Just The Facts

Just The Facts

Geography and Climate

• Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, only Antartica is drier. About 35% of the continent is desert.
• Australia is the smallest continent on earth or the largest island on earth.
• Australia is the sixth largest nation (7,692,000 square kms), by land area, after Russia, Canada, China, USA, and Brazil and is the only one of the top six completely surrounded by water.
• Australia is approximately 32 times the size of the UK and equally as large as the USA excluding Alaska.
• Australia's coastline is approx. 59,700km in length including islands. Mainland Australia's coastline measures 33,500km in length.
• Australia is approx. 3,700 kms long (north to south - including Tasmania) and 4,000kms wide (east to west).
• Mt Kosciuszko in the state of New South Wales is the highest mountain in Australia at 2,228 metres (7,305 feet).
• Lake Eyre in South Australia is the largest lake in Australia and is Australia's lowest point at 15 metres below sea level.
• Australia is the flatest continent on earth.
• The Nullarbor Plain extends for 2,000km across the southern parts of South Australia and Western Australia and includes the longest section of straight railway track in the world (478km) and the longest straight section of tarred highway in the world (146.6km).
• Uluru, formerly named Ayers Rock, is a monolithic sandstone rock that rises 345 metres above the surrounding plain and covers an area of 3.3 square kilometres. It is thought Uluru goes several kilometres deep below the surface.
• The longest river in Australia is the Murray/Darling River at 3,370km.
• The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of the state of Queensland is the largest coral reef in the world - more than 2,300km long, and can be seen from space.
• Fraser Island, located just off the south coast of Queensland is the largest sand island in the world.
• The highest temperature ever recorded was 53 degrees celsius (127 fahrenheit) at Cloncurry in the state of Queensland in 1889.
• Marble Bar in Western Australia is the holder of the longest heatwave record in the world when temperatures of more than 37.8 degrees celcius (100 fahrenheit) were recorded for 161 consecutive days in 1923/24.
• The coldest temperature ever recorded was minus 23 degrees celsius (minus 9 fahrenheit) at Charlottes Pass near Mt Kosciuszko in 1994.
• The state of Tasmania has the highest number of rain days per year - over 150 days.
• The highest daily rainfall recorded (907mm) was at Beerwah (Crohamhurst) in Queensland on 3rd February, 1893.
• Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge who worked with the Queensland Government Meteorology Department from 1887 - 1903 was the first to practice the naming of cyclones.
• Canberra is the capital city of Australia and is located in the Australian Capital Territory.
• The Australian Capital Territory, established in 1911, is the only land locked state or territory in Australia.
• Sydney in the state of New South Wales is the largest city (by population) in Australia with approx. 4.2 million people.
• The largest state in Australia, Western Australia, is about the same size as Western Europe but only has a population of approx. 2 million people.
• Of the six states the smallest state is Tasmania (the island state) being 68,401 square kms.
• Cameron Corner is at the intersection of the Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia state borders. Haddon Corner is at the north east point of the state of South Australia. Poeppel Corner is at the intersection of the South Australia and Queensland state borders with the Northern Territory border. Surveyor General's Corner is at the intersection of the Western Australia, South Australia state borders with the Northern Territory border.
• Mainland Australia's most easterly point is Cape Byron (Byron Bay) in New South Wales, the most westerly point is Steep Point (Shark Bay) in Western Australia.
• The Royal National Park outside of Sydney was established in 1879.
• Australia's population is estimated to be 22,020,599 as at 18th October, 2009 based on a birth every 1 minute and 44 seconds, a death every 3 minutes and 39 seconds, and a new (net) international migrant every 1 minutes and 53 seconds since 31st March, 2009.
• Mainland Australia has 3 time zones (excluding daylight saving) i) Eastern Standard Time is GMT + 10 hours (Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart) ii) Central Standard Time is GMT + 9 hours 30 minutes (Darwin & Adelaide), iii) Western Standard Time is GMT + 8 hours (Perth). Queensland (Brisbane) and the Northern Territory (Darwin) do not go to daylight saving time in summer.
• There are about 45 different kinds of kangaroo and some can travel at speeds as fast as 65km/h (40m/h).
• Australia's platypus and echidna are the only mammals (monotremes) to lay eggs.
• A baby echidna is called a "puggle" and an echidna can live for about 50 years.
• Koalas are not bears. The word "koala" is aboriginal and means "no drink", as they get enough moisture from the eucalypt leaves they eat.
• The wombat of which there are four species feeds only at night in summer.
• The emu is the largest bird after the ostrich in the world. It can grow to a height of about 180cm (6 feet) and reach speeds of 50km/h when running - it cannot fly.
• The bilby, a member of the bandicoot family, lives in a burrow and has a pouch that faces backwards so as to not fill with dirt whilst digging.
• The giant Australian cuttlefish is one of the largest of it's kind, it can grow to almost a metre in length including tentacles (60cm cuttlebone or mantle length) and weigh up to 5kg.
• There about 700 species of acacias (wattles) in Australia. The Golden Wattle (acacia pycnantha) is Australia's floral emblem.

