms the basis of the internationally recognised Biosphere Reserve recognised by the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program. The site contains over 1800 species of plant with 250 of these rare and 62 being known to be found only within the confines of the park. Some species of interest include the royal hakea, qualup bell, scarlet banksia, showy banksia, bell-fruit mallee, pea flowers, feather flowers, many species of eucalypts, three populations of the crowned mallee all exist within the park and have a total number of 140 trees. An endangered species, Boronia clavata, has five populations totalling only 100 individuals all of which are located in the area. Another two endangered species, the barrens wedding bush and the fan-leaf grevillea, are found within the park although in the case of the barrens wedding bush. The park is home to 22 species of mammal,200 bird species,41 species of reptile and 12 species of frog. It is recognised as an Important Bird Area, some of the species are the western bristlebird, western ground parrot. The endangered malleefowl is also known to inhabit the park with seven known, some of the mammals found are the very rare dibbler and the heath rat, both of which were thought to be extinct at one time or another. The tammar wallaby and woylie, both of which are threatened species, are known to inhabit the mallee and heath areas of the park, other species such as the quenda, chuditch and the red-tailed phascogale also inhabit the area. Migratory birds find refuge in the wetland and coastal regions and species that inhabit the area include the white-bellied sea eagle, Pacific swift. Protected areas of Western Australia List of biosphere reserves in Australia Fitzgerald River National Park
36.
Savanna
–
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support a herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density and it is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earths land area, the word originally entered English in 1555 as the Latin Zauana, equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana. Peter Martyr reported it as the name for the plain around Comagre. The accounts are inexact, but this is placed in present-day Madugandí or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo or on Point Mosquitos. These areas are now given over to modern cropland or jungle. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning, the divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories. Barrens has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America, sometimes midwestern savanna were described as grassland with trees. Different authors have defined the limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10%. Two factors common to all environments are rainfall variations from year to year. In the Americas, e. g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America, savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species, pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea. The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were created and maintained by anthropogenic fire. These fires are usually confined to the layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth
37.
Kimberley (Western Australia)
–
The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts in the region of Pilbara, and on the east by the Northern Territory. The region was named after John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1870 to 1874 and 1880 to 1882. The Kimberley was one of the earliest settled parts of Australia, with the first arrivals landing about 41,000 years ago, the party started inland on 19 January 1838. On 11 February Grey was speared and became ill. The party discovered and named the Gairdner River, the Glenelg River, there they were picked up by the Beagle and Lynher and taken to Mauritius to recuperate. In 1879 Alexander Forrest trekked across from the western coast to the Northern Territory, Forrest named the Kimberley district, and discovered the Margaret and Ord Rivers, the King Leopold Ranges, and the fertile area between the Fitzroy and Ord River. He subsequently set himself up as a land agent specialising in the Kimberley and was instrumental in the leasing of over 21,000,000 hectares of land in the region during 1883. In 1881, Philip Saunders and Adam Johns, in the face of great difficulties, early in 1881 the first five graziers, who called themselves the Murray Squatting Company, took up 49,000 hectares behind Beagle Bay and named it Yeeda Station. They became the first men to shear sheep in the southern Kimberley in 1883, there was further European settlement in 1885, when cattle were driven across Australia from the eastern states in search of good pasture lands. Many other Europeans arrived soon after, when gold was discovered around Halls Creek, in the 1890s the area was the site of an armed insurrection of indigenous people under the leadership of Jandamarra, a Bunuba warrior. The party consisted of four Japanese officers on board a fishing boat. It investigated the York Sound region for a day and a night before returning to Kupang in Timor on 20 January, upon returning to Japan in February, the junior officer who commanded the party suggested using 200 Japanese prison inmates to launch a guerrilla campaign in Australia. Nothing came of this and the officer was posted to other duties, the 2011 estimated permanent population of the Kimberley was 34,794 but it rises dramatically during winter. On Census night in 2011 it was 50,113, the population is fairly evenly distributed, with only three towns having populations in excess of 2,000, Broome, Derby and Kununurra. Approximately 40% of the population is of Aboriginal descent. At federal level, the Kimberley is represented by the member for Durack, at state level, the Kimberley electorate takes in most of the region and all of its major towns, while Pilbara includes south-eastern areas such as Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. The Kimberley region consists of the government areas of Broome, Derby-West Kimberley, Halls Creek
38.
