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Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere
(that is the bottom half of the world).
This is why it is sometimes called the Land Down Under.
Australia is the smallest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent in
the world. It is the only country which is also a whole continent. 18.6 million
people live here.
The people of Australia are called Australians. Australians call different parts
of their country by different names:
·
The
City
Is any large city
and its suburbs. Over 85% of the people live in cities. Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra are major cities.
Is the area immediately outside the city and usually includes the surrounding
smaller towns and farms. Most of what is called "the country" is a
stretch of land about 200 kilometres deep around the
eastern and southern seaboards of Australia. Upper Beaconsfield, the Great Ocean Road , the Dandenongs, etc are in "the
country".
Is the sparsely populated arid interior of Australia. The Australian Outback is
both harsh and breathtakingly beautiful. It's like no other place on earth. Coober Pedy, Uluru, etc are in the Outback.
There are 6 states and 2 territories in Australia:
The capital of Australia is Canberra .
Australia has lots of unusual Animals.
Australia has the largest coral reef in the world called the Great Barrier Reef. It is stunning!.
Australians speak English. But we also have our
own special words and phrases referred to as Strine.
Australia's
favourite song is Waltzing Matilda
The word Aborigine is derived from
Latin and means "from the beginning". This is the name given to the
native Australians by the Europeans.
This is not the name they called themselves.
They prefer to call themselves: Koori.
BEFORE 1770
The first human inhabitants of Australia were the Aborigines.
They are a dark-skinned people belonging to the Australoid
group who probably came from Asia. Nobody is quite sure how they came to
Australia around 60,000 years ago. They may have walked and sailed here from
Asia.
The Aborigines were nomadic hunter-gathers. They roamed from place to
place. They hunted animals using spears and boomerangs. They also gathered
fruits, nuts and yams which they ate.
There were around 300,000 aborigines in about 250 tribal groups before
the first white settlers came. Each group had its own territory, traditions,
beliefs and language.
They all believed in the Dreamtime which is the center piece of aboriginal
culture.
The aborigine people had never seen white people until Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay in 1770. They
were shocked to see these white people in their strange clothes.
When the aborigines first saw the ships of the "First Fleet" enter Botany Bay in 1778 with so
many white skinned people they thought they were the spirits of their dead
ancestors (after all they were so white). In actual fact these were the first
European settlers led by Captain Arthur Phillip.
At first the Aborigines were friendly towards the visitors but were very
confused at the way white foreigners behaved:
While exploring around the new settlement Captain Arthur Phillip
befriended an old aborigine man. When he returned to camp he met the old man
again and gave him some beads and a hatchet. Later that night Captain Phillip
discovered the old man taking one of his shovels and slapped the man on his
shoulder and pushed him away while pointing to the spade. The old man was very
upset and could not understand why his friend was acting this way.
Aborigines share what they have with their friends.
Captain Phillip was very careful not to offend the aborigines but
Aborigine and the Settlers cultures were so different! They didn't understand
each other.
When the aborigines realised that the white
men were not the spirits of their dead ancestors and that the settlers were
taking more and more of their land and destroying the trees and wild life they
began to fight back.
The aborigines killed a number of the settlers and even wounded Captain
Phillip in an attack. The settlers reacted by slaughtering and poisoning the
aborigines and systematically destroying the land and wild animals they lived
on.
White settlers brought diseases the aborigines had never had before
(diseases which were quite common in Europe at the time).
Aborigines caught smallpox and even the common cold and died in great
numbers. Within two years smallpox had killed almost half the aborigine
population around Sydney.
The British colonists declared that before their arrival all of the
continent was terra nullius (uninhabited by
humans). They used this as justification for taking whatever they wanted.
As more and more white settlers moved in and occupied the fertile lands
the aborigines were pushed further and further away from their traditional
lands and into the harsh arid interior. Their families were broken up, their
children taken away from them and sent to be "civilised",
their sacred sites destroyed and their wild animals hunted.
The killing and exploitation of aborigines by whites continued well into
the twentieth century. The aboriginal population declined from the original
300,000 when the first white settlers arrived to only about 60,000 people (less
than the number of people that can be seated at the MCG stadium!).
Aborigines were second class citizens in their own land. They only got
the right to vote in 1967.
This is a shameful part of Australian history.
Much progress has been made over recent years to try to right the wrongs
of the past. Where possible the government has been returning land to their
traditional owners and encouraging Aborigines to rebuild their culture and
lives.
They are the single most disadvantaged group of people in Australia.
There is still a long way to go!
Up to about 250 millions of years ago the world had just one huge
super-continent call Pangaea. Animals and plants were
able to move and intermix with one another.
About 200 million years ago this super-continent broke up into two
continents (Laurasia and Gondwana).
About 60 million years ago Gondwana broke up
into what was to later become South America, Africa, Antarctica, India and
Australia.
Since then Australia has been isolated from the rest of
the world by vast oceans. The animals and plants which were originally here no
longer had contact with animals from other parts of the world. They evolved
separately. That is why they are so different.
Australia has lots very unusual animals. About 95 percent of the
mammals, 70 percent of the birds, 88 percent of the reptiles and 94 percent of
the frogs are found nowhere else in the world.
Find out about them here:
In about 200AD a famous Greek astronomer named Claudius Ptolemy believed
that the earth had to be balanced or it would topple over. So he figured that
there had be a land yet unknown to Europeans somewhere below the Indian Ocean.
Over time this yet to be discovered land came to be known as
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Terra Australis
Incognito |
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For many centuries people in Europe were certain that there was a land
down under (this map from 1570 shows what they thought) but nobody knew how to
get to it . They kept missing it or not realising
that they had stumbled upon it. For over 200 years hundreds of European
navigators set across the seas searching for the Unknown
They expected to find gold and other treasures.
Aborigines were the first people to discover
Australia. They may have walked or sailed here from Asia over 60,000 years age.
They arrived at a time when the northern parts of Australia had a hot humid
tropical climate much like that of Asia today.
Portuguese sailors may have sailed along the coastline of Australia as
far back as 1542. Some maps have been found which show parts of what appears to
be the Australian coastline. But there is no definite proof that they did.
In 1616 a Dutch trading ship, the Eendracht,
on its way to the Indies (now called Indonesia) bumped into west coast of of Australia. Captain Dirk Hartog
landed at Shark Bay, looked around a bit but didn't find anything interesting.
He nailed a pewter dish to a tree to record his visit. He did not realize that
he had found Australia. His is the first recorded European landing in
Australia.
Dutch sailors continued see the coastline on their trips and called this
land New Holland but didn't bother to visit it
In 1642 a Dutchman named Abel Tasman sighted
an island he called Van Diemen's Land. He did not realise that this island was a part of Australia. He also
went on to explore New Zealand.
This island was later renamed Tasmania in honour
of Abel Tasman
In 1770 an expedition from England lead by Captain James Cook sailed to
the south pacific. They were supposed to make astronomical observations. But
Captain Cook also had secret orders from the British Admiralty to find the
southern continent.
They sailed in the Endeavour. It had a
crew of 94 men.
They landed in a bay on the east coast on the 29th of April 1770. Cook
first called this place Stingray Bay, then he changed it to Botanist Bay and
finally called it Botany Bay because of all the strange and unusual plants
there.
He called this new land New Wales and then changed it to New South
Wales. He claimed the land for England (even though the land already belonged
to the Aborigines).
Captain Cook was also the first European to visit the Great Barrier Reef.
Actually he ran into it and damaged his ship pretty badly. He had to
spend seven weeks repairing his ship.
Canberra is a city of about 310,000 people located in the Australian
Capital Territory (ACT) approximately 200 kilometres
from Sydney. Most of the people in Canberra are
employed by the federal government.
Canberra is a very young city. The plans for the city were only drawn up
in 1911 and construction didn't commence until 1913.
The grand design for the city was drawn up by a relatively obscure american architect named Walter Burley Griffin. The lake
which is a central focus of the city today is named after him.
With its imposing buildings, broad boulevards and uncluttered
streetscape (there are no billboards, in Canberra) it lacks the charm and
vibrancy of more cosmopolitan cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.
The Federal Parliament House is built on top of Capital Hill. It was
completed in 1988 and replaces the old parliament house which is located
further down the hill. The building was designed to merge into the profile of
the hill itself.A stainless steel flag mast 81 metres tall surmounts the building from which flutters the
Australian flag (the flag is as big as a double decker
bus).