History and People

• Aborigines were the first inhabitants of Australia.
• The first documented sighting of Australia by Europeans was by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon aboard the "Dufkyen" in March 1606 who sailed down the west coast of Cape York. Other Dutch sailors charting parts of the Australian coastline include Dirk Hartog in 1616 and Abel Tasman in 1642 - 1644.
• The stretch of water between the northern tip of Australia and New Guinea was named after Spanish sailor Luis Vaez de Torres who sailed through the strait in 1606.
• Captain James Cook sailing the "Endeavour" landed on and named "Possession Island" off the tip of Cape York in Queensland and claimed eastern Australia for King George III of England in 1770. The claimed land he named "New South Wales".
• The first European settlers arrived on the First Fleet (11 ships) in Botany Bay from Britain in 1788 but a few days later moved north to Port Jackson (Sydney Cove - the current site of the City of Sydney) on 26th January (Australia Day) 1778.
• Of the 1,370 people who arrived on the First Fleet 756 (564 male/192 female) were convicts.
• The Second Fleet consisting of 6 ships departed England but only 5 arrived at Sydney Cove in 1790.
• Coal was discovered on the banks of the Hunter River in New South Wales in 1797.
• In 1801 Matthew Flinders began his survey of the Australian coast - circumnavigating Australia. In 1814 he published a book of his trip "A Voyage to Terra Australis" containing a chart "General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia" (Great Southern Land). Hence Australia was named. Flinders died the day after receiving his book from the publisher.
• In March 1803 Australia's first newspaper the "Sydney Gazzette and New South Wales Advertiser" was published by ex-convict George Howe.
• The return in 1822 of Encke's comet was first observed from a private observatory built by the Governor of New South Wales Sir Thomas Brisbane in the grounds of Government House at Parramatta.
• In 1825 the New South Wales Mounted Police were formed by Governor Brisbane. The NSW Mounted Police still continue to operate today and are believed to be the oldest continuous Mounted Police unit in the world.
• Charles Darwin visits Australia aboard the "Beagle" on it's way home from South America and the Galapagos Islands in 1836.
• In 1850 Australia's first university, the University of Sydney was founded.
• In 1851 the colony of Victoria was created by separating from the colony of New South Wales.
• Gold was discovered in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851.
• In December 1854 Australia's only armed rebellion ("Eureka Stockade") took place at the Eureka diggings in the Ballarat goldfields.
• In 1859 the colony of Queensland was created by separating from New South Wales.
• In 1860 Burke and Wills left Melbourne to cross Australia from South to North. They reached the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland in February 1861 only to perish near Cooper's Creek on the return trip.
• Dame Nellie Melba (Helen Porter Mitchell) was born in Melbourne in 1861 and went on to become a world renowned soprano. She made her operatic debut at Brussels in 1887 and made almost 200 recordings between 1904 and 1926.
• The Melbourne Cup horse race was first run in 1861 and won by a horse named "Archer". The race is held on the first Tuesday in November.
• In 1863 the colony of South Australia gained control of the Northern Territory from New South Wales.
• Celebrated Australian bush poet A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson was born in February 1864 near Orange in New South Wales. Famous for his 'Clancy of the Overflow', 'Man from Snowy River' ballads and many more.
• Transportation of Bristish convicts to Australia ended in 1868.
• In 1876 Robert & Clarence Smith invented the stump-jump plough enabling cultivation of mallee lands that had previously been untillable.
• In 1877 Frederick Wolseley patented the world's first mechanical shearing equipment.
• BHP Limited, now part of BHP Billiton Limited, was incorporated in 1885 and began life as Broken Hill Proprietary Limited mining silver, lead, and zinc at Broken Hill in the state of New South Wales.
• A Victorian accountant living in London - Edwin Flack, won 2 gold medals at the Athens Olympic Games in 1896.
• In 1901 the Australian colonies joined together in a federation and became the Commonwealth of Australia.
• The largest star on the Australian flag is known as the Federation Star and has seven points - one for each of the six states and one for all the territories. The six states being Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia. There are two mainland territories - Australian Capital Territory, and Northern Territory.
• Australia is the only nation to govern an entire continent.
• Australia has 3 levels of government Federal, State/territory, and Local.
• Australia's first Governor-General (Queen Victoria's representative in Australia) was Lord Hopetoun.
• The first Prime Minister of Australia was Sir Edmund Barton from 1 January 1901 - 24 September 1903.
• Australia was the first country to give women the right to vote and the right to stand for election to parliament in 1902. South Australia gave women these rights in 1894.
• The Pyrmont Bridge built between 1899 and 1902 at Darling Harbour in Sydney was the first swing span bridge in the world to be powered by electricity.
• In 1902 a man was arrested at Manly Beach, Sydney for swimming during daylight hours. The ban on swimming during daylight hours ended shortly thereafter.
• Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira was born in 1902 and went on to become one of Australia's most notable artists with his watercolour landscapes.
• Australia's, and possibly the world's first full length feature film "The Story of the Kelly Gang" was shown in Melbourne in 1906 - it ran for about an hour.
• Errol Flynn actor, screenwriter, producer and director was born in Hobart, Tasmania in 1909.
• Walter Burley Griffin won the competition to design Australia's capital city - Canberra, in 1912.
• In 1914 GJ Coles and his brother opened a variety store in Melbourne boasting "nothing over a shilling". Coles stores have grown to become a household name in the Australian retail industry.
• Of the 300,000 Australians enlisted for the First World War (1914 - 1918) 60,000 were killed. and a further 156,000 were injured or taken prisoner. Australia's population at the time was approx. 5 million people.
• In 1915 William Lawrence Bragg shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with his father Sir William Henry Bragg for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays.
• Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (QANTAS) was formed in 1920.
• Edith Cowan was elected to the West Australian Legislative Assembly and became Australia's first female member of parliament in 1921.
• In 1921 cartoon character 'Ginger Meggs' first appeared in a comic strip titled 'Us Fellers' in the Sydney Sunday Sun.
• In 1922 the Country Women's Association (CWA) was formed in New South Wales and Queensland.
• The kangaroo and emu appear on the Australian Coat of Arms to represent forward progress because the kangaroo and emu always move forward, never backwards. The emu is the world's second largest bird.
• In 1923 the production of Vegemite begins after Dr Cyril Callister of the Fred Walker Company developed a spread from brewers yeast.
• In 1926 Victoria scored 1,107 runs against New South Wales in a Sheffield Shield cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
• In 1927 Sydney Harbour's greatest maritime disaster occurred when the Royal Mail Steamer "Tahiti" bound for New Zealand and the USA and the Watsons Bay bound commuter ferry the "Greycliffe" collided off Bradleys Head killing 40 people and injuring many more.
• In 1930 Albert Lenertz wrote the Aeroplane Jelly song which became Australia's longest running advertising jingle.
• Don Bradman (Australian cricketer) scored a world record 334 runs in the third cricket test against England in 1930. His average batting score on retirement was 99.94.
