Australia is the only country-continent, that is situated entirely in the south and east hemisphere. Very few people know that the name of the country is Australian union. The island of Tasmania, the state of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern territory form together one of the richest, most modern and progressive countries in the world. The capital of Australian union is Canberra. It is comfortably situated among the beautiful landscape of the Great Dividing Range. Every state has its own capital: the capital of New South Wales is the world famous city of Sydney; the capital of Victoria is the second largest city – Melbourne; the largest city in Queensland and its capital is Brisbane; the capital of North territory is Darwin; Western Australia – Perth; South Australia – Adelaide and the island of Tasmania – Hobart.
With its large territory of 7 686 850 sq.km. and population of 21 000 000 people, Australia is among the most unpopulated countries in the world (2 people of sq.km.).
The population is extremely irregular spread in the different parts of the country. There is considerable concentration of population mainly in the large cities on the coast line. Many of these cities have population of more than 1 million people.
Australia is among the latest colonized countries in the world and the beginning was not so promising. As a possession of Great Britain, the continent has used as a convict prison.
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After the serve of the verdict terms the prisoners was set free and they get the chance to begin their lives again as farmers. After the uncertain first steps, Australia begin its gradually development.
Today in the 21-st century this is one of the richest nations in the world and is model of imitation for many countries all over the world.
60% of the contemporary population of Australia was born in some other country. Today the Australians live in prosperity and understanding.
For the fast growth of the country principal part play the high skill workers from all over the world that involve in Australia because of the beautiful cities, exotic nature and nice climate.
At the last years millions of people show unprecedented interest about Australia and the number of foreigners that visit the country is ever stronger.
The foreigners come to Australia by air or by ship, because the country-continent has not land border to other country.
Some of the closer situated countries are New Zealand to the south-east, Indonesia to the north, Papua New Guinea to the north too and so on.
Australia is surrounded by oceans and seas – to the west is bordered by Indian ocean, to the south by the Great Australian Bight, to the south-east is situated Tasman sea, to the east is the Pacific, to the north-east is Coral sea and to the north – Arafura sea, Timor sea and the gulf of Carpentaria.
With such great diversity of water sheets around the continent, it is not surprise that the ocean exert such great influence to the life of the population.
Great part of the Australians, spend their free time near by the beach. In the menu of the population principal part is dedicated to the sea food, because of the great diversity of fish, mussels, lobsters, devil fish and so on.
Around the coast live the biggest part of the Australians. In contrast to the wild and desert interior, the ocean coast in most cases has lush, green vegetation.
In this reason the first settlers gave to this land the name “Green continent”, as they didn’t suspect how inhospitable and dry territories are situated beyond the beautiful and affable coasts. Every state capital in Australia is situated to the coast.
Melbourne (Victoria) is comfortably situated at the far end of beautiful inlet on the Bass strait, where Indian ocean meets the Pacific;
Sydney (New South Wales) occupies the Darling harbor on the Pacific coast;
Brisbane (Queensland) is situated on the east coast of the country;
Darwin (North territory) is situated on small peninsula and is surrounded by water in west, north and south;
Perth (Western Australia) stand on the coast of the Indian ocean;
Adelaide (South Australia) occupies the east coast of wide and beautiful bay, that is part of the Great Australian Bight (Indian ocean);
Hobart (Tasmania) is situated at the foot of beautiful mountain, at the end of comfortable bay of Tasman sea. Only Canberra that is capital of Australian union is situated not in the ocean coast, but in the south end of the Great Dividing Range.
In spite of the fact that Australia rely strongly to the agriculture and farm produces the population outside the cities is sparse. For example the population of the country is 21 000 000 people.
Only the population of the biggest city (Sydney) is 4 500 000 that is almost ¼ of the continent.
Despite the small number of the village population, the Australian farms are very productive and produce huge number of high quality products that are mainly intended for exportation.
Australian wines have great popularity. At the valley of Barossa, not far of Adelaide (South Australia) are cultivated high quality sorts of grapes. There are perfect conditions for wine producing.
After the wine is already matured in oak casks, it takes its long way to Europe, America, Japan and so on.