It cost over 800 million dollars to build and is considered to be one of
the most attractive parliament buildings anywhere in the world.
The Members Hall is at the very centre
of the Parliament complex between the House of Representatives and Senate
chambers. It has a large skylight canopy through which can be seen the
stainless steel flag mast and the Australian flag.
The House of Representatives Chamber can seat up to 240 Members
of Parliament.
Currently there are approximately 148 members. They are popularly
elected for three year terms. The numbers of members representing each state is
proportional to their populations but there must be must be at least five
members from each state.
The Senate Chamber can seat 120 Senators.
Currently there are 76 senators. They are popularly elected for 6 year
terms. There are 12 senators from each state and two each from each territory.
Aborigines lived around what is now Canberra
for thousands of years.
1820 The first Europeans to visit the Limestones
plains where current day Canberra is located were Joseph Wild, James Vaughan
and Charles Throsby.
1824 Joshua John Moore took up the first land grant on the Limestone
Plains. He called his property "Canberry"
after the name the local aborigines called the place. His property was where
the the Australian National University and Lake
Burley Griffin is today.
1825 Robert Campbell started a grazing station on the Limestone Plains.
He named his property "Duntroon" after the
family castle in Scotland. He built a house called Duntroon
House which was added on to by his son and descendants. It is part of the Royal
Military College today.
Many other people also farmed and grazed the land around the Limestone
Plains.
1901 On January 1 Queen Victoria signed the Constitution Act making
Australia an independent country. Both Sydney and Melbourne wanted the national capital to be
in their cities. So to prevent too much rivalry a search was begun to find a
new site for the federal capital.
1908 The Canberra area was selected as the future site for the capital
of Australia.
1911 An international competition was launched to find the best plan for
the new city. The design by an American landscape architect named Walter Burley
Griffin won the competition.
1927 The temporary federal parliament building was completed and federal
parliament moved from Melbourne to its new home in Canberra.
1978 It was decided that a new parliament building was needed to replace
the temporary building which had been used for over fifty years.
1988 The new Parliament House was opened by Queen Elizabeth 2.
The name Coober
Pedy is derived from the Aboriginal words "kupa
piti", which means "white man's burrow".
The description is apt because most people live and work underground.
Coober Pedy is
located 836 kilometres (510 miles) north of Adelaide
and about 300 kilometres south of Uluru.
It is a desolate landscape devoid of vegetation and water. It is an
extremely hot place too. The entire landscape is pockmarked by the telltale
tailing of countless opal mines.
In 1915 a young boy named Willie Hutchison, who was out with his father
prospecting for gold, discovered the first opal there. Since then the town has
grown to about 2500 people.
Coober Pedy
produces about 90% of the world's opals.
Because of the extreme heat during the summer almost all buildings are
located underground.
The Great Barrier Reef stretches along the east coast of Queensland in Australia. It is the world's largest coral
reef . It is over 2000km (1250 miles) long! It is not a single reef at all. It is
made up of over 2900 individual reefs very close to each other
A coral is a tiny marine polyp. It is the living
part of the coral reef. There are many different kinds of corals. 
These are what gives the coral reef
its colourful appearance. Corals feed mostly on
plankton. Coral grows in warm climates where there is clear salt water and
sunlight. They don't like pollution.
A coral reef is a natural barrier made of the bodies of
living and dead coral. It is normally just below the surface of the water.
It is made of two parts the:
white part is made from the
bodies of zillions and zillions of polyps which have died over hundreds
and thousands of years. · 1500 species of fish
· 400
different types of coral
· 4,00 molluscs (like clams and the sea slug)
· 500
species of seaweed
· 215
species of birds
· 16
species of sea snake
· 6
species of sea turtle
· Whales
visit during winter
New South Wales is the fourth
largest state in Australia. It is 801,600 sq km in size.
About 6 million people live in New
South Wales. One in three Australians lives in New South Wales.
Sydney is the capital of the state of New
South Wales. It is Australia's oldest and largest city. The defining symbols of
Sydney are its Opera House and "coat hanger bridge".
Sydney is the commercial capital of Australia.
About 3.8 million people live in the greater Sydney area.
