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When you are in
Asia, you will definitely have a make a stop at
Australia which is a famous travel destination
with many top attractions. It is the
biggest island and the smallest continent in
the world and it is located in the Southern Hemisphere.
One of the most popular holiday destinations, it
is a country that is full of awesome and
phenomenal natural wonders. Indigenous Australians known as the
Aborigines were found living here over forty
thousand years ago on some of the most stunning
landscape you will ever find in this country. The eastern part of the
island was claimed by the British when more and
more European explorers made their way to this
region around the 17th century. The
land was claimed by James Cook in
1770 who was responsible for charting the east coast of Australia. When more people arrived, new
areas were being explored and naturally,
additional amazing
panorama were discovered. Australia is the best
place to recharge your batteries and enjoy the
great beauty and its natural surroundings that
abound in this country.
The word Australia,
meaning southern, is derived from the Latin word
'australis' and it was Matthew Flinders who made
famous the name Australia in his work 'A Voyage to Terra Australis'. Australia
covers an area of more than 7.6 million sq km
and has more than 25,000 km of coastline. Ocean
currents have a great effect on the country's
climate and it is also one of the driest and
flattest country in this region since a Photo:
Ayers Rock large
part of the country is desert.
The northern
section of Australia is mainly made up of
rainforest, woodland, grassland and desert with
the world's two largest monoliths, Mount
Augustus and Ayers Rock (Uluru) located in this
country while
seen at its northeast coast is the world's
largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef. Be
awed by the sight of the standing stones at the
Pinnacles Desert or admire the beauty of the
Hamersley Range (Karijini National Park). The mystery that surrounds the
pastel-pink color of Lake Hillier will never be
answered. The landscape found in Australia is
known to have many moods, continuously switching
with the changing weather, the moving hour and
the unfolding seasons.
A diverse variety of
plants ranging from alpine heaths to tropical
rainforests makes it a very unique country. Due
to its different weather patterns, its biota is
diverse and unique, and thus making it major
tourist attraction. Tourists from all over the
world would travel to Australia just to admire
the wonders found here that are truly remarkable
feats of the natural world. The lands and waters
found in this beautiful country contain a rich
natural heritage and varied resource base which
has given rise to a unique identity and pride
that form the basis of the Australian culture.
Photo: Fraser Island
Visitors will have the opportunity to visit some
wild places which are known for their physical
beauty or others for their incomprehensible
vastness. Visit the towering bee hives domes of
Bungle Bungle Mountains or the massive
rock-rimmed crater of Gosse Bluff. Other natural
attractions include Ball's Pyramid, the Breadknife, Fraser Island, Kakadu National Park, Lake Eyre, the Olgas, Port Campbell, Simpson
Desert and Wallaman Falls.
Australia has always
been known as an adventureland since this
amazing country is as accessible as it is vast.
Visitors has long regarded Australia as a place
of exploration because most of its exhilarating
outdoors adventures provide spectacular scenery
and are always challenging to reach. It is also a place
of learning to increase one's knowledge as its natural wonders include some
of Photo: Pinnacles Desert earth's rarest plants and creatures.
The
plants here are evergreen and many are adapted
to fire and drought such as the eucalypts and
acacias while animals such as the cockatoos,
echidnas, emus, kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras,
platypus and wombats has long been associated
with this magnificent country. Cave and bark
paintings of the Aborigines found in caves have
always fascinated the world.
These superb natural
assets and individuality combine to make
Australia one of the world's most intriguing
destination and top travel destination whereby the Australian government
has begin to promote nature tourism to encourage
more tourists to visit this lovely country since
nature tourism is one of the fastest growing
segments of a global travel industry. To protect and preserve Australia's
spectacular ecosystems, numerous world heritage
sites has been established in this country since
it is considered in the interest of the
international community to preserve each site
for future generations of humankind. There are tourists who are contented to view
nature's more extreme spectacles found here from
a distance while others may feel compelled to
savor them at first hand and take up the
challenges they present. Thousands of anglers,
birdwatchers, campers and other outdoor
enthusiasts have since made Australia their number one outdoor activities
destination.
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