South Australia 150 New South Wales & Australian Capital Territory 7 Contents Introduction 4 Victoria 44 Regional map 5 Tasmania 186 Western Australia 112 New South Wales & Australian Capital Territory 6
Victoria 44
Queensland 76
Western Australia 112
Northern Territory 222 Queensland 76 South Australia 150
Tasmania 186
Northern Territory 222
Photo captions 258
Index 270
Acknowledgements 272
Beautiful World Australia 2 ra ra Sea
T or Sea o t orra a le # #^ # o e e la # a a at o al ar # orth erle t h el ar e ar at o al ar # # Australia #] t l at o al ar Such is Australia’s scale that it can be snowing at one end of the country while daytime Katherine l o S T ar e tar a oral Sea Rossville temperatures may be tropical at the other. In the hours that it takes to fly across its 8.6m sq #\ eo ol reat arr er ee a tree at o al ar # a e T el ree # o t ll a # # km area (or the four days if you take the Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin), you’ll pass over at o al ar # r l l # ooroo oora at o al ar # a a or e at o al ar Broome #\ vast deserts, forests, mountains, gorges and lakes. It is, after all, a continent. at o al ar NORTHERN rr at o al ar # Forty five million years ago, Australia split from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana TERRITORY # o te ello la T e l ar le # h t a la ar e e er e S and remnants of that land’s fauna and flora evolved into the unique Australian species that # S T #\ Mackay you see today – quokkas in Western Australia, quolls in Tasmania. Tracts of forest that date a o ell a e aloo # atarr a ## #] ar e ar at o al ar Alice Springs back to the era of the dinosaur survive in several locations. # S o a QUEENSLAND S ata But, as art critic Robert Hughes wrote in The Fatal Shore, his seminal account of Australia’s S T T ta ## # l r
founding, ‘Australia is not, to me, a picturesque little country full of cute marsupials at the WESTERN AUSTRALIA reat Sa Monkey Mia #\ # at o al ar