In Australia there are huge number of sheep (1st in the world), chickens, cattle, pigs and great diversity of fruits and vegetables. All this could be impossible without appropriate climate conditions.
As a result of its large territory, Australia occupies four different climate zones – subequatorial, tropical, subtropical and temperate. In the subequatorial and tropical climate zones can be found exotic species as coco palm, apricot, papaya, mango and so on.
In the subtropical climate zone there are nice conditions for cultivating of oranges, lemons, tangerines, olives and so on. In the temperate latitudes of the island of Tasmania there are perfect conditions for apples, pears, cherries and so on.
As a result of the large flat territories, in Australia is cultivated great diversity of grain. But in wide territories has lack of water for irrigation and daily wants.
In this reason, great territories of Australian interior are occupies of deserts and uninhabited lands. Great Australian Desert, Gibson Desert, Simpson, Tanami, Great desert Victoria are places, where the rain is a chance in a thousand.
When, nevertheless, fall precipitations the moisture is evaporate immediately, because of the strong sun shining and high temperatures. The reason for desert, forming in the central part of the continent are few.
On the one hand the south tropical circle (the tropic of Capricorn), cross the continent through the center in direction east – west. This mean intense sun shining and high level of sun radiation.
The second reason is that despite the continent is widely open to the Indian Ocean to the west, the streams that pass around the coast are cold and there are insignificant vapours.
The third reason is the lack of high mountains in the central part of Australia, which to draw the rain clouds and to defy precipitations.
The fourth and most important reason is that in the east part of the continent is situated The Great Dividing Range. It play the role of climate barrier on the way of the wet air masses, that come from the Pacific.
In this reason the east side of the mountain range, get almost all precipitation, that fall all around the year. While pass the mountains, the air masses loose their wetness.
As a result the nature on the two sides of the mountain is absolutely different. On the east have many short and fast rivers. In the west there are mainly seasonal rivers with slow streams, because of the more slanting relief.
Once, the big geographic distance of Australia has been serious obstacle in its economic rice, especially the tourism, but today because of the high rice of the air transport and the lower prices of the air plane tickets, Australia is in great progress.
Millions of tourists come from all over the world every year to spend their holiday in Australia.
The number of visitors is bigger and bigger every year. This fact offer to the country surely and promising future as attractive and interesting tourist destination.
Why millions of people want to visit Australia and what can they see there? Australia indisputably possess some of the most beautiful beaches in the world with fine, light sands and clean, limpid ocean waters.
The small and calm bays are perfect for swimming, but the bigger bays are more suitable for surfing.
Of no importance if you want to visit north, south, east or west Australia the continent offer excellent beaches in all directions. The beautiful coastline by idyllic beautiful bays are “trademark” for the “Green continent”.
The Perl of the crown is the Great Barrier Reef. It is the biggest coral reef on the planet. It is spread of 2030 km. around the coast of Queensland in the north-east part of Australia.
The coral reef is one incredible formation and it is the only live organism on the planet that can be seen of the space. It is created of around 350 kinds of corals.
This aquatory is perfect for as capricious organism as the coral. It needs of shallow, warm, limpid waters with a lot of sun shine.
But their beauty can’t be described with any words, but only can be seen. The perfect way to be seen this masterpiece of the nature is the diving and the tour by glass flour boat.
In the middle of the coral reef there are thousands of island that are home of splendid birds.
The beaches of the little islands are incredible white, almost snow-white and the ocean waters are so limpid and transparent that somebody can lose notion where is the border between the sand and the sea.
These waters are home to incredible fishes that are so closely connected by the coral reef, that when we hear “coral reef”, we immediately imagine this beautiful, colourful fishes to swim hither and thither.
These fishes are for example parrot fish, Amphipron ocellaris and so on.
But Australia possess many other beauties, that have to be seen. For example the rock of Uluru (Ayers rock), that is only 348m. high, but stick up very impressive among the flat and desert landscape of the state North Australia.
Except its great worth as a tourist destination, this rock has great emotional worth for the natives (aborigines). For the aborigines this rock is sacred. The rock render the visitors speechless.
