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Australia Travel: World
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Although Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent, Australia travel is anything but boring. Australia’s first colonial contact with Europe brought scores of convicts from London and various parts of England... in later years settlers came to farm and start a new life. Modern Australia has evolved greatly since those early colonial days, and still boasts a thriving Indigenous culture. Offering everything from fine dining and shopping, to rainforest tours and outback adventures, travel in Australia has something for everyone. When traveling, a good Australia travel guide can be a useful source for consultation and advice.
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Australia is the world's smallest continent but sixth-largest country; it's slightly smaller than the 48 contiguous United States. The highly urbanised population is heavily concentrated along the eastern and south-eastern coasts. Australia is bordered on the northwest, west, and southwest by the Indian Ocean, and on the east by the South Pacific Ocean. The Tasman Sea lies to the southeast, while the Great Barrier Reef lies to the northeast. Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Indonesia are Australia's northern neighbors, separated from Australia by the Arafura Sea and the Timor Sea.
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Founded in 1788 as a British convict colony, Australia was a place of banishment until gold strikes in 1851 opened floodgates of immigration. Independence came in 1901, with a constitution adapted in part from that of the United States. Immigration has been key to Australia's development since 1788; from 1945 through 2000 almost six million immigrants arrived. Aborigines number 410,000, and the government is making efforts to settle aboriginal land rights. Australia has one of the world's highest living standards with 85 percent living in urban areas.
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To travel and tour in Australia is like no other country in the world. Your Australian vacation will be the most memorable of your life. Live an Australian adventure with an itinerary including Sydney and its opera house, The Hunter valley with its Australian Wines, Queensland with its island resorts, the Gold Coast with its theme parks and fabulous beaches, the Sunshine Coast and Noosa with Steve Irwin's wonderful Australia zoo.
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The continent of Australia was apparently first settled more than 40,000 years ago with successive waves of immigration of Aboriginal peoples from south and south-east Asia. With rising sea levels after the last Ice Age, Australia became largely isolated from the rest of the world and the Aboriginal tribes developed a variety of cultures, based on a close (spiritual) relationship with the land and nature, and extended kinship. Australian aborigines maintained a hunter/gatherer culture for thousands of years in association with a complex artistic and cultural life - including a very rich 'story-telling' tradition. While the 'modern impression' of Australian Aborigines is largely built around an image of the 'desert people' who have adapted to some of the harshest conditions on the planet (equivalent to the bushmen of the Kalahari), Australia provided a 'comfortable living' for the bulk of aborigines amongst the bountiful flora and fauna on the Australian coast - until the arrival of Europeans.
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Australia Post is the government's postal service. Most suburbs will have at least one post office. A standard letter or postcard sent within Australia will cost $0.50. Internationally, it costs $1.25 (to other Asia-Pacific countries) or $1.85 (rest of the world). It is ... possible to send things as parcels or by express mail.
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