• In 1931 the first Australian born Governor-General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, was appointed.
• The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932. It is the world's largest (but not the longest) steel arch bridge. The height to the top of the arch is 134 metres above mean sea level.
• In 1934 the first Utility (Ute) rolled off an Australian production line following a letter from a farmer's wife to Ford that her husband wanted a car that could carry her to Church on Sundays and pigs to market on Mondays.
• The last Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) died in a Hobart (capital city of Tasmania) zoo in 1936.
• In 1938 nineteen people drowned when the small ferry "Rodney" capsized off Bradleys Head in Sydney Harbour.
• Sir Howard Walter Florey shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases.
• In 1951 the "Chiko Roll" take-away food snack was sold at the Wagga Wagga Show in New South Wales.
• Australia's first mass produced car, the Holden 48-215 (or FX) rolled off the production line in 1948.
• School of the Air at Alice Springs makes its inaugural broadcast in 1951.
• In 1954 Australian David Warren invented the Black Box Flight Recorder used in commercial aeroplanes flying today.
• Australian television commenced in Melbourne and Sydney in 1956 and colour televison was introduced in 1975.
• Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria, held the 1956 Olympic Games (XVI Olympiad).
• In 1960 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Australian Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Peter Brian Medawar of the United Kingdom for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.
• Frank Macfarlane Burnet was the first Australian of the Year in 1960.
• Rod Laver won his first mens singlesWimbledon tennis title in 1961, he went on to win the title again in 1962, 1968, & 1969.
• In 1962 Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser became the first female to swim 100 metres in less than a minute. At the Olympic games in Tokyo in 1964 Dawn won the gold medal in the 100 metres freestyle race and became the first swimmer ever to win three consecutive gold medals in the same event at three consecutive Olympic Games (Melbourne, Rome, & Tokyo).
• Sir John Eccles shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963 for discoveries involving the nerve cell membrane.
• In 1964 the New South Wales State Dockyard at Newcastle built the world's first purpose-built container ship - MV Kooringa.
• Jack Brabham wins a Formula One world title in a BT19 - a car he built, and is Australian of the Year in 1966 .
• Australia changed to decimal currency in 1966. One Australian Dollar (A$ or AUD$) = 100 cents.
• Harold Holt was Prime Minister from 26 January 1966 until he drowned off the coast of Victoria on 17 December 1967.
• In 1967 the portable airtight wine container (bag-in-a-box) known as a wine cask was patented.
• The Adventures of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo were first aired on TV in 1968. Ninety one episodes were made. Skippy has reportedly been screened in more than 80 countries around the world.
• In 1968 Lionel Rose won the World Bantem-Weight Champion boxing title and became the first Aboriginal Australian of the Year.
• In 1969 the Honey Suckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra beams pictures of man's first steps on the moon to the rest of the world.
• Evonne Goolagong won the ladies' singles Wimbledon title in 1971 and was awarded Australian of the Year. Evonne won the Wimbledon title again in 1980.
• In 1971 Neville Bonnor became Australia's first Indigenous senator.
• Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister from 5 December 1972 until 11 November 1975. He is the only Prime Minister to ever be dismissed from office.
• In 1973 Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for an epic and psychological narative art which has introduced a new continent into literature.
• The Sydney Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20th October 1973. It has over 1 million tiles on the roof .
• Cyclone Tracey devastated Darwin (capital city of the Northern Territory - est. pop'n. 49,000 at the time) on Christmas Eve 1974, killing 65 people.
• In 1976 Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, surgeon and POW in the Second World War was honoured as Australian of the Year.
• In 1977 Ken Warby broke the World Water Speed Record by travelling at 288.6 mph in the boat 'Spirit of Australia'. In 1978 he went even faster travelling at 317.6 mph (511.11 kph). A record that still stands today.
• In 1978 the world's first bionic ear developed by Australian Professor Graeme Clark and colleagues was implanted into an adult. Bionic Ears have been implanted into more than 50,000 people around the world.
• In 1980 Azaria Chamberlain - a 9 week old baby girl, was taken by a dingo whilst on a camping holiday with her family near Uluru (Ayers Rock). The mother was convicted of the baby's murder and gaoled but was later found innocent. Azaria's body has never been found.
• The fiscal or financial year is 1 July to 30 June.
• Dick Smith was the first person to fly solo around the world in a helicopter in 1982.
• In 1982 Australia's first case of AIDS is diagnosed.
• The "Ash Wednesday" bush fires occurred in February 1983. Around 180 bush fires burnt through Victoria and South Australia. Sevent six people died and over 2,400 families and individuals lost their homes.
• In 1983 an Australian yacht with a winged keel - "Australia II" won the "America's Cup" trophy for 12 metre sailing after the trophy had been in American hands for 132 years.
• The Australian Dollar was "floated" (deregulated) in December 1983.
• In 1984 "Advance Australia Fair" was proclaimed as Australia's national anthem.
• The one dollar note was replaced with one dollar coin and a $100 note began circulation in 1984.
• The movie "Crocodile Dundee" was released in 1986 starring Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski. It went on to become one of Australia's most succesful movies in Australia and overseas.
• In 1988 Australia celebrated it's bicentenary and the "new" parliament house in Canberra was open.
• 1988 also saw the release of the world's first polymer (plastic) banknote by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
• In 1989 the City of Newcastle was devastated by an earthquake killing 13 people with another 162 people requiring hospitalisation. 50,000 buildings were damaged and 1,000 people were made homeless. The quake measured 5.6 on the richter scale.
• Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996 with Rolf Zinkernagel of Switzerland for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence. Peter was awarded the Australian of the Year award in 1997.
• Tennis player Patrick Rafter won back to back US Opens in 1997 - 1998.
• In 1998 female surfer Layne Beachley won the first of six consecutive World Surfing Titles - the most consecutive World Surfing Titles won by a male or female surfer. Layne has won seven world titles, her most recent was in 2006.
• In 2000 Sydney held the Olympic Games (Games of the XXVII Olympiad).
• Australia introduced a 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on most goods and services in 2000.
• Fiona Wood was awarded the Australian of the Year award in 2005. Fiona became world renown for her patented invention of spray on skin for burns victims.
• In 2005 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and the role it has in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.
• Australian of the Year recipient in 2006 Ian Frazer developed a vacine to prevent and treat cervical cancer, which affects 500,000 women each year.
• Terence Tao was awarded mathematics highest honour - the Fields Medal (the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel Prize) in 2006 for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory.
• In 2006 champion swimmer Ian Thorpe retired from professional swimming at the age of 24yo. During his swimming career Ian set 13 individual long-course world records, won 11 world titles, and won 5 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze medals at two olympic games.

