Please enjoy these pictures and links to things Australian. Click on the underlined links to be transported.

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History

The pieces of earth's crust which became Australia took on it's familiar shape around forty to fifty million years ago. Humans have occupied the land for around fifty thousand years.
The Australian coast was first discovered by Dutch sailors in the early 1600's. They accidentally came across the Western Australia coast while looking for a new way to get from Holland to the spice islands. There were many Dutch expeditions to investigate this new southern land, but the coastline was difficult and dangerous to navigate. Much of the top, bottom and one side of the continent were mapped. Van Dieman's Land was discovered, later to be renamed Tasmania.

In 1770 an Englishman, Lieutenant James Cook sailed the Endeavour to Tahiti and then on west to find exactly where the edge of the continent the Dutch had partly discovered lay. The Endeavour was blown north and the mainland of Australia was sighted. Cook sailed further north along the coast and finally landed in a bay he named as "Stingray Harbour" because of the great size and number of it's stingrays. Stingray Harbour was later renamed "Botany Bay".

Seventeen years after the arrival of the Endeavour, the eleven ships of the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay. 759 Convicts and 200 marines were packed into these transport ships. Captain Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy was to govern the new inhabitants of the new land. For over fifty years, American colonists had been buying British convicts as labourers. After the American War of Independence the colonists refused to accept convicts who were now crowded into jails or packed into old ships called hulks. It was decided that Australia would become a British penal colony and the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay in January 1788. (to be continued)

A fun page for a smile, see why so many Australian's are "happy little vegemites".

Visit Victorias wonderful wineries

A great site for anyone interested in surfing

Why not visit Geelong?

Australia's Great Ocean Road is incredibly spectacular and beautiful.

What's the weather like in Australia right now?

A good source of Australian information.

So you want to migrate to Australia?

Learn about Australia's Indigenous peoples.

A guide to Australian travel, holidays, tourism and tourist operators.

Australian music info.

Yahoo's Australian site - search here for more Australian info.

The homepage for Australia's embassy in the US - lots of info here.