History and Famous Landmarks of Australia

Australia has the distinction of being the remotest and flattest of the settled continents. It has a wealth of history and plenty of famous landmarks. They include the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the location of Captain Cook's landing in Botany Bay (New South Wales) in 1770. There is a monument in honor of Captain Cook in the Botany Bay National Park.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge weighs 52,800 tons and has an arch span of 503 meters. It was opened in 1932 and is one of the longest one-bow bridges in the world. In fact, it's only 66 cm. shorter than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It is estimated that around 200,000 cars pay a $2.00 toll every day to cross the bridge. One coat of paint for the bridge takes 80,000 litres. It is also noteworthy that actor Paul Hogan of "Crocodile Dundee" used to work as a painter on the bridge.

Ayers Rock, southwest of the Northern Territory's Alice Springs in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, has the distinction of being the world's largest single stone. It is also very sacred to the Aboriginal people.

The Flinders Range National Park has as its major attractions such sights as the Edeowie and Brachina Gorges, Aroona and Bunyeroo Valleys, and Wilpena Pound. Every kind of wildlife from eagles to wallabies to kangaroo can be seen in the park.

Canberra, the capital area of Australia, features several significant tourist attractions. They include the Australian War Memorial, the Bradman Museum (in honor of Sir Donald Bradman, Australia's most famous cricketer), Canberra Observatory, Canberra Space Centre, the National Dinosaur Museum, Parliament House, the Questacon National Science and Technology Centre, and the Royal Australian Mint.

The Aborigines were the first Australians. These first Australians were mostly nomadic hunters, and the arrival of the Europeans to the continent was disaster for them. There were only 60,000 still living by 1920. Most people of Aboriginal descent live in New South Wales and Queensland today. These provinces each have around 26.4 percent of their population as Aborigines. Western Australia and the Northern Territory have Aborigine populations in smaller numbers. Today, each region of Australia has an Aboriginal Land Council that runs festivals to celebrate Aboriginal culture. Many tours include some of the relatively "untouched" Aboriginal areas, and the Aboriginal people run Ayers Rock. Though English is the spoken language of Australia, Aboriginal is the language spoken by the Aboriginal people and is still in use in ethnic communities.

The oldest and largest region in Australia is New South Wales. One of the tourist attractions in New South Wales is the Blue Mountains.

Many early settlers to Australia believed that China, and freedom, lay on the other side of the Blue Mountains. When Europeans settled the area, there was not much evidence of the Aboriginal people found in these mountains. Disease was the suspected culprit. Today, tourists to the Blue Mountains can take a walking trail tour in the Blue Mountains National Park. On the way to the Blue Mountains, one might stop at Red Hand Cave, which features some Aboriginal hand stencils. The Wentworth Falls is a spectacular and well-known waterfall, and Katoomba is the main tourist center in the mountains.
The Outback, whose major town is Bourke, is also in New South Wales.

Another famous attraction in the area is the Snowy Mountains. These mountains were considered the Great Dividing Range between the borders of New South Wales and Victoria. The Snowy Mountains are in Kosciuszko National Park. The park is also the home of Mt. Kosciuszko, the tallest mountain in Australia.