
- Australians are a clever lot. They are responsible for inventing the notepad, aspirin, the pacemaker, the Hills Hoist clothesline, the dual-flush toilet and long-wearing contact lenses, just to name a few.
- Australia has 19 listed World Heritage properties, including the Sydney Opera House, Kakadu National Park and Uluru.
- Australia is the world’s sixth largest country (in area).
- Australia is an island continent. This means that it is completely surrounded by ocean.
- Only 6 per cent of Australian land is suitable for farming.
- 91 per cent of Australia is covered by native plants.
- Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth.
- There are over 300 mines in Australia, mining coal, zinc, silver, gold and more.
- Around 80 per cent of southern Australian marine species occur nowhere else in the world.
- During the gold rush in the 1850s, 60 per cent of all international immigrants to Australia headed straight for the Victorian goldfields.
- Native Australian food is called ‘bush tucker’. Local Aboriginal knowledge of insects and the plants that could supply edible roots, nectar, fruit and greens was essential to the survival of many European settlers and explorers.
- Australians enjoy a day of national celebration on Australia Day which is held on 26 January every year. This date marks the day the First Fleet arrived in Australia in 1788.