"Australia" a Australia Travel Page by didgeridorien

Before Australia had been discovered, explorers dreamed of a mythical land in the south, terra australis. The Aboriginals arrived in Australia about 60000 years ago, crossing the sea from South-East Asia. The marsupials were bigger then, 3m tall kangaroo's and cow sized wombats.
The Spaniard Luis Vaez de Torres sailed passed North Australia in 1606. The Dutch landed on the West Coast in the 1600s, but they didn't like the horrid land they saw. The Dutchman Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania, which he called Van Diemen's Land. James Cook started the expedition to the Great Southern Land, in 1770 he found it. Australia was declared terra nullis, meaning land of no one. This also meant that the Aboriginals didn't have anything to say about their land, while they'd been living there for 60000 years.
Australia was first used to get rid of the worst criminals England had. Slowly the small settlements started to attract more immigrants and when gold was discovered cities arose.
Aboriginals were taken from their lands and put into camps so the settlers could take over their land. A lot of Aboriginals are troubled now because of what's been done to their family and sacred lands. Slowly the government is returning land back to the Aboriginals and then leasing it from them for tourisic purposes. This way Aboriginals can live according to their law and customs again.

Australia is the opposite of Europe, Januari's warm and July's cold. The south gets cold and wet, while the hot tropics are in the north. Australia's got about 19 million inhabitants, most of them on the East Coast. Australia consists of 6 states and 2 territories: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The coasts usually are green, but inland there are a lot of deserts.

I went to Australia because my father used to live there when he was young. I travelled around Australia for 7 months, working on and off. I went to Melbourne after Sydney, and then took the bus and train to the west coast. I travelled up the west coast in a car with a couple of backpackers and went down thru the middle. After that I went to New Zealand for 2 months and then I came back to travel up the east coast. I also paid another visit to the centre, because I felt I hadn't seen it all the first time. I hope you love my pages about Australia, because I loved travelling there.