Brisbane & Queensland Australia

By Holly Smith

Following are a few paragraphs from this inspiring and astonishingly detailed guide. The author, a native Australian, covers everything you might want to know about Queensland - guaranteed! The places to stay in every part of Queensland, from budget to lu

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hunter Publishing
• Release date: Aug 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9781588437778

Holly Smith

Holly was born in Hamilton, Ontario. She moved to the island of Victoria, British Columbia, with her two young children and they all spent countless summer vacations on Salt Spring Island with her two brothers, Joey and Tony. Holly now resides in the quaint, seaside village of Dundarave in West Vancouver, with her two chubby cats and writes children’s books with her beautiful daughter, Krista. This is her second book. Krista grew up on Vancouver Island in Victoria, British Columbia and now lives with her husband and daughter close to Vancouver in the beautiful city of Port Moody. She loves writing, especially stories with her mom, traveling, hanging out with her family, and spending time at the beach. This is her second book.

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Brisbane & Australia's Queensland

HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC.

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This guide focuses on recreational activities. As all such activities contain elements of risk, the publisher, author, affiliated individuals and companies disclaim any responsibility for any injury, harm, or illness that may occur to anyone through, or by use of, the information in this book. Every effort was made to insure the accuracy of information in this book, but the publisher and author do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any liability for loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, misleading information or potential travel problems caused by this guide, even if such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause.

Contents

All About Australia

The Dreamtime

The Explorers

The Criminals

The Settlers

The Gold-Seekers

The Vintners

The Adventurers

The Rebels

The Citizens

The Soldiers

The Australians

Six States, Two Territories, & Many Islands

Surrounding Properties

The Government

The Land

A Moving Puzzle

A Vast & Barren Core

Refreshing Waterways

Farmland Bounty & Natural Riches

Australian Flora: Unique & Unexpected

The Forests & Fields

The Deserts

Australian Wildlife: Weird & Wonderful

Brilliant Bird Life

Bugs, Grubs, & Spiders

Turtles, Snakes, & Crocs

Other Water Creatures

National Parks & Protected Areas

The Australians

The People

Crazy for Sports

Australian Arts

Poets & Writers

Visual Arts

On the Stage & Big Screen

Theater

Movies

Australian Music

The Australian Palate

Distinctly Aussie Cuisine

Down the Hatch

Getting Here & Getting Around

Getting to Australia

By Air

From North America

From Europe

From Africa

From Asia

Connections with China

Connections with India

Connections with Indonesia

Connections with Malaysia & Singapore

To Antarctica

By Sea

Cruise Ships

Getting Around Australia

By Air

Major Airlines

Regional Airlines

Charter Airlines

By Sea

Cruise Ships

By Train

By Road

Buses

Driving

Basic Road Rules

Car Seats for Children

Major Preparations

Car Rentals

Other Helpful National Resources

Motorcycles

Biking

Travel Information

General Information

Addresses & Phone Numbers

Banking

Businesses, Shops, & Attractions

Climate

Credit Cards

Currency & Exchange

Customs

Disabled Travelers

Health & Safety

Internet

Language & Manners

Lodging

Major Hotels, Motels, & Resorts

Apartment Rentals

Home Exchanges

Bed-&-Breakfasts & Guesthouses

Hostels & Budget Accommodations

Camping

Mail & Postal Services

News

Shopping

Taxes

The Tourist Refund Scheme

The Mysterious VAT

Telephones

Cellphone Rentals

Time Zones

Tipping

Visa Requirements

Embassies & Consulates in Australia

Voltage

Whom to Contact

Australian Tourism Authorities

State Tourism Boards

City Information

Websites

Queensland

Brisbane & the South

The Land

Flora & Fauna

Getting Here

By Air

Airports

By Sea

Brisbane

Townsville

Cairns

Getting Around

By Air

Airports

The Mainland

The Islands

By Water

Ferries & Water Taxis

Brisbane

By Rail

Interstate Lines

Main City Stations

Trains

Local Lines

By Road

Driving

Rental Agencies

Taxis

Buses

Local Buses

Brisbane

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast

Bus Stations

Information Sources

National Parks & Natural Areas

Other Helpful Local Resources

Adventures in Queensland

In the Air

Flightseeing

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

Around Bundaberg

Fraser Island

Rockhampton

The West - Longreach

By Helicopter

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast

The West - Longreach

By Hot Air Balloon

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

On Foot

Bushwalking

Around Brisbane - Brisbane Forest Park

Main Range National Park

The Gold Coast

Tamborine Mountain National Park

Springbrook National Park

Lamington National Park

The Sunshine Coast

Conondale National Park

Kondalilla Falls National Park

Mapleton Falls National Park

The Glass House Mountains

Around Rockhampton

Blackdown Tableland National Park

Lark Quarry Environmental Park

The West

West of Brisbane - Sturt Stony Desert National Park

West of Rockhampton - Simpson Desert National Park

Beach Walking

Around Brisbane

The Stradbroke Islands

The Gold Coast

Fraser Island National Park

Great Sandy National Park

Sandboarding

Fossicking

South of Brisbane -The Sunshine Coast

The South Burnett Region

Around Rockhampton

Mt. Hay Gemstone Park

Mt. Morgan

Namoi Hills Cattle Station

West of Rockhampton

Sapphire Gemfields

Rubyvale

Sapphire

The West

Around Quilpie

Spelunking

Around Brisbane

Cedar Creek Estate Glow Worm Caves

Around Rockhampton

Mt. Etna Caves National Park

Capricorn Caves

Wildlife Watching

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast & North

Tin Can Bay

Around Hervey Bay

Mon Repos Conservation Park

Around Gladstone

Heron Island

Around Rockhampton

By Camel

Around Brisbane

The Sunshine Coast

Around Hervey Bay

Around Rockhampton

The West

Around Longreach

On Horseback

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast & North

Around Hervey Bay

Susan River Homestead

The Noosa Heads Area

Gladstone

Around Rockhampton

The West

Around Longreach

On Wheels

Bicycling & Mountain Biking

Brisbane

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions

Around Brisbane

The Moreton Bay Islands

Moreton Island

The West

West of Rockhampton

The Birdsville Track

By Rail

Great Rail Journeys

Brisbane

The Gold Coast

Beaudesert

Beenleigh

Ipswich

Murwillumbah

The Sunshine Coast & North

Bundaberg

Rockhampton

On the Water

Boating & Sailing

Cruises

Brisbane

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

The Stradbroke Islands

The Sunshine Coast

Around Agnes Water

Eurimbula National Park

The West

Around Longreach

Bundaberg

Sundown National Park

Surfing

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

Around Surfers Paradise

Around Coolangatta/ Tweed Heads

The Sunshine Coast

Around Noosa Heads

Around Bundaberg

Around Agnes Water

Around Rockhampton

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

Around Brisbane

Toowoomba

The Moreton Bay Islands

