Captain Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy initially landed in Botany Bay on the 18^th January 1788 with crews of 400 seamen, 11 ships and 780 convicts. Having decided this was not a suitable place to make settlement he moved north to Port Jackson and saw what he claimed was one of the world’s greatest natural harbours. And so, he made permanent settlement in Port Jackson and named the settlement Sydney after Lord Sydney, Britain’s home secretary, who was responsible for the colony.

And on this day we celebrate Australia Day!!

So, for my foreign friends, some things you may or may not know about Australia...

As you can see the Australian flag has three distinctive features; the Union Jack, the Southern Cross and the Seven Sided Star.

The Union Jack of course symbolizes our British heritage. Many countries that were and are part of the British Commonwealth have this on their flags.

The Southern Cross is a long term symbol of Australia and is a stand out feature in the southern skies of a night time. It is not a difficult constellation to find as near the bottom left of the “cross” there is a distinct black patch where there are absolutely no stars.

Lastly there is the Seven Sided Star. The points on the star represent the 6 states and 2 territories of our nation. The territories are only represented by one point as there are only 7 sides to the star.

The population of Australia has recently increased to over 21 million people.

We were federated on January 1^st 1901.

Australia is the smallest continent and the 6^th largest country.

Australia generally has a warm climate and is often dry, and as a result of this, we are prone to long periods of drought. The north of the country is quite tropical and experiences monsoonal rains and cyclones in the summer. 

Even though Australia is one of the driest countries, we experience all type of weather conditions; fire, drought, rain, flood, ice and snow, and cyclones as mentioned. Not only that, in some areas we can also get earthquakes, but not as often as other countries such as New Zealand, India/Pakistan and Japan.

Australia has one of the largest coastlines in the world, and also some of the best beaches as well.

Our highest mountain peak is Mount Kosciusko.

Australia was first known as New Holland.

Tasmania was first known as Van Diemen’s Land.

Our northern most point is Cape York Peninsula and our southern most point is Wilson’s Promontory.

The stereotypical dress of the Australian is Stubbies™ shorts, a singlet top with perhaps a checkered flannelette shirt unbuttoned over the top with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of thongs on the feet and a wide brimmed hat with corks hanging around the rim to keep the flies away from the face.     

To celebrate Australia Day, we hold backyard barbecues, after which, there is often a game of cricket or footy. The beach is a popular place for Australians to spend the day. In Sydney Harbour there are tall ship races. Local councils through out the country hold celebrations for the general public to attend with live entertainment, sausage sizzles, face painting, parades and a whole lot more. The end of the day is marked by fireworks displays.

So to my fellow Aussies…

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!