Australia

Australia is a continent which forms a country, apparently Asians from India and Malaysa arrived to Australia thousands of years ago, the Aborigines have many stories about the creation of their country named "the Dreaming" and its origins such as the story of the Rainbow serpent. However Captain Cook discovered it for England in July 1770 and the scientists in the ship "Endeavour" called animals, plants and places such as the kangaroos, Botany Bay or New Soth Wales and from the beginning of the nineteenth century the British Empire used this vast continent as a huge prison where usually poor people who had committed petty crimes could redeem themselves by hard work as farmers and other jobs.The geography shows a huge desert in the centre named the Outback, the Pacific in the east, Indian Ocean in the west and the Southern ocean in the south which the coastline enjoys a moderate climate whilst in the north there is a tropical climate wet season very hot and dry season milder. There are more than eight thousand islands with luxurious rainforests and sandy beaches  such as Tasmania and Fraser Island which are very touristic. Nowadays there are more than twenty million people in Australia and most of them live in the main cities as Canberra, the capital city, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and there are eight main areas such as Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Famous landmarks like the Great Barrier Reef have been granted a World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it over three km long in the coast of Queensland made of microscopic coral form groups which become reefs in warm water and host thousand of sea creatures. The Outback is the desert in the centre with some artificial lakes such as Argyle, Kimberley and Western Australia and the mines there are famous for its production of aluminium, gold, lead, uranium, iron, opal and pink diamonds. The Wave Rock is a huge rock in the Hyden Wildlife Park that looks like a wave breaking on the beach. The Ayers Rock or Uluru is an enormous mountain rock which changes throughout the day because it is alone Aborigines consider it sacred and many legends and UFO stories advises anyone against climbing it. Although it is not a natural landmark everyone recognise Australian cities with the Sydney Opera House since 1973 with its unique roof and tiles. Animals famous are marsupials which have a pouch to keep their underdevelop babies such as kangaroos which jump very high with their back legs and tails, the koalas who sleep and live in eucalyptus trees because they eat their leaves and Tasmanian devils which eats dead or sick animals and human rubbish. There are curious animals such as the duck-billed Platypus which are mammals that lay eggs and have duck beaks, beaver tails and webbed feet. Dingoes are similar to wolves and live in packs which can be dangerous to other animals, there are many snakes and spiders like the inland Taipan snake which is very poisonous and lives on rats and the Sydney funnel-web spider which is very ferocious which can bite even through nails with its fangs causing death in one hour. Celebrations such as Australia national day on 26th January celebrating the first English settlement in 1788 in which people celebrate with sports competitions, fireworks, barbecues and boat races. Anzac Day on 25th April initially was set to remember Gallipolli campaign in World War I now they remind all people killed in wars and its a solemn day with marches and people meet in pubs and play a game called two-up. Also there are local holidays connected to sport or agriculture such as Adelaide Cup with horse races or Ekka an agricultural exhibition in Queensland. Sports  such as cricket and Australian football are the most renowned and surfing is common among Australians too with annual competititons. Australians have competed in the Olympics since 1895 and Edwin Flack till the nation hosted the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956 abd Sydney in 2000 with a lot of medals from Australian sports players. Gastronomy uses many native food such as pink fruits named lilly pilly, leaves called warrigal greens, kangaroo meat, witchetty grubs which are worms and desserts as ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Armoured Corps) biscuits and Lamington sponge cakes made of chocolate and coconut. Australians enjoy so much meat pies that there is a Great Pie Aussie competititon yearly and the pie floater is a meat pie in a dish of poured pie soup titled a Heritage Icon of South Australia. Famous people from Australia are actors such as Nicole Kidman, Liam Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett.