AUSTRALIA

Most people love an image of Australia, such as the Opera House or Ayers Rock, but these famous sights don\'t show the country\'s true cultural diversity.Australia offers great travel experiences, from the drama of outback and the spectacle of Sydney and what are probably some of the best beaches in the world. Australia ia an enormous contry, and visitors expecting to see an opera in Sydney one night and meet Crocodile Dundee the next will have to rethink their sense of geography.

ENVIRONMENT

Australia is a vast continent situated south of indonesia and papua new Guinea between the Pacific and Indian oceans. The world\'s sixth largest country, australia measures some four thousand kilometers from north to south. Most of the country is flat desert with very few people.The population lives mainly on the east and south-east coats. Australia has a large number of different plants, including gum tree or eucalypt, wattle, banksia, bottlebrushes, paperbarks and tea trees. Animals include the kangaroo, koala and emu as well as the platypus, wombat and dingo. There are more than five hundred national parks, rainforests, deserts, mountain ranges and coastal beaches,.

HISTORY

Australian Aboriginal society has the longest continous cultural history in the world, with orgins dating back to the last ice Age. It seems almost certain that the first humans came her across the sea to settle in Australia 18th century. Capitan james Cook sailed along the eastern coast in 1770, stoping at Botany Bay on the way. He claimed the continent for the british and named it new South Wales. Other settlers came over to Australia over the next decades, with the discavery of gold in the 1850s and then after world War II.

CULTURE

Australia is a multicultural society. until WW II , Australians were mainly British and Irish, but that has changed dramatically. large immigrations from Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Lebanon and Turkey followed after the war and there have also been more recent arrivals of immigrants speak Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Vietnamese or Turkish as a first language. Sport is the Australian religion and Aussies are leading champions in cricket, rugby, swimming and cycling. Other popular sports are basketball, yachting and soccer. The Olympic Games have been held in sydney in 2000.

PEOPLE

Kylie Minogue is the most popular pop singer to come from Autralia. She once played in the soap opera "Neighbours" together with jason Donovan. Kylie\'s sister Danii also sings but works mainly for british children 's TV programmes. Other famous Australians include members if INXS, singer Nick Cave and the star of braveheart- Mel Gibson.

Australian is also Tom Cruise who is known for example from series of movies "Mission Impossible".