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast

Around Mooloolaba

Laguna Bay

Around Noosa

Hervey Bay

Dive Areas Farthern North

Agnes Water/Town of 1770

Around Bundaberg

Lady Musgrave Island

Lady Elliot Island

Around Gladstone

Heron Island

Around Rockhampton

The Keppel Islands

Cultural Excursions

Around Brisbane

The Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast

Around Rockhampton

The West

Station Tours

The National Parks

Carnarvon National Park

Sightseeing

Brisbane

City Tours

Around Brisbane

Along the Gold Coast

Southwest of Brisbane

The Sunshine Coast

Around Caloundra

Maroochy

Inland Towns

Noosa Heads

Hervey Bay

Bundaberg

Agnes Water/Town of 1770

Gladstone

Rockhampton

Yeppoon

Highways West of Rockhampton

Barcaldine

Longreach

Winton

Kynuna

Central Queensland & the Great Barrier Reef

Getting Here & Around

By Air

Regional Airlines

Local Airlines

Main Airports

By Water

Cruise Ships

Ferries & Water Taxis

From Airlie Beach

The Whitsunday Islands

From the Ingham Area

From Mackay - Brampton Island

From Mission Beach - The Family Islands

Magnetic Island

By Rail

Trains

By Road

Driving

Buses

Local Buses

Information Sources

Local Tourism Boards and Travel Offices

The Coast & Islands

The West

National Parks and Natural Areas

Adventures in Central Queensland

By Air

Flightseeing Tours

Around Airlie Beach

Around Mackay

Around Townsville

Around Mission Beach

The West

On Foot

Bushwalking

Around Airlie Beach - Conway National Park

Conway State Forest

Around Mackay - Eungella National Park

Around Mission Beach

Licuala State Forest

Around Townsville - Bowling Green Bay National Park

The West

Around Mt. Isa - Boodjamulla National Park

Beach Walking

Around Airlie Beach

Around Mackay - Cape Hillsborough National Park

Around Townsville

Rock Climbing & Abseiling

Spelunking

Around Mt. Isa - Camooweal Caves National Park

Fossicking

Around Mackay

Around Hughenden - Chudleigh Park

Mt. Emu Goldfields

Around Mt. Isa

Boodjamulla National Park

Around Winton

Wildlife Watching

Around Airlie Beach - Barefoot Bushman's Wildlife Park

Edmund Kennedy National Park

Around Ingham - Girringun National Park

Mt. Spec National Park

Paluma Range National Park

Around Innisfail

Around Mackay - Illawong Sanctuary

Around Mission Beach - Clump Mountain National Park

Around Townsville - Town Common Conservation Park

Billabong Sanctuary

On Horseback

Around Airlie Beach

Around Mackay

Around Townsville

The West - Around Mt. Isa

On Wheels - Scenic Drives

Around Cardwell - Cardwell Forest Drive

Around Townsville - The Great Green Way

Around Winton - The Opalton Track

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions

Around Mt. Isa

On the Water

Boating & Sailing - From Airlie Beach

Day Trips

Overnight Cruises

From Mackay

From Mission Beach

Around Townsville

Kayaking

From Airlie Beach

From Mission Beach

From Townsville

Around Mt. Isa

Rafting

Around Airlie Beach

Around Mission Beach

Around Townsville

Surfing

Around Townsville

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

Around Airlie Beach - Day Trips

Overnight Dive Trips

Dive Certification Trips

Around Mackay

Around Mission Beach - Day Trips

Overnight Trips

Around Townsville - Day Trips

Cultural Excursions

Around Mackay

Greenmount Historic Homestead

Around Mission Beach

Echo Adventure & Cultural Centre

Jumbun

Around Townsville

The West

Around Mt. Isa

Kajabbi

Tour Companies

The Great Barrier Reef Islands

From the Air 

Flightseeing - Offshore of Airlie Beach - The Whitsunday Islands

Hot Air Balloon

On Foot

Bushwalking

Offshore of Airlie Beach

The Lindeman Islands - Lindeman Island

Long Island

The Molle Islands

Offshore of Mission Beach - Dunk Island

Hinchinbrook Island

Beach Walking

Offshore of Mackay - The Cumberland Islands

Offshore of Townsville - Magnetic Island

By Camel & Horseback

Offshore of Mission Beach

Offshore of Townsville

On Wheels

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions - Hamilton Island

Magnetic Island

On the Water

Cruising & Sailing

Daydream Island

Hamilton Island

Hinchinbrook Island

The Palm Islands

Offshore of Townsville

Magnetic Island

Kayaking

Offshore of Airlie Beach - The Whitsunday Islands

Offshore of Mission Beach - Dunk Island

Offshore of Townsville - Magnetic Island

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

Offshore of Airlie Beach - The Whitsunday Islands

Offshore of Mission Beach - Bedarra Island

Dunk Island

Orpheus Island

Offshore of Townsville - Magnetic Island

Sightseeing

Around Mackay

The South - Around Airlie Beach

The Central Coast

Townsville

Inland from Townsville

Ravenswood

Charters Towers

Hughenden

Richmond

Toward Mt. Isa

Cloncurry

Mt. Isa

Other Sights

Camooweal

North of Townsville

Ingham

Cardwell

Tully

Around Mission Beach - Mission Beach

Innisfail

Where to Eat

The Coast

Airlie Beach

Mackay

Mission Beach

Townsville

The West

Mt. Isa

Offshore of Airlie Beach - The Whitsundays

Hamilton Island

Hayman Island

Offshore of Townsville

Where to Stay

The Central Coast

Hotels, Resorts & Lodges

Around Airlie Beach

Around Mackay

Around Mission Beach

Around Townsville

Mt. Isa

Apartments & Houses

Houseboats

Around Ingham

Pubs & Roadhouses

Around Mackay

Around Townsville

Around Mt. Isa

Stations, Farmstays, & Homesteads

Around Mackay

Around Mission Beach

Around Charters Towers