Pilbara
–
The Pilbara is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples, its ancient landscapes and it is one of nine regions of the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, and is also a bioregion under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia. The region has an population of 48,610 as of June 2010. The Pilbara covers an area of 502,000 km2, which some of Earths oldest rock formations. It includes landscapes of coastal plains and mountain ranges with cliffs, the major settlements of the region are Port Hedland, Karratha and Newman. The area is known for its petroleum, natural gas and iron ore deposits, other than mining, pastoral activities as well as fishing and tourism are the main industries. The Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre Wangka Maya says that the name for the Pilbara region derives from the Aboriginal word bilybara, meaning dry in the Nyamal, alternatively, The Western Australia Gas Industry claims that the region takes its name from pilbarra, an Aboriginal word for the mullet. The Pilbara Creek is a tributary of the Yule River, a significant river in the region, pilbarra and barramundi can still be caught in the Yule River today. This Pilbara Creek lent its name to the Pilbara Goldfield, discovered in 1885, the first European to explore the area was Francis Thomas Gregory in 1861. Settlements along the coast at Cossack, Roebourne and Shellborough were established over ensuing decades as agricultural and pastoral centres,1900, these largely went into decline with the growth of other, more productive agricultural areas of the state. On 3 October 1952, the British conducted their first atomic bomb tests on the Montebello Islands as part of Operation Hurricane, the Aboriginal population of the Pilbara considerably predates, by 30-40,000 years, the European colonisation of the region. Archaeological evidence indicates people were living in the Pilbara even during the harsh climatic conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum. The early history of the first peoples is held within a tradition, archeological evidence. Near the town of Dampier is a known as Murujuga. Rock art in the Pilbara appears to have been etched into the hard rock surfaces. This does not preclude that painting was and is not performed in the Pilbara, in 2006, it was estimated that 15% of the population of the Pilbara was of Indigenous background, approximately 6,000 people. Family clans in the Pilbara who were supported by mining prospector, Don McLeod, developed skills for mining, for a short period money accumulated, which according to Aboriginal law was to be used for traditional ways. Eventually the funds were used to establish an independent Aboriginal-controlled school, the concept has expanded into a movement with around 20 similar schools established in northern Western Australia by the mid 1990s
39.
Top End
–
The Top End contains both of the Territorys cities and one of its major towns, Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine. The well-known town of Alice Springs is located south, in the arid southern part of the Northern Territory. The rivers that form the wetlands include the South and East Alligator Rivers, Mary River, the climate is tropical monsoon with a wet and dry season, bringing the highest rainfall in northern Australia. Temperatures do not fluctuate widely throughout the year, there are a number of islands off the Top End coast including the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt as well as many smaller ones. The sandstone plateau area of the ecoregion is a rich centre of biodiversity supporting a unique heathland flora. Much of the Top End is within the Arnhem Land tropical savanna ecoregion, which to the south merges into the semi-arid mulga scrubland, mallee, the transition is gradual, and the demarcation line that divides the Top End from the centre is arbitrary. This area is home to unique wildlife, the rivers and estuaries are home to large populations of both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, as well as bull sharks, sawfish, and dugongs. Endemic species of the Top End include the Woodwards wallaroo, Oenpelli python, chestnut-quilled rock-pigeon, Arnhem Land rock rat, other reptiles include frill-necked lizards and large monitor lizards. Snakes include the python, death adder, mulga, water python. The plateau is home to many of these endemics, especially invertebrates, fish, the offshore islands are home to unique subspecies of some of this wildlife. The landscape is preserved and most of the area is traditionally managed by Aboriginal land trusts, including Kakadu, which is Australias largest national park. Although some populations have declined, there have no major extinctions of wildlife in this area. Darwin, though, is a city and a base for agriculture, tourism and mining. Also there was a large trade in that area which has mostly settled down. Top End travel guide from Wikivoyage
40.
Channel Country
–
The Channel Country is region of outback Australia located mostly in the state of Queensland but also in portions of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous intertwined rivulets that cross the region, the Channel Country is situated over the Cooper and Eromanga geological basins and the Lake Eyre Basin drainage basin. Further to the east is the less arid Maranoa district, birdsville and Windorah are the most prominent towns in the area. Other settlements include Betoota and Bedourie, Haddon Corner is also located in the Channel Country. The Channel Country is the location for a majority of Min Min light sightings and it is also home to at least two important bird areas, Lake Yamma Yamma and the Lake Machattie Area. The Channel Country features a landscape with a series of ancient flood plains from rivers which only flow intermittently. The principal rivers are Georgina River, Cooper Creek and the Diamantina River, when there is sufficient rainfall in their catchment area these rivers flow into Lake Eyre, South Australia. In most years the flood waters are absorbed into the earth or evaporate, one of the most significant rainfall events occurred in 2010 when a monsoonal low from ex-Cyclone Olga created a period of exceptional rainfall. The primary land use is cattle grazing which has replaced sheep grazing and it is estimated that in the Queensland section alone there are between half to one million head of cattle. The areas towns and cattle stations are serviced by a run that is operated by West Wing Aviation which delivers goods. In 2013, the Queensland Government placed caps on water extraction from the river to prevent the introduction of cotton growing. At the same time mining was banned but coal seam. Indigenous Australians have inhabited the area for approximately 20,000 years, a vast trade network had been established running from north to south with goods such as ochre sent north with shells and pituri moved south. Birdsville was once a meeting place for conducting ceremonies and trade. Innamincka Station was established in 1872 by Robert Bostock and grew until it covered over 15,000 square kilometres and it the first station and permanent settlement set up along the Cooper Creek. The tender was accepted for the run named Caryapundy by J. C, myers was also had his tenders accepted for other runs such as Bollwarry, Mount Wood, Teriwinda and Torrens Creek. Annandale Station was established when Patrick Drinan took up the run in July 1876, other properties were settled soon afterward including Kaliduwarry and Glengyle Stations. Pandie Pandie Station was established in the year by Robert Frew as was Alton Downs
41.