Bondi and Manly are some of the famous beaches along
the New South Wales coast a short distance from Sydney
The Blue Mountains rise from the coastal plains about 65 kilometres west of Sydney. They are composed of sandstone
deposited over 170 million years ago that was then pushed up to form a plateau
which was subsequently eroded by wind, rain and water leaving spectacular
gorges, pinnacles and cliffs. The highest point is about 1100 meters above sea
level.
The towering cliffs of these mountains presented a seemly impassable
barrier to early european settlers. Even today most
parts are only accessible to experienced bushwalkers.
The Blue Mountains are covered with
eucalyptus trees which constantly release very fine droplets of oil into the
atmosphere. These droplets cause the blue light-rays from the sun to be
scattered more effectively (knows as Rayliegh
Scattering) making the whole area look bluer.
Australian Strine consists of words and phrases which:
· have
different meanings from other English (like American English or British
English),
· we have
made up ourselves or
·
we have borrowed from Aborigine words or from slang used by early
settlers.
The Dandenong
Ranges are located approximately 40 kilometers from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The Healesville Sanctuary is a place where you
can see Australian native animals in natural bushland
surroundings. The sanctuary also carries out research and breeding programs for
many endangered animals.
There is a real cool Koala enclosure, platypus tank and snake pit too.
Here is the official web site for the Healesville Sanctuary
The Exhibits page is very good.
It is great fun riding the Puffing Billy Railway as it weaves its way up
the mountains. We even get to sit on the windowsills and dangle our legs out
the windows. If you look closely you can see some people doing just that.
Because its a stream train you get coal dust in your eyes and on your clothes.
When the weather is really dry and there is a danger of bushfires the
Puffing Billy 's steam engine isn't used. That's because a spark from its steam
engine could start a bushfire. They use a diesel engine instead.
Here is the official web site for the Puffing Billy Railway .
Every year thousands of visitors come to see the tulips at the Tesselaar Tulip farm in Silvan.
There are many other gardens in the Dandenongs
too.
Upper Beaconsfield is located 53 kms (33
miles) south-east of Melbourne in the Dandenong
Ranges on the southern foothills of the Great Dividing Range.
Upper Beaconsfield retains much of its rural heritage and atmosphere
with tree lined streets, varied eucalyptus forests, wet-lands, fern gullies and
secluded creeks.
The Great Ocean Road starts at Torquay (about
100kms from Melbourne) and winds its way for 180 kms along the south-western coast of Victoria , Australia.
It is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world. It winds
its ways around ragged cliffs, windswept beaches, and tall buffs and passes
through lush mountain rainforest and towering eucalyptus.
The Great Ocean Road was started in 1918 and completed during the Great
Depression as a public works project to give returned soldiers and unemployed
people work.
Some of the sights along the way are:
The 18 passengers and 36 crew on the iron-hulled clipper Loch Ard had a party on the night of March 31, 1878, to
celebrate their arrival in Melbourne the next day after a three month voyage
from England. But Captain Gibb stayed on deck all
night, worried by the thick mist that obscured the horizon and Cape Otway light. At 4am the mist lifted and the lookout cried:
"Breakers ahead." Despite desperate attempts to turn the ship away --
and then to hold it with its anchors -- it struck rocks. water flooded in, the
masts flailed against the high cliff face before crashing down and waves swept
across the decks, hampering attempts to get the lifeboats into the water. Only
two survived -- ship's apprentice Tom Pearce and Eva Carmichael, both aged 18.
Eva's parents and five siblings were lost. Tom drifted into the gorge where he
saw passenger Eva clinging to a mast -- he swam out, pulled her into a cave and
found some brandy in the wreckage to revive her. He climbed out of the gorge
and came upon two stockmen, and a rescue party was organised.
But only four bodies -- including Eva's mother and sister, were able to be
recovered from the treacherous seas and most of the ship's valuable cargo was
lost or looted. Tom Pearce became a national hero for his rescue of Eva, who
soon returned to Ireland.
A few days after the disaster a packing case washed up in the gorge. It
contained a life-sized Minton pottery peacock destined for the Melbourne Great
Exhibition of 1880
The Outback is the arid sparsely populated
interior of Australia.
It makes up almost 85% of Australian
landmass. Very few humans live out there.
It is also sometimes called "Beyond
the Black Stump".
The Australian Outback is both harsh
and breathtakingly beautiful. It's like nothing else anywhere else in the
world.
