A little Information about Australia for Maddy, Mrs Yollis and class…
Dear Maddy,
Perhaps I should explain a little more about Australia. Like the U.S.A., it is made up of a collection of states plus some territories. New South Wales is one of its states and its state capital is Sydney. Sydney was the first place of European settlement. 4KM and 4KJ are in the city of Geelong in the state of Victoria.
The First Fleet of ships arrived in Australia in 1788. On board were sailors, soldiers and convicts from England. In their first year of settlement, they had a hard time where starvation was the biggest risk.
The Second Fleet, including a convict relative of mine, arrived in 1789. Slowly the convicts started to find ways of growing food. When they had first arrived, a few had farming skills but probably had trouble adapting to the different times of year for seasons. We have winter in the middle of the year.
At the time of these fleets, maps of Australia showed only two parts. The western half was known as New Holland because of early Dutch explorers. The eastern half was known as New South Wales (NSW). The large island below New South Wales was known as Van Diemans Land.
As colonies were founded in other areas, the scene was set for new states to be made. Melbourne became the capital city of Victoria (Vic) as the state separated from NSW. Van Diemans Land became the state of Tasmania (Tas) with Hobart as its capital. The north east of NSW became the state of Queensland (Qld) with Brisbane as its capital. In the central areas of Australia, the southern area became the state of South Australia (SA) with Adelaide as its capital and the northern section became the Northern Territory (NT) with Darwin as its capital. The remainder of what was left of New Holland became the state of Western Australia (WA) with its capital city of Perth.’
Each state had it’s own government. Each was a separate British colony. Finally they decided something had to be done to unite the colonies. At first, Fiji and New Zealand were also part of the process but later dropped out and became nations in their own right. Those remaining agreed on a deal to form the Commonwealth of Australia, Australia became a nation January 1, 1901. This means Australia has only been a nation for 112 years.
The states were having problems agreeing on where the nation’s capital should be. Victoria felt it should be Melbourne as it was the first city in Australia and had hosted meeting to allow our federation. New South Wales thought it should be Sydney as it was the place of first European settlement. A compromise was reached.
The site for the capital of Australia was chosen as a section of New South Wales approximately half way between Sydney and Melbourne. This happened in 1908. Land was selected to be the new territory known as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). When construction of the new capital started in 1913, the land was mostly sheep properties yet today the ACT is dominated by Australia’s capital city, Canberra.
If you can follow all of this, it means Australia is made up of…
Six states: New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia
Two main territories: Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory
On the rough map, if you can see the red dot, it shows where my town is approximately located.
The small blue dot near the “i” in Vic is the approximate location of Geelong. It would take me 7 to 8 hours to drive to Geelong from my town.
Have a look at the Australian flag…
The crosses in the corner make up the Union Jack. This is the flag of the United Kingdom. It’s on our flag as we are part of the British Commonwealth of nations just as New Zealand is. On the right is a small group of 5 stars known as the Southern Cross. They can always be seen in our skies and became a symbol of our nationality. The largest star under the Union Jack is known as the Federation Star. It has seven points. Six points each represent a state while the seventh point is for all of the territories.
The National anthem of Australia is known as “Advance Australia Fair“. If you click on the flag it will start up a new tab and take you to a You Tube clip of our national anthem with the lyrics.
I hope you have found this interesting. I do sometimes write too much in my comments. 