Around Mt. Isa

Bed-and-Breakfasts & Guesthouses

Airlie Beach

Around Mackay

Mission Beach

Around Townsville

Mt. Isa

The Islands

Hotels & Resorts

Offshore of Airlie Beach 

Hamilton Island

Hayman Island

Hinchinbrook Island

Hook Island

Lindeman Island

Long Island

The Molle Islands

Offshore of Mission Beach

The Family Islands

Daydream Island

Dunk Island

The Palm Islands

Offhore of Mackay

The Cumberland Islands

Offshore of Townsville

Magnetic Island

Bed-and-Breakfasts & Guesthouses

Offshore of Townsville

Magnetic Island

Hostels & Budget Accommodations

Offshore of Townsville

Magnetic Island

Camping

Activities & Entertainment

By Day

The Central Coast

Mackay

Townsville

The Arts

Mt. Isa

By Night

Bars & Clubs

Airlie Beach

Mackay

Townsville

Mt. Isa

Gambling

Townsville

Offshore of Townsville

Shopping

Malls & Markets

The Central Coast - Airlie Beach

Townsville

Malls

Markets

The Islands

All About Australia

The Dreamtime

Imagine a world covered in ice sheets more than a kilometer thick, with the endless forests and fields between them covering a landscape that today is deep underwater. A dry, flat valley connects the Australia mainland with New Guinea to the northeast, and just 45 miles/72 km of sea – rather than some 299 miles/483 km, as it is now – separates the continent's northwestern edge from the southeast coast of Asia. Inland, cool greenery covers what will in eons be the stark red Outback desert, and the very heart of the country is pocketed with vast lakes and wetlands surrounded with lush, windswept fields. This was Australia 60,000 years ago, in the time of the first Aborigines.

What brought these first dark-skinned, wiry-haired, bony-limbed humans to the continent is a mystery, but the abundance of food kept waves of humans migrating south. The original settlers first camped along the islands and north coasts near Darwin, then worked their way down the east coast near Sydney over the next 15,000 years. Slowly, tribes moved farther down the continent, finally reaching the south coast near Melbourne about 40,000 years ago, and even Tasmania by around 28,000 BC.

The new cultures thrived on this freshly-carved continent, living nomadic lives that took little from the land and flourished in both tropical and desert environments. Tribes were adept at the arts, painting hundreds of images along sheltered rock overhangs and in shallow caves, where the earliest, simple scenes of families and hunters gradually expanded to include kangaroos, thylacines, boomerangs, spears, and even the surrounding foliage. More than 500 Aboriginal groups existed throughout Australia, most with their own language or dialect. Each culture's traditions and events were preserved through songs, stories, and finely-honed rock etchings and paintings. The tribes also appointed themselves caretakers of the earth around them, their art and rituals recording specific characteristics of the land and creatures under their domain.

And to survive in what was quickly becoming one of the world's harshest environments, the Aborigines created an innovative array of tools for hunting and building. The most unusual was the boomerang, a flat, curving piece of wood thrown outward to knock out game. Smaller weapons were flung at small prey such as birds. They returned to the hunter in a full circle if he missed. Bigger, heavier boomerangs, which were often carved and painted with intricate designs, were used to stun larger prey like kangaroos. The tribes also used axes, javelins, and woomeras, long attachments that extended the range of their spears. Nets were woven to trap wallabies, wombats, and smaller game. Dingos were domesticated and taught to chase down kangaroos, or to search for such burrowing game as wombats.

Everyone participated in finding bounty on the earth. Women gathered bush raisins and bush tomatoes (fruits and berries from desert plants). Seeds were stone-ground into flour, mixed with moisture into a pasty dough, and cooked over the fire. Water was found at billabongs, by tapping into underground streams, and by cutting into the hollow roots of moisture-rich shrubs and trees. Certain types of frogs, which lived deep underground in drought times, were eaten for the moisture stored in their bodies. Small, sharp sticks were whittled to dig plump white, protein-rich witchetty grubs from the earth, while longer sticks helped reach into termite and ant mounds, or dig up deep-set plants with edible roots. The land was regularly burned to create new pastures, where fresh plants would grow and grazing animals could be easily hunted.

The Explorers

To outsiders, the Australian continent was sheer enigma during these eras, and most of those in the burgeoning cities of Europe and Asia had neither care nor curiosity about its existence. Known only as Terra Australis Incognita, or The Unknown Southern Land, Australia conjured up images of clear, sparkling seas and white, sandy coasts, with snowy mountains and alpine valleys in between. In the 1400s, Portuguese traders made their way along Australia's north and east coasts; their sketches, known as the Dieppe Maps, were crude but accurate clues to the vast continent. In 1606, William Jansz cast off from Java toward the Cape York Peninsula in the Duyfken, and christened the land New Holland. A year later, the Spanish explorer Torres – as in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea – made his way down the Great Barrier Reef.