In the outback you can travel for days without meeting anyone. This is
why it is sometimes called the Never-Never: the never ending landscape; the
never ending horizon.
The land is unforgiving to the careless and foolhardy. You can die of
dehydration within hours if you are not careful.
Yes people actually do live in the outback.
Cattle and sheep are grazed on huge tracts of land called Stations
(what might be called a ranch in the USA). There are Stations in the outback
that occupy more land than some countries. Helicopters and small planes are
usually used to round up stock (the sheep and cattle) and to check fences (dingo and rabbit fences).
A person who rounds up stock is called a Stockman.
A person who works at a Station is called a Stationhand.
The owner is called a Station-Manager
The vast distances have forced people to adapt to their isolation (some
people being more than a day's drive from their nearest neighbor). A two-way
radio and an airstrip are vital to any outback station.
Because of the great distances some children in the outback cannot
attend regular school. They learn from the School of the Air which is a special
school where the teacher and student interact via a two-way radio.
Here is a fascinating school in the outback run by the Mupuru aboriginal community . Its really worth a
visit: The Mapuru Homeland Leaning Centre
The Royal Flying Doctor Service operates a fleet of airplanes outfitted
as flying ambulances and clinics. They visit these remote locations to provide
medical services. They also provides advice over the two-way radio.
Uluru: Is a huge rock (called a monolith) that sticks
out in the middle of the flat desert. From a distance it looks like an
impregnable fortress built eons ago by some mythical warlord.
Uluru is over nine kilometres
(6 miles) around and over 348 metres (1000ft) high.
It is believed to be about 600 million years old and was once part of a huge
mountain range. The mountain range has long since disappeared - eroded away by
rain and wind.
With each passing hour as the sun moves across the sky the rock changes colour - changing from delicate mauve, blues, pinks, browns
to fiery red.
It is a sacred place to the Pitjanjara Aboriginal tribe.
Devils Marbles: These massive boulders are scattered along the
Stuart Highway near Alice Springs. They glow red in the sunset. Aborigines believe they were left by the
Rainbow Serpent of the Dreamtime.
Wave Rock: Is a huge granite rock that looks like a huge
wave that has been frozen in time and turned into stone. It has been made this
way by the wind and rain water running down its sides.
Katherine Gorge: Is one of 13 gorges in Nitmiluk
National Park. They began forming about 23 million years ago as torrents of
water flowing through tiny cracks in the earth slowly eroded away the earth and
rock creating these huge gorges.
It is rich in Aboriginal art, with rock paintings
representing the spiritual 'dreaming' of the Jawoyn
people, the traditional owners of the land.
Apart from boat rides through the Gorge, with its sheer towering walls,
there are also over 100 kilometres of walking tracks
and numerous aboriginal rock paintings to visit
The Olgas: Are enormous domes of red rock
located about 32 kms from Uluru.
You can walk into valleys and gorges between the 36 rock domes and feel the
eerie mystery around you. The Aborigines call it 'Kata
Tjuta'. It has great spiritual significance to them.
The Peoples of AustraliaWe came from all over the world.
Australians are a very friendly open sort of people. We love our sports,
our family barbecues and the beach. We are very urbanised
- most of us living in the larger cities along the coast. Almost 94% of the
population are of European decent and as a result we have a western outlook and
culture. In general Australians are very tolerant of other people and their
customs.
Australians are one of the most urbanised
societies in the world. Almost 80% of the workforce are employed in service
industries such as: offices, banks, etc in the major cities.
About 16% work in manufacturing
About 3% are farmers or graziers.
Wool is one of Australia's major exports. Wool shearing is hard work.
Australia is rich in mineral deposits. We mine and export alumina, iron, coal, copper,gold,
uranium, etc all over the world.
About 1% work in the mining industry
During winter we play Australian Rules Football which is played with an
oval ball on an oval field with eighteen players on each team. We also play
Rugby.
In the summer we play cricket. Cricket is played with a flat bat and a
round leather covered ball. Each team has 11 players. The objective of the game
is to hit the ball as far as possible without getting "caught out" or
without having the ball come in contact with your body or hitting the stumps (3
short poles behind the batsman). The next Olympic games will be held in Sydney Australia in the year 2000.