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Outback Travel Survival Tips

Survival tips

000

The National Emergency Phone Number in Australia (free call)

On the road

Drive on the left hand side of the road. In outback areas on unsealed roads it is common to drive on whatever side of the road is in the best condition but take great care in bends and crossings with other roads as other road users may not expect you there.

Bottle shops. When planning to head out bush and do some camping in remote areas plan ahead with your alcohol supplies, you might find that the only bottleshop in town ( and the next town 500 kms down the road) is closed because it is social security pay day, and authorities try to get the local population to spend some money on food for the kids before spending it at the pub. Argueing with the bottle shop staff that you are a tourist will not get you anywhere, rules are rules.

Do not drive at night in outback areas. A lot of cattle stations are not fenced and cows often wander around or sit on the roads at night and the darker ones are very hard to see. Also kangaroos are a hazard as they will freeze in position when your headlights shine in their eyes or even when they are next to the road they will try to flee from the noise of your car and will jump where they can most easily see where they are going, which is in the lights in front of your car!

If your car is equipped with bars on the front, do not expect too much, the cheap and light ones will just fold away, some heavier ones may just protect your radiator so you can make it to the next town but will still crumple the front of your car and only the heavy duty ones on a large four wheel drive may, at not too high speed, get you through it without a repair bill. Though they are often called "bull bars" it would definitely not be a good idea to actually hit a real bull with them.

When passing through outback towns at night you may encounter people under the influence of alcohol on the road, only recently in February 2004 a Katherine police car on patrol ran over a man and killed him.

Stay with the vehicle. Over the years numerous people have died trying to walk back to civilization after their car got stuck or had broken down. Search and rescue planes can easily spot a car from the air but a person is much harder to see. About 100 km down the track from the NSW outback town of Birdsville is a memorial to the Page family who tried to walk out, after their car had broken down in 1963. All five members of the family died. This is only one example, there have been many more since then.

Drive wisely. Just because the Northern Territory does not have speedlimits or there is no police to be seen is no reason to do 180 km/h, animals do cross the road from time to time. Also beware of the wedge tailed eagles, these are eagles with wing spans of a couple of up to two metres and they feed on road kills on outback roads. If you approach too fast they may not have time to fly off and end up coming through your windscreen.

Often accidents are due to tyre blowouts too, make sure your tyres are up to the long journey, tyres in remote areas are remarkably more expensive than in the city. Take rest stops, many accidents are due to tired drivers. Although the coffee at outback roadhouses is often of a shocking quality you may have to drink some to help you stay alert. Look at your speedo when you pull into a petrol station, after doing 130km/h for a few hours you may feel like you're doing walkingpace coming into the petrol station when you're still doing 70km/h.

If you're on narrow roads or dirtroads pull over if you see a roadtrain, their hundred or so wheels throw up a lot of rocks so you want to stay away as far as you can from that. It is a good idea to keep your headlights on on dusty roads, it makes your vehicle much easier to spot in the clouds of dust that get thrown up.

Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.

Grey nomads are a seasonal hazard, usually migrating in a northerly direction in winter and back south again in summer. The term refers to retired people that travel around the country, some endlessly as they sold the house to pay for their caravan or mobile home with absolutely every modern convenience ever invented, and often travel at speeds of max. 70km/h unaware of traffic banking up behind them as the caravan is too wide for the mirrors to be of any use. This often leads to people overtaking in dangerous situations.

Four wheel drives. If you are renting a four wheel drive to go and do some exploration remember that, apart from some modern continuous all wheel drive vehicles, often the four wheels d not actually get driven until you get out and engage the hubs on the front wheels, the gear stick inside the vehicle is only half the job. If you drive on soft sand lower the tyre pressure; it is amazing how much difference it makes when you think there is no way you can get out if this place and you let some air out of the tyres. A few years ago a tourist got his 4WD stuck in Lake Eyre in South Australia, he decided to walk to get help ( first mistake; stay with the car) and died when he ran out of water. A companion that stayed with the car survived and when rescuers arrived they let some air out of the tyres and drove the vehicle out!

