Photos from the REAL Australia
QUEENSLAND
Queensland, the "Sunshine State", covers 1,727,00 km², almost one-quarter of the continent. It is the country's third most populous state, with a population of about 3,200,000. The capital city is Brisbane. Queensland has the largest Aboriginal population in Australia, most living in rural areas, in communities and on cattle stations. The Torres Strait Islands off the tip of Cape York have a Melanesian population with a distinct culture and there are also Pacific Islanders who were brought here in the 19th and early 20th centuries to work.
Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders probably arrived here between 40,000 and 65,000 years ago. They lived undisturbed until Captain James Cook and his crew sailed past in 1770, naming the Glasshouse Mountains and various islands along the coast. His ship "Endeavour" ran on a reef and was beached to have it repaired on the site where the town of Cooktown was later established. Only 89 years later, on 6 June 1859, Queensland was named after Queen Victoria and made a British Crown Colony, separating it from New South Wales; the date is celebrated state-wide as Queensland Day. A penal colony had been established in Moreton Bay, a place for convicts who had gotten into trouble again while serving out their sentences in New South Wales; this became the core of Brisbane, the State Cpaital. Later free settlement was encouraged and this vast area became the home of farmers, miners and cattlemen, displacing, often violently, the original population.
The Great Dividing Range divides the fertile eastern third of the state from the arid western portion. A vast plain with occasional subdued ranges characterises the western two-thirds. Generally, summer