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Up until now, Britain had been sending all it's prisoners over to America, but because of the War of Independence that became impossible. Faced with the prospect of actually having to keep convicts in the country, someone had the idea of shipping them all to this wonderful new colony and in January 1788 the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay. Unfortunately they didn't find it to be quite as hospitable as Cook had described, but after a bit of scouting around the area Port Jackson (a little to the north) was discovered and so the colony of Sydney was settled. The first years were incredibly hard and starvation was never far away, but by the early 1800's Sydney had become a flourishing trading post. More and more people were coming over of their own free will rather than at his majesty's pleasure, especially after gold was discovered in the 1850's. The first half of the 18th century there were many expeditions to discover and colonize the rest of the continent: Perth was settled in 1829 and the first overland expedition reached Darwin in 1862.
By the 1890's many people were starting to think that all the different colonies should perhaps join together as one big country and federation came on the 1st of January 1901. For many years afterwards Australia was very much a British colony, but as the century has progressed it has become more and more its own country. The republican movement became very vocal in the 1990's and in 1999 there was a referendum to decide whether the queen should be replaced ad head of state by an Australian president. The republicans were defeated.
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Australia, the world's largest island and smallest continent, is 25 times the size of the UK, with an area of almost three million square miles and close to 23.000 miles of coastline, but... the population numbers just 19,3 million - not much more then Greater London. Most people tend to avoid the arid desert of the interior, with the majority living within 12 miles of the ocean and on the south-eastern side of the continent. Australia is the most urbanized country in the world, with more then 85 percent of Aussies living in a town or city. A whopping 40 percent inhabit the eastern state capitals of Melbourne or Sydney.
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Australia is divided into six (6) states and two (2) territories:
| state / territory |
capital city |
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| Australian Capital Territory |
Canberra |
info |
| New South Wales |
Sydney |
info |
| Victoria |
Melbourne |
info |
| Queensland |
Brisbane |
info |
| South Australia |
Adelaide |
info |
| Tasmania |
Hobart |
info |
| Western Australia |
Perth |
info |
| Northern Territory |
Darwin |
info |
Canberra is Australia's purpose-built capital. The city was established in 1908 to house the Federal Parliament after arch-rivals Sydney and Melbourne contested the right to be the capital city.
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Australia is divided into three (3) time zones:
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Tasmania. EST is ten (10) hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT);
* Central Standard Time (CST) in South Australia and the Northern Territory. CST is nine-and-a-half (9 1/2) hours ahead of GMT.
* Western Standard Time (WST) in Western Australia. WST is eight (8) hours ahead of GMT, two (2) hours behind EST and one-and-a-half (1 1/2) hours behind CST.
In summer it becomes really confusing, because not all states operate daylight saving. In Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory they 'don't do' daylight saving. The other states advance their clocks by one hour from October to March each year. Unfortunately, they do not all change at the same time. And don't forget British summer time is one hour AHEAD of GMT from April till October. Simple isn't it ?
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Australia has a similar system of government to Britain, with a two-tier parliament and a representative of the British monarchy acting as head of state.
The Federal Government is responsible for the national economy, immigration and defense, while the states and territories decide on certain matters like health, education and transport. Laws differ from state to state and what will give you a court room appearance (and criminal record) in one state, may be waved in another. For example: the minimum driving age is 18 in Victoria and 17 in Western Australia.
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Most people asked to describe an 'average' Aussie would probably summon up an image of an outback battler, with corks in his hat, a beer in his hand and a "no worries mate, she'll be right" on his lips. That stereotype is becoming increasingly outdated as Australia becomes more and more multicultural and urbanized. The picture of the blonde, tanned surfer is also becoming obsolete with the increase in immigration in the last few decades. In the years after World War II, the migrants came primarily from southern Europe, but since the 1960's there has been a huge influx of people from South East Asia and China. It is estimated that one in four of the population is a migrant or a child of a migrant.
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Don't expect a white Christmas in Sydney or Melbourne. It's usually spent lazing by a pool in the heat with an ice-cold drink in hand. Officially summer starts in December, autumn in March, winter in June and spring in September, but usually it's only cold and rainy from June to August.
Another thing to remember is that northern Australia is hot and humid (tropical weather) and the further south you go, the colder and greener it becomes. The only place it gets cold enough to snow is in Tasmania and in the mountains (the Snowy Mountains of southern New South Wales and the Alps of north-east Victoria have a snow season with good skiing).
The centre of the continent is arid: hot and dry during the day and cold at night. In the far northern parts of Australia there are only two (2) seasons: the Dry (May to October) and the Wet (November to April). Cyclones tend to hit northern Australia from July to August.
 The sun is a powerful beast in Australia and made even stronger by the hole in the ozone layer above. Remember always to "slip, slop, slap" (slip on a shirt, slop on some SPF30+ sunscreen and slap on a hat). If you must 'sun bake' you should avoid the sun between 11 am and 3 pm.
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Swimming is some thing of a national pastime, but some beaches in the north in summer can become full of deadly box jellyfish and you don't want to encounter one of those! The ocean around Australia is a dangerous one and many people drown every year after being caught in rips. To stay safe avoid going for a swim on non-patrolled beaches and always swim between the flags.
Other then rips and jellyfish, there is not a lot to worry about. Apart from crocodiles and sharks that is :-) But shark attacks are exceptionally rare and as for crocs: obey the warning signs in northern areas and 'she'll be right, mate :-)'.
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During the early 1600's some Dutch sailors felt brave enough to land on Cape York and a few spots on the West Coast, but they decided that the weather wasn't up too much and sailed back to Jakarta. In 1642 a guy called Abel Tasman (a Dutchman) was send to have another poke around. He charted the coast from Cape York West to the Great Australian Bight and discovered a little island he named Van Diemen's Land, which we no know as Tasmania. He completely failed to discover the east coast and so missed out on the big Banana. Forty years later William Dampier made a few explorations from Shark Bay on the west coast and agreed with the Dutch that the whole place wasn't really much cop. And so it was that over seventy years later (1770) our friend Captain Cook (see picture) finally turns up, discovers the elusive east coast, decides it is nice and claims the whole place for Britain.