The Dutch continued to make headway toward mapping the continent, as Dirk Hartog's Eendracht cruised into Shark Bay in 1616, and Francois Pelseart's Batavia cruised toward the western coast in 1629. Abel Tasman wandered along the south coast and Tasmania in 1642, calling his discovery Van Diemen's Land after the governor of the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia). The remote, foreboding spot was turned into a harshly-managed penal colony, and it was 202 years before the island was rechristened in Tasman's namesake to shake off its stigma of death and despair.

In 1688 and 1699, the British arrived on Australia's west coast when pirate William Dampier traversed the shoreline between Carnarvon and Broome on his way north to Indonesia. A scientific expedition in the Pacific Ocean, mounted in 1768 by the British, finally led foreign explorers to actually get a foothold on the Australian continent. Manning the Endeavor was 40-year-old Captain James Cook, who was in charge of an intrepid group of naturalists, scientists, artists, and astronomers employed to record everything they found on their journey. Somehow, even after Dampier's adventure, England had so far missed out on the fact that Terra Australis was no longer a myth. Hence, the crew's mission was to first find the continent, and then to actually dock the boat, get out, and explore for all they were worth.

The team first landed in New Zealand, then made it to the far southeastern tip of Australia, which Cook dubbed Point Hicks. The crew couldn't find a safe landing spot, however, so they headed north along the coast for nine more days until they came to a sheltered spot they named Botany Bay. After a respite to log accounts of the area's strange flora and fauna, the men again headed northwest, this time skimming along the coast parallel to the Great Barrier Reef. The sharp shelves snagged the ship in northern Queensland, however, and the crew was waylaid for six weeks where the settlement of Cooktown now stands. When they finally cast off, the next leg of their journey rounded the northeastern tip of Cape York. Cook anchored off a bit of land he rather greedily dubbed Possession Island, then stuck the Union Jack flag into the ground and claimed the entire territory of Australia for England.

Ignoring the fact that other people might already live on this strange continent, English royalty judged the land to be terra nullius (no one's land), and immediately gathered Australia into their growing flock of colonial countries. Cook's landing points were quickly named, and most still stick today, including Botany Bay near Sydney, the Indian Head bluffs on Fraser Island, Magnetic Island off Townsville, and Cape Tribulation. Cook also bestowed the entire continent with the new name New South Wales, after his homeland. Little more needed to be done to complete his major coup of convincing the world that the Australian continent belonged to the British, and the British alone.

And Cook's adventures didn't end yet, as he continued to explore the east coast of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. Back at home, though, his descriptions of the lush, remote continent had an unexpected effect; rather than sparking visions of a huge resort playground for European rulers, they were instead stirring up thoughts of a convenient criminal outpost. In England, it was an era of war, chaos, and poverty, when – despite there being some 200 offenses legally punishable by death – convicts were overflowing the prisons and bands of thugs were often left to take over the streets. Cook's journey to isolated Norfolk Island in 1774 inspired further ideas for another out-of-the-way penal colony. It didn't take long to gather some of England's worst criminals for an eight-month voyage down under, where they could do little to damage England's shining reputation and growing Asian domain.

The Criminals

Eleven more British ships glided into Australian waters in 1788, bringing tools, goods, and detailed plans for a new settlement at Port Jackson, near where the cosmopolitan world city of Sydney stands today. Cook's original landing point at Botany Bay had lacked water, fertile soil, and adequate moorage for the thousands of passengers expected to disembark here, so a British government team had scouted out the better port six miles/10 km farther northeast. More significantly, the ships also brought the first 759 convicts from England's jam-packed prisons, who were closely watched by 206 guards. The ships that followed brought hundreds more criminals, effectively jettisoning about one-fifth of England's worst outlaws.

Captain Arthur Phillip, the fleet's commander, governed the new Port Jackson colony from 1788 through 1792, during which time more than 160,000 adult and child convicts were sent to the outpost. Irish rebels joined the masses starting in the early 1800s, staging an unsuccessful uprising at a government farm on Castle Hill, on the colony's outskirts. Outside the prison walls, Sydney was a flourishing town of timber homes, wide wharves, and neat brown docks set along rocky shores and backed by mountainous temperate forests. Over the following century, more penal colonies were set up all around the continent's edges, with settlements established at Moreton Bay, near modern-day Brisbane, in 1824; at Albany, Western Australia, in 1827; and at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1830.