Almost 85% of Australians live within a few hours drive of the coast
Most major cities have bicycle tracks.
We love to race almost anything: horses, camels, goats, cockroaches and
even earth worms.
Australia has lots of wide open spaces and parks.
Upper Beaconsfield is located 53 kms (33
miles) south-east of Melbourne in the Dandenong
Ranges on the southern foothills of the Great Dividing Range. Upper
Beaconsfield retains much of its rural heritage and atmosphere with tree lined
streets, varied eucalyptus forests, wet-lands, fern gullies and secluded
creeks. The large residential blocks blend well with the surrounding environment.
There are strict laws protecting the local flora and fauna
We go to Stony Creek on hikes, to catch yabbies
and fish. It's lots of fun. It isn't usually misty like in this picture.
There are lots of native ferns and gum trees around the creek.
There are Platypuses in the creek but they are very shy
and hide when us kids come by.
There was a terrible bushfire in Upper Beaconsfield in 1983.
We didn't live here then. The fire burned right through the land on
which our house is now. We can still see the burn marks on some of the trees in
our garden. Lots of houses burnt down and lots of animals and some people died
too. We are all more careful now.
Elephant Rock is located on the Beaconsfield-Emerald Road . Kids paint
it in all sorts of colours. There is a good lookout
from where you can see Cardinia Dam. There are also
good walking tracks there.
Waltzing Matilda is an Australian
icon.
It is quite likely that more Australians know the words to this song than the
national anthem.
There is probably no other song that is more easily recognised
by a populace: young or old: ocker or a newly arrived
immigrant.
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Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah
tree, And
he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy
boiled "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me?" Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his
billy boiled, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me?" |
|
Swagman - a drifter, a hobo, an itinerant shearer who carried all his belongings wrapped up in a
blanket or cloth called a swag. Billabong - a waterhole near a river Coolibah - a eucalyptus tree Billy- a tin can with a wire handle used to boil
water in |
|
Along came a jumbuck to drink at the
billabong, Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with
glee, And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his
tucker bag, "You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his
billy boiled, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me?". |
|
Jumbuck - a sheep Tucker Bag - a bag for keeping food in |
|
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his
thoroughbred, Down came the troopers, one, two, three, "Whose is that jumbuck you've got in
your tucker bag?" "You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his
billy boiled, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me?". |
|
Squatter - a wealthy landowner. Trooper - a policeman, a mounted militia-man. |
|
Up jumped the swagman, leapt into the
billabong, "You'll never catch me alive," said
he, And his ghost may be heard as you pass by the
billabong, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his
billy boiled, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
me?" |
|
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The phrase Waltzing Matilda is believed to have originated with German immigrants who settled in Australia.
Waltzing is derived from the German term auf der
walz which meant to travel while learning a
trade. Young apprentices in those days travelled the
country working under a master craftsman earning their living as they went -
sleeping where they could.
Matilda has Teutonic origins and means Mighty Battle Maiden. It is
believed to have been given to female camp followers who accompanied soldiers
during the Thirty Year wars in Europe. This came to mean "to be kept warm
at night" and later to mean the great army coats or blankets that soldiers
wrapped themselves with. These were rolled into a swag tossed over their
shoulder while marching.
So the phrase Waltzing Matilda came to mean: to travel from place to
place in search of work with all one's belongings on one's back wrapped in a
blanket or cloth. This is what Swagmen did in outback Australia.
Andrew Barton (Banjo) Patterson
[1864-1941] was a solicitor (lawyer) by profession and lived and worked in Sydney, Australia.
In 1895 Banjo and his fiancee, Sarah Riley,
visited the Dagworth Homestead a station in outback Queensland.
This station was owned by the family of one of Sarah's school friends:
Christina Macpherson. While at the station Banjo
heard Christina play a tune called the "Craigeelee"
on an autoharp. Banjo liked the "whimsicality and dreaminess" of the
tune and thought it would be nice to set some words to it.
During his stay Bob Macpherson took Banjo
around the station where they stopped at the Combo Waterhole where they found
the skin of a newly killed sheep. Obviously someone had made a meal of it. Bob Macpherson may also have told Banjo of the sheep shearers strike of September 1894 when shearers
had set fire to the Dagworth woolshed killing over a
hundred sheep. Macpherson and three policeman had
given chase and one of them, a man named Hoffmeister,
shot and killed himself rather than be captured.
So it appears that Banjo linked up all these events to conjure up
"Waltzing Matilda. Christina wrote up the score. It was first sung
publicly at a banquet for the Premier of Queensland
and was an instant hit. The song was then picked up by the "Billy
Tea" company to advertise their product. Paterson sold the rights to
Waltzing Matilda and "some other pieces" to Angus & Robertson
Publishers for "five quid".
By World War 1 it was Australia's favorite song and has been ever since.
Some great poems by Banjo Patterson:
Clancy of The Overflow a city folk's yearning for the wide
open spaces
Melbourne is the capital of the
state of Victoria in Australia. It is the second largest city in
Australia.
It was voted the worlds' most
livable city in 1994.
And the least polluted for a city of
its size.
Melbourne is renowned for its parks, fickle weather, clanging trams,
upside-down river, football and its cosmopolitan outlook. It is also the
financial capital of Australia.
It is a relatively safe city with a very low crime rate.
About 3.2 million people live in the greater Melbourne area.
The people of Melbourne came from all over the
world.
The Yarra River flows right by the city. It is
sometimes called "the river that flows upside down" because of
its muddy colour. The reason for this colour is because mud particles stay suspended in the water
and don't settle to the bottom like in most rivers. It is a very clean river
(now).
During the warmer months people like to walk along the river, visit the
parks and sunbathe (ouch) along the banks.
The Moomba festival also has a lot of events
on the river. I love the birdman competition where they try to see who can fly
the furthest after jumping off a bridge. Its very funny.
Melbourne loves its electric trams.
It is the only city in Australia which still has them as part of its public
transport system. We paint some of them with interesting designs and motifs.
There is even a tram restaurant where you can dine while trundling past
interesting city sites. Trams have right of way on our roads and also make us
do unusual right hand turns at city intersections.
The Arts Centre is a short walk across Princes
Bridge on St Kilda Road and is now a part of the
larger Southgate entertainment complex.
It consists of the:
The Art Centre's lattice work spire glows a
light purple colour at night and can be seen from
miles around.
The water wall at the museum is very popular with young kids.
Kings
Domain contains the
Shrine of Remembrance, La Trobe's Cottage and the Myer Music Bowl
Government House is the official residence of the Governor of Victoria.
It is located in the precincts of the Botanical Gardens. This is where the
Queen of England stays when she visits Melbourne.
It is said to be the grandest house in Victoria (some say even all of Australia)
It was built during the gold rush when Melbourne was flush with money and was
intent on outdoing everyone else.
Luna Park has lots of entertainment for kids and adults alike. It is
located in St Kilda not far from the city.
The Westgate Bridge is the longest bridge in Australia. It is over 2.6 kms long and soars over the Yarra
River and the harbour. It offers a panoramic view of
the harbour and the city.
This is a view of Melbourne taken from across the bay at Williamstown.
Yes these Black Swans really do live there.
Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman and a group of businessmen
who bought land from the local Aborigines for some trinkets.
It was named, in 1837, after the British Prime Minister at the time:
Lord Melbourne.
Sydney is Australia's oldest and largest city. About 3.8 million people
live in the greater Sydney area. The defining symbols of Sydney are its Opera
House and "coat hanger bridge".
Sydney is the commercial capital of Australia.
The people of Sydney came from all over the
world.
The Opera House, situated at Bennelong Point,
is an absolutely exquisite building. Its roof-line is meant to symbolise the bellowing "sails" of sailing ships
of a bygone era and the spinnakers of the racing yachts that ply the harbour today.
The Sydney Opera House:
The Sydney Harbour Bridge took seven years to
build and was opened in 1932.
The Aboriginal people lived around the area that
is now Sydney for thousands of years before the first european
settlers arrived in the 1770's.
The area that is now Sydney was named Port Jackson by captain James Cook
when he visited the east coast of Australia in 1770. Port Jackson was selected
by Captain Arthur Phillip as the most suitable site for the first european settlement in Australia in 1788. He named the
place after the British Prime Minister at the time: Lord Sydney.
The colony faced many hardships and near starvation trying to grow crops
in this new land. After the initial difficulties however the colony grew
rapidly as new migrates arrived in larger numbers.
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