When driving in a four wheel drive remember the centre of gravity is higher in this type of vehicle, single vehicle roll overs where there are no other cars around and the driver just lost control are common. If your vehicle has a roof rack do not put too much weight on it as it will make the vehicle top heavy and more likely to roll over.

Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.

Dry areas. Some Aboriginal reserves and large areas up Cape York have been declared dry areas, meaning you can not take any alcohol in there or have in your possession. Tourists have been fined thousands of dollars for having alcohol with them on their holidays, if you're heading this way check on www.mcmc.qld.gov.au or ring 1300 789 000 for up to date info on restricted areas.

In the sun

Sunshine Australia, and particularly the state of Queensland, has the highest rate of skincancers in the world. Melanoma, the nastiest type of skin cancer kills hundreds of Aussies every year. Many tourists think they will be OK as they are only here for a short time and their holiday will not be succesful if they do not return home with a sensational suntan to make all their friends and colleagues jealous but they really should protect themselves from the sun. Remember the sunshine in Australia is not the same as in Europe, due to a hole in the ozone layer that hangs over Australia and New Zealand ( even on a chilly day in Auckland or Melbourne you can get a serious sun burn). So use your hat, sunscreen and sunglasses.

The World Meteorological Organisation measures the hole in the ozone layer every year that hangs over Antarctica and reaches out over Australia, in 2005 it measured 27 million square km.

In the bush

When lost in a hot place take it easy, find some shade, preserve your energy and water. An example is the German tourist that became separated from the tour group in the Olgas near Ayers Rock. He panicked straight away , started running around in the heat that was in the 40s that day and when found, only an hour later, had already died from heat exhaustion. Had he sat down in the shade he probably would have been OK for several days to wait for searchers.

Coconuts can be a great drink when you're thirsty, and easy to get in to with the cocotap, buy one of those gadgets as they will get you a refreshing drink and do lots of other stuff.

It is a good habit to keep an eye on the sun at the start of your walk and throughout it. Remember the sun is in the EAST in the morning, NORTH at midday, then moves further anti-clock wise until it sets in the WEST. This is the opposite direction of the Northern hemsiphere where the sun goes clockwise and sits in the SOUTH at midday. If you lose the walking track navigating by the sun can help you find your way back again.

When you're camping it is also not a bad idea to give your boots a shake in the morning before putting them on your feet, something might have made itself at home in there through the night.

You may encounter gates on the roads you travel, the etiquette is to leave gates as you found them, close them after you if they were closed, and leave them open if you found them open.

Tell someone your plans. It is a good idea when you set off on a bushwalk or boat trip to tell someone your plans and your estimated time of return so they can raise the alarm if you do not return. Ofcourse it is also very important to tell same people again that you have returned, it has happened many times that time and resources were wasted looking for people that had safely returned but not bothered to inform people of this.

Cassowaries like to chase people so if you come face to face with one do not turn your back and run, this will encourage him to chase you and you can run for miles, the bird can do 50km/h so you are not going to outrun him anyway. Back off slowly, hold something in front of you, go behind a tree or raise your arms up to look taller.

Coconuts can keep you alive for a long time, when a boat sank in the Torres Strait some kids survived by swimming a great distance to an island with one coconut tree where they drank coconuts until they were rescued a week later. It can be hard work getting in to a coconut but with the Cocotap life becomes a lot easier, the Cocotap website will also teach you how to climb those coconut trees..

In the water

Jumping and diving off cliffs is a common way to end up with serious injuries or even die, each year around Australia lots of people end up hurting themselves this way, including myself who fractured a vertebrea in the Kimberleys and had to wait two days to get to Broome hospital. The advice is; DON'T !!

Animals in northern parts of Australia can be nasty and there are box jelly fish from about end October till May. They can kill you within minutes so it is wise to look for the stinger nets that local councils provide at their beaches or if none are present find a swimming pool or creek. If you do get stung the best first aid is to pour stung area with vinegar ( often found supplied at northern beaches) and if victim loses consciousness mouth to mouth resuscitation and CPR as the toxins paralyze the muscles for breathing and heart beat. Ofcourse it is better to not get stung in the first place and to wear a stinger suit, on Stingersuits.com you can read all about this Australian invention and see where they are for sale.

If you do choose a river or lake to swim ( in the north) check with locals that there are no saltwater crocodiles as this could also ruin your day.

Coral should not be touched or stood on. One reason is that coral is a living organism made of tiny polyps that you kill by crushing them, another one is that if you scratch yourself on coral it can give nasty infections.

When swimming in the ocean anywhere around Australia stick to the beaches patrolled by life savers if you are not confident in judging the situation, many parts of the coast have undertows that can drag you out to sea. Lifesavers place red and yellow flags to indicate the area they monitor and will close the area if they consider the area unsafe because of undertows, jellyfish, crocodiles or sharks. There are nearly 300 lifesaving clubs around this country that rescue 12000 people a year and in February 2004 as many as 200 people in one day had to be rescued on the Perth beaches.

Riptides or undertows can unexpectedly drag you out to sea, the best thing to do if you find you cna not get back is not to fight it and exhaust yourself but try to get the attention of lifeguards or people on the beach by waving. Even if nobody sees you it is still better to float out a bit on the current and to swim back a bit further up or down the beach where there is no current.

Sharks tend to go for blood so one survival technique by scuba divers is to always dive with a buddy and always have a knife with you. Then if you see a large shark approaching you take the knife, stab your buddy so he starts bleeding profusely and rush back to the boat for a beer to calm the nerves while the shark feasts on your buddy.
This was actually meant as a joke so please don't tell the judge that we told you to do this, but in 2005 several people survived shark attacks simply by punching the shark in the head, so this is a recommended survival tactic.