The Settlers

Besides the authorities, guards, their families, Asian migrants, and the local Aboriginal tribes, there were few others to fill the country but convicts. Prisoners with good behavior received conditional pardons, which meant they were free but couldn't leave the colony. Those who were granted full pardons were free to pick up and settle down anywhere they liked, and most headed straight for the cities. Others, however, preferred to continue their rogue lives, and headed out to seek their fortunes in the unknown Outback. Many prison colonies were also abandoned and turned into proper settlements soon after they were established, providing secure dwelling places for convicts who were starting new lives.

When the English arrived in Australia, there were already 250,000 to 750,000 Aborigines dwelling in 500 to 650 small groups all over the continent, much like the Native Americans before the British arrived on the east coast of America. Each group had its own language, social customs, and laws, as well as a separate but overlapping territory with neighboring tribes. These generally congenial people still lived in small groups and depended on their natural resources to survive, respecting the ways of outsiders they met and observing strict tribal laws that nurtured and replenished the land. However, during the next century, the British quickly took over these Aboriginal regions, expelling the clans out to the most barren terrain or into slavery on farmlands and plantations.

After 1813, when Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth, and William Lawson finally blazed a trail through the formidable Great Dividing Range, the fertile central riverlands were opened for settlement. So great was the region's farming potential that by 1831 the British government was pushing even its poorest citizens into migration. New towns quickly built up along the best bends and estuaries, with Melbourne established in 1835 and Adelaide planned a year later. The Murray River, Australia's largest and longest waterway, soon became the major crop and wool transport lane in the south.

The Gold-Seekers

In May of 1851, the world changed. Gold was discovered near Bathurst, New South Wales, inciting a flood of hopeful diggers from Sydney to try their luck in the mines.

The lure of riches also attracted many poor Chinese immigrants, who were despised by the locals as competition for what little gold there was.

As workers in Melbourne began disappearing to try their luck in the New South Wales goldfields, the city government offered a reward for anyone who struck gold within 180 miles/300 km of their own settlement. It took just a week for a prospector to turn up gold along the Yarra River, and by September huge lodes had turned up at Clunes and Ballarat, in central Victoria. Over the next decade the population of Victoria rose more than eightfold, from 77,000 to 540,000, while the country as a whole swelled from 400,000 to a million-plus residents.

Much of the gold was tapped out by the 1890s, however, and the sparkling new Outback gold towns quickly dwindled into dusty, delapidated villages. Those who didn't strike gold tried their luck at farming, planting the country's early fruit orchards and berry fields. Today Australia is still a key producer of apples, avocados, bananas, and pineapples, and the country's berries are among the world's best. Surprisingly, in the Mediterranean-like climate of the upper south coast, you'll also find olive groves, tangerine orchards, and asparagus fields.

The Vintners

Something else was going on around this time as well, the beginnings of a massive and important industry which today is a defining character of Australia. The first grape vines were planted by the original First Fleet immigrants, although it wasn't until 1822 that the country's first wine export was sent by a Sydney-area vineyard owner to London. His label won second place in an international wine competition the following year, and Australia's wine industry was born. John and Elizabeth Macarthur opened the country's first commercial vineyard on their Sydney farm in 1827. During the next decade, a swathe of small vineyards were planted in the Hunter Valley, some 120 miles/200 km northeast of Sydney, and the trend spread through Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and even Tasmania in the mid-1800s. Today there are more than 1,000 wineries throughout Australia, and more than 50,000 private vintners. Some 20,000 wine-industry workers live in the country.

The Adventurers

By the mid-1800s, the east coast was settled, the Great Dividing Range was crossed, the southeastern deserts were pitted with mine holes, and the continent's fringes were dotted with quickly-growing towns. With no permanent roads and few rivers, the common methods of travel were by horseback and camel. In fact, camel caravans were the key transport method of moving goods and supplies between the growing cities and goldfields. Throughout the 19th century, lines of 40 pack animals carried up to 1,100 lbs/500 kg each of water, food, clothing, and tools across the desert, including to workers who were building the Trans-Australian Railroad between Port Augusta and Perth.

By the end of the 18th century, once settlers had a foothold on the east coast, the British felt it was time to open up the rest of the country. In 1813, explorers Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth, and William Lawson headed northwest of Sydney to cut a pass through the Blue Mountains. William Hovell and Hamilton Hume headed in the opposite direction, trailblazing