Deserts of Australia
–
Named deserts of Australia cover 1,371,000 square kilometres, or 18% of the Australian mainland. However, approximately 35% of the Australian continent receives so little rain it is effectively desert, the deserts in Australia are primarily distributed throughout the western plateau and interior lowlands of the continent. By international standards Australian deserts receive relative high rates of rainfall, no weather station situated in an arid region records less than 100 mm of average annual rainfall. The deserts of Australia, particularly in the interior, lack any significant summer rains, deserts are not necessarily completely devoid of vegetation, but have large areas where vegetation is very limited in height or extent. The Great Victoria Desert lies in Western Australia and South Australia and it is over 800 kilometres wide and covers an area of 348,750 square kilometres. The Gibson Desert lies in central Western Australia, the desert is about 156,000 square kilometres in size. Most of the inhabitants of the area are Indigenous Australians, Western Desert – a grouping of the Gibson Desert, the Great Sandy Desert, and the Little Sandy Desert. Australias climate is determined by the hot, sinking air of the subtropical high pressure belt. Dry conditions are associated with an El Niño–Southern Oscillation in Australia, vegetation in arid areas is primarily dependent upon soil type. Extensive areas are covered by longitudinal dunes, forty percent of Australia is covered by dunes. Central Australia is very dry, averaging 150 mm of each year. Many introduced species have affected the fauna and flora of Australias desert regions, the Australian feral camel affects native vegetation. This is partly because Australian desert vegetation evolved without any major herbivores present, uncontrolled access to more sensitive areas by four-wheel-drive vehicles is also an issue. Archived from the original on 2010-03-08, johnson, John & Catherine de Courcy
42.
MacDonnell Ranges
–
The MacDonnell Ranges, a mountain range and an interim Australian bioregion, is located in the Northern Territory, comprising 3,929,444 hectares. The range is a 644 km long series of mountains located in the centre of Australia, the mountain range contains many spectacular gaps and gorges as well as areas of Aboriginal significance. The ranges were named after Sir Richard MacDonnell by John McDouall Stuart, the Horn Expedition investigated the ranges as part of the scientific expedition into central Australia. Other explorers of the range included David Lindsay and John Ross, the MacDonnell Ranges were often depicted in the paintings of Albert Namatjira. The headwaters of the Todd, Finke and Sandover rivers form in the MacDonnell Ranges, the range is crossed by the Australian Overland Telegraph Line and the Stuart Highway. 350-300 million years ago a mountain building event created the MacDonnell Ranges, since that time, folding, faulting and erosion have shaped the range and created numerous gaps and gorges. The ranges are composed of rock types, but are most famous for their red quartzite peaks. Other rock types include granite, limestone, sandstone and siltstone, some of the valleys of the range contain fossil evidence of the inland sea that once covered central Australia. Part of the Central Ranges xeric scrub ecoregion of dry scrubby grassland the ranges are home to a number of endemic species including the Centralian Tree Frog. This is mostly due to the micro climates that are found around the rock pools. The West MacDonnell National Park was established in 1984 to protect the parks and reserves of the range. It also facilitated the development of the Larapinta Trail, to the east of Alice Springs, within an hours drive, are sites important to the local Arrernte people, many of which contain examples of Aboriginal rock art. These include Emily Gap, Jessie Gap, Trephina Gorge and N’Dhala Gorge, to the west of Alice Springs is the Larapinta Trail—a world-class, long distance bush walking trail that runs 223 kilometres along the backbone of the range. Geography of Australia List of mountains in Australia Pine Gap Western Arrernte Arrernte art
. PMID 27552116. doi:10.1038/ncomms12558.