Sting rays often lie hidden under sand in the shallows on the waters edge, it is best practise to either splash and make plenty of noise or shuffle your feet so you don't actually step on top of them as this will cause them to whip the end of their tail around and stab you with a sharp barb which usually stays behind in the wound and is extremely painful.

Crcodiles come in two varieties; the 'salties' will eat you and the 'freshies' are harmless and usually OK to swim with so see what type of crocodile is in the water where you plan to swim first.The most easily noticed difference between the two is the shape of the head and teeth.
- Freshwater crocodiles have longer and thinner snouts, with a straight jawline, and all their teeth nearly equal in size, also they do not grow longer than a maximum of three metres.
- Saltwater crocodiles have a broad, powerful-looking snout, with an uneven jawline. Their teeth vary in size with some almost twice the size of others. Theiir overall body size can be up to seven metres.

Salt water crocodiles hate getting their eyes poked so when the croc has got you in his jaws just reach out and scratch his eyes and he will let go. They also do not have much muscle to open their mouths ( but a lot to close it) so if you wrap your arms around his mouth you can stop him from biting, which is a good idea as, due to the crocs not brushing their teeth too often, bacteria from their mouth tends to infect the wounds that bad that even after the skin has already healed there is still infection underneath and the doctors might have to cut you open again to treat this. Then get out of the water ASAP and start filling out the travel insurance claim form and negotiate a lucrative deal with a TV station, in recent years it has become more common for the media to pay people for exclusive rights to their story so don't give it away too cheap. If you are being chased by a crocodile run in a zig-zag pattern, crocs can outrun a horse on a short distance but only in a straight line. It might also help to keep a bag of mussels with you as an Aboriginal woman in 2003 managed to fight off a croc by hitting it with this and lived to tell the tale.

One traditional way of 'testing the water' in Australia is to send in the dog first. If he is still there by the time you finish your first beer then it is probably OK. This technique is not recommended and also impractical as many overseas visitors do not have their dogs with them. Maybe if you are staying with friends or relatives in Australia you can borrow theirs though.

It is advisable to check the map for crocodile farms before you go parachuting.

In the pub

Feel free to call the Queen whatever you like but when surrounded by real Aussies do not tell them the Aussie beer is crap or say anything negative about Don Bradman unless you have a very good travel insurance or have held a black belt in karate for some time. If there is a big sporting event on the screen in the pub where you are make sure you know which team is the favourite of the locals and do not cheer too loud when it gets trashed by the other team.

If you're in a bar that employs bouncers do not presume they are there out of concern for your safety, it is not uncommon for bored bouncers to get stuck into (drunk) customers if there are no real trouble makers, avoid any arguments with them.

If you don't want to stand out as a tourist avoid drinking Foster's beer, stick to VB, or XXXX in Queensland.

Around coconut trees

You might want to find some shade on the beach from that Aussie sun but remember not to find it under a coconut tree; coconuts are heavy and they often fall from great heights. Worldwide an estimated 150 people a year are killed by fallling coconuts, ten times more than by crocodiles and sharks together. The Douglas Shire Council in North Queensland even cut down some coconut trees worried about legal liability.

For more information and tips visit Amazing Australia.com.au : Cheap flights, accommodation, tours, tourist information and general facts about Australia, from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef to the Outback

Desart is the Association of Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Centres.

Desart is the Association of Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Centres.

Australian Aboriginal art is now recognised in both Australia and internationally as one of the world’s most exciting art movements.

Desart member Art Centres are owned and managed by Aboriginal people in their own communities.

Desart is the Association of Central Australian Aboriginal
Art and Craft Centres.

Desart’s commitment

• Respect for traditional culture and Aboriginal aspirations
• Employment for Aboriginal people
• Support for sound governance, professional standards and ethical industry practices
• Marketing and advocacy for Aboriginal owned Art Centres

Desart represents Art Centres which support these objectives:

• Authenticity of artworks
• 100% returns to Aboriginal people and their organisations
• Promotion of professional art practice and ethical dealings with artists

Desart’s Mission

Aboriginal artists are committed to sharing their culture with the world. Our mission is to support Central Australian Aboriginal artists and Art Centres working together in a vigorous, ethical Aboriginal arts industry.

Desart’s Goals

Help and support for Art Centres
To empower Art Centres through the provision of resources and support to artists and staff

More jobs for Aboriginal people
To increase the employment of Aboriginal artists and arts workers in the industry

Selling more Art
To develop new markets and showcase Central Australian Aboriginal art

Showing people how to be fair when they buy art and when they sell art
To contribute to an informed Aboriginal Art Industry based on ethical practices

Speaking up strong for Art Centres
To represent the voice of Aboriginal Art Centres and advocate effectively

Desart’s values

Desart is about everybody. We want everyone to know what is happening. We welcome many cultures, languages and stories. Everyone can have their say and everyone is treated with respect.

Desart’s members

Members of Desart are independent Aboriginal-owned, separately incorporated Art Centres or other Art Centres, which are activities of larger Aboriginal-owned organisations. Some member Art Centres, previously activities of community councils are now operating under the management of NT Shires.

About the organisation

Desart was incorporated in 1993 as a non-profit Aboriginal Association under the Northern Territory Associations Incorporation Act. The governing Executive Committee of Desart comprises ten Indigenous members; two each from five designated regions.

Desart provides services to its members to resource, promote, educate and protect the work of Indigenous artists and Art Centres. Desart’s office is in Alice Springs, and its staff travel regularly to the different Art Centres.