The colour is change from light orange to scarlet and purple in the different parts of the day. But the tourists have to be very careful, because the lands around Uluru are home to dozens of venom snakes.
And the pestilential heat is not less dangerous. The temperatures, often reach 40 °C and some times even 50 °C in shadow.
If you are decided to visit Uluru, will be better to do it in the winter, when the weather is more bearable, but not cool. The temperature in the winter are around 30 °C (from the end of June to the end of September).
Other famous and remarkable beauty of the “Green continent” are the The Twelve Apostles. They are situated in the state of Victoria on the coast of Bass strait.
The Apostles represent rocky formation that stands 20 – 30m. high above sea level. They were formed by the action of the wind and ocean waves.
The natural elements are already brought some of the Apostles, but most of them are already brought down some of the Apostles, but most of them are over there yet.
Every visitor in Australia has to visit this rock, because this view is really staggering. First, you are moving on a plateau, with grassy plant, that bring to precipice. Under your feet the ocean is raging.
And over there in front of you the Apostles stand proudly. This view can take the breath of everybody, that visit this magic place. These waters can be dangerous. This is the Bass Strait.
Here the Indian ocean meet the Pacific. The storms are sudden and often unexpected.
The fourth hot spot in Australia is Fraser island, that is situated on the east coast of Australia, near by the state of Queensland and in south of the Great Barrier Reef.
This is comparatively big island, that is created only of sand. Without rock, without soil, only sand. In these sandy island has large tropical rain forest.
As the island occupies the southern most parts of the tropical climate zone, the climate is warm, but not too hot. The ocean, exert great influence.
It moderate the climate to be cooler, than in the interior of the country. As a result of the passing of warm ocean streams near by the island, it receive significant precipitations.
On the island has population of the wild dogs Dingo. For the visitors it is not to be recommended to bridge the gap by the wild dogs, because the Dingoes can be very dangerous.
On the east coast of the Fraser Island can be seen the rusty remains of shipwreck. In this part of the island the waves rage so ferociously even in the calm and sunny days, that man can feel only respect and owe of the great power of the nature.
On the west side of the island the situation is absolutely different. There are excellent beaches and mangroves and the ocean waters are as calm as mirror.
The calm waters, warm weather, beautiful forest and the great diversity of birds, make you feel as you are in the paradise.
The fifth hot spot in Australia is situated in the southern part of the Great Dividing Range. The place is named The Blue Mountains and is situated not far of biggest Australian city – Sydney.
The area is national park, because of its incredible natural beauty and mountain landscape.
You will falling in love to this place, especially if you like biking and the long walks among the nature. There are special tourist routes that pass through the most beautiful places.
Green density forest, clean air and charm springs and waterfalls that hop about the slop. In some of the highest places, there is incredible panorama to the area.
If you have the chance to get into some of them, you will see, what is the reason, for the name of the area – because of the predominating of eucalyptus trees that in distance have blue nuance.
This mountain is much more beautiful then high. This is one of very few places in Australia, where you can see snow cover during the winter months.
Hot spot number six in Australia is situated in Western Australia on the peninsula of North West Cape. The Cape Range National Park possess unbelievable beauty. The canyons are fiery red.
The colour of the rocks and the soil resemble Marsian landscape. The plant is scanty. Only some scrubs and unpretentious trees survive among this red waste. The land is dry and the heat is incredible all year round.
Here and there amidst the scrubs rustle only some lizards or snakes that have been disturbed of your presence. After you have visited this natural landmark in the unbearable heat, you maybe need of refreshment.
And you have great luck, because not far of the National Park you can find one of the most beautiful beaches in the world – Turcoas bay.
Its beauty is incredible – white sand, limpid water, deep blue sky… and some times friendly dolphins that come almost to the sand. That is the life in this part of the world.
And in the evening, when you are already wasted of the long walks, swimming and heat, you can visit some of the small, charm restaurants, situated on the coast of the Indian ocean and take pleasure in the night coolness in the small tourist town of Exmouth. You can take a bit backed fish with vegetables while enjoy of relax.
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