Programs and services

Desart’s current programs include:

• Aboriginal Artworkers program
• Governance workshops in the PY and Ng Lands (ending June 09)
• IT technical support (ending June 09)
• Professional development workshops
• Art Centre recruitment (ending June 09)
• Docker River feasibility study (ending June 09)
• NT Art Centre infrastructure program (beginning June 09)
• Art Centre marketing campaign

In addition Desart provides a range of other services:

• Artists’ camps and regional meetings
• On & off site support for individual Art Centres
• Support with new Art Centre start ups
• Market development (Desert Mob & international market development initiatives)
• Advocacy (e.g. The code of conduct, policy development, additional funding sources

Welcome to Central Australian Aboriginal Art

The creators of this vibrant art and craft live right across the vast, arid, sparsely populated centre of the continent, which spans Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Aboriginal art can range from a small hand-made basket or wood carving to a valuable painting by an artist with an international reputation.

Either way Aboriginal traditional law or culture is the foundation for all the art.

Why Aboriginal Art Centres are so important

All the Art Centres that belong to our organisation Desart are Aboriginal-owned and controlled.

The Art Centres are professionally managed to ensure ethical support for the production marketing and distribution of authentic Aboriginal art.

100% of the returns go directly to Aboriginal families or organisations.

These Art Centres are a vital part of remote community life in Central Australia. They provide much needed income and employment opportunities as well as being a focus for family connection, social and cultural activities and the means to celebrate Aboriginal identity.

Purchasing art sourced from a Desart member Art Centre provides a guarantee that your artwork is authentic.

About our art

"The art means to carry on our stories, to know it belongs to my family and it belongs to my father and grandfather, so that everyone can know about us, so we can carry on, so our kids can carry on forever, even when we’re gone. So non-Indigenous people can know about us in the future, how we fought to keep our culture strong for the sake of our children’s future.

The art is about who you belong to, about what country you belong to, it’s about the only way you can know and others will know too. Our art has got to be protected because it belongs to individual people and their families. It is their belonging, it belongs to their group so it must be treated right way. The art movement should be really strong the way it’s going now and we should be keeping it stronger. We got a lot of strong people in our communities. Those artists are strong about their art."

Valerie Napaljarri Martin
Chairperson of Desart 2001 -2004

Where to find and view Aboriginal art in Sydney, Australia

Sydney's cosmopolitan population of more than 4 million has always been predominantly white since Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney Cove in 1788 to found the first permanent white settlement in Australia in the area now known as The Rocks.

So for many years, in the inevitable flowering of the arts, particularly in painting, the focus had been on the work of European and white Australian painters.


Aboriginal Spirituality

In more recent years, with a new focus on indigenous Australia, the life, Aboriginal art and culture have come to the fore.

This is no more evident today than in the amazing array of Aboriginal art in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Gallery, Yiribana, in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

At the Australian Museum, at the corner of Park and College Sts along the eastern side of Hyde Park, have a look at the Aboriginal Heritage Unit, and explore Aboriginal art and Aboriginal concepts of spirituality, cultural heritage, family, land and issues of social justice.

Traditional Art

In an Australian population of 19 million, the Aborigines constitute but 1.5 per cent, and many still associate these native Australians simply with the boomerang, waddy (war club), throwing stick (a device for throwing spears), didgeridoo (a musical instrument made of hollowed-out wood) and rock paintings.

But interest in traditional native art has brought to the fore the abstract geometrical patterns, representational design and bold use of colors that have characterized traditional native art, particularly on bark, and which have evolved into today's more contemporary works.

A number of Sydney galleries specialize in traditional native art and there are the Aboriginal Art Centres in the Rocks area, in Paddington and at the Sydney Opera House in Bennelong Point.

Material from: Focus on Indigenous Works, By Larry Rivera, About.com



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Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery is proud to showcase to the World one of the largest and most comprehensive on line Galleries of Authentic Australian Aboriginal Art and Artefacts. Enjoy the wonderful talent of the artists presented, which reflects their country and a culture which is timeless.

Money Back Guarantee Over 1000 Artworks Online

Complimentary Worldwide shipping and insurance applies to all Aboriginal artworks & artefacts purchased through Artlandish.

Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery

Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery


Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery (formely known as Aboriginal Art Shop.com and Our Land Gallery) is a family owned and operated business. We have worked closely with several different Aboriginal communities in a number of different capacities throughout Australia for more than 10 years.


Many of the artists we work with were friends long before we began presenting their works through our gallery and online presence. It was these friendships and their generosity in always wanting to share lives and culture that ultimately led to us to being involved in showcasing Aboriginal Art.



We have established one of the largest Aboriginal art galleries in the world in Kununurra, Western Australia, the gateway to the beautiful Kimberley region of Australia and the heartland of painting Aboriginal Art using traditional natural ochres .


Our website is the Online home for our "real world" gallery, located in Kununurra, Western Australia.






We are committed to providing our customers with the highest quality, authentic products, exceptional customer service and true value for money.


We purchase the vast majority of our Artworks direct from Independent Artists, Curators that have genuinely close, strong and happy relationships with the artists and from Art Centres where possible.


If we can be of assistance to you in any way, please don't hesitate to contact us as we love to talk to people from all over the world about the many different aspects of Aboriginal art and culture.


We look forward to hearing from you in the near future.


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Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery is proud to showcase to the World one of the largest and most comprehensive on line Galleries of Authentic Australian Aboriginal Art and Artefacts. Enjoy the wonderful talent of the artists presented, which reflects their country and a culture which is timeless.

Money Back Guarantee Over 1000 Artworks Online

Complimentary Worldwide shipping and insurance applies to all Aboriginal artworks & artefacts purchased through Artlandish.

Early Aboriginal Paintings From Papunya

Early Aboriginal Paintings From Papunya


In 1971, a teacher named Geoffrey Bardon, working with indigenous Australians in the remote settlement of Papunya, near the center of the continent, had an idea that you wouldn’t have expected to bear fruit beyond the region.

He provided a group of elderly and middle-aged men with acrylic paints and pieces of Masonite and suggested that they make paintings based on their own aesthetic and spiritual traditions.




Grey Art Gallery
Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi’s “Mystery Sand Mosaic” (1974).







Accustomed to painting their bodies and ceremonial objects and making temporary sand mosaics, the men took to the new materials brilliantly. Improbably, a new movement was born, and within a few years paintings made by Aboriginal artists from across Australia had become an international phenomenon. Western collectors bought them, museums and galleries exhibited them, and a giant tourist industry grew up around them.


The fad for Aboriginal painting was off-putting. Certainly the works were visually catchy: with their bold, diagrammatic compositions, finely coordinated colors and dotted patterns they appealed to Western eyes trained to respond to abstraction and folk and outsider art. But there were questions about authenticity and the exploitation of indigenous artists.


In 2006 the Australian Senate investigated allegations that non-Aboriginals were cranking out some of the paintings and that others were being made by Aboriginals working under sweatshop conditions, and found much cause for concern.



Given this problematic background you could be forgiven for approaching “Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings From Papunya” at the Grey Art Gallery warily. But if you skip it you miss a beautiful show.

Organized by the Australian art historian Roger Benjamin for the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, it presents about 50 paintings, most made where it all began, in Papunya in the early ’70s. All are from the collection of the New Yorkers John and Barbara Wilkerson, who began acquiring Aboriginal paintings in 1994. Focusing on the earliest works — those known as Papunya boards — they wisely avoided possibly dubious material that might have been produced only for the ravenous market.



Although the iconography and graphic vocabulary the Papunya artists used were more than 10,000 years old, their paintings have the visual impact of Modern abstractions. With a deft, sensuously immediate touch, the artists typically activated flat, frontal designs with dense patterns of dots, stripes and concentric circles and squares. There is a familial resemblance among most of the paintings; at first the exhibition looks like the work of one collective consciousness. But with extended viewing, differences emerge.



Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula’s “Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa” (1972), a panel approximately 2 ½ feet square covered with a patchwork pattern of fine white hatch marks and dotted and concentric circles, is a work of breathtaking subtlety. It’s like an aerial view of farmland and forests lightly dusted by snow.



By contrast, in Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi’s “Mystery Sand Mosaic” (1974), in which four sausage-shaped forms seem to be standing at the edge of a well, dotted concentric bands radiating around the dark center are rendered in incandescently bright hues.



After the introduction of Masonite panels, other art teachers brought canvas and stretchers to Papunya, enabling the painters to create larger works. The exhibition’s earliest painting on canvas is one from 1974 by Mr. Tjungurrayi. On an approximately 5 ½-by-3 ½-foot surface, he painted scores of overlapping whorls of different sizes in reds, yellows and pinks. The forms come out at you with exuberant energy, like sounds from a jazz orchestra.



Often, differently patterned layers create fascinating spatial complexities. Made on a slightly off-square panel with cut-off corners, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s “Women’s Dreaming About Bush Tucker ‘Yarlga’ ” (1972) has dotted, cloudlike formations partly obscuring a center of white concentric circles and radiating spokes. It too gives the impression of an aerial photograph, this one of a secret military installation. According to the catalog, the painting represents women sitting around a campfire; “bush tucker” is the Australian term for the various sorts of food that Aboriginals foraged for; “yarlga” is an onionlike comestible.



As that interpretive note on Mr. Tjapaltjarri’s painting suggests, there is a major dimension to Aboriginal works that will be lost on most viewers: what they meant and represented to the artist. When asked about the significance of different forms in their paintings, the Papunya artists (most of whom have since died) explained that they referred to waterholes, streams, food sources, landscapes, totemic animals, ancestors, mythic beings, rituals, “songlines” and so on. In other words, far from merely decorative, the paintings represent highly elaborated cosmologies.



But because of language barriers and reluctance on the part of artists to divulge much about their sacred traditions, interpretations offered in wall labels and in the catalog remain partial and speculative. Moreover, the Aboriginal cast of mind is so different from that of the West that even the most extensive explanations can be mystifying. “The Dreaming,” a recurring subject in Aboriginal paintings that has to do with the origins of the world, is a pretty hard concept to grasp for a viewer raised on French Enlightenment-style reasoning.



At the doorway leading to the Grey’s downstairs gallery, a wall label warns away Aboriginal women and children should any happen to be visiting. Two of the paintings below are the only ones in the show depicting people, but none in the lower-level group are any more compelling than the ones upstairs. They are restricted because they represent information that only male initiates are traditionally allowed to know. They are also believed to be inhabited by dangerously powerful supernatural entities. Secularized Westerners don’t think art can have that kind of potency, but who knows, maybe that is our loss.



“Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings From Papunya” is on view through Dec. 5 at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, Greenwich Village; (212) 998-6780, nyu.edu/greyart.



Material for this post comes from: Painting the Ancient, Invisible Dream - Art Review | 'Icons of the Desert' By KEN JOHNSON Published: October 1, 2009 New York Times




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Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery is proud to showcase to the World one of the largest and most comprehensive on line Galleries of Authentic Australian Aboriginal Art and Artefacts. Enjoy the wonderful talent of the artists presented, which reflects their country and a culture which is timeless.

Money Back Guarantee Over 1000 Artworks Online

Complimentary Worldwide shipping and insurance applies to all Aboriginal artworks & artefacts purchased through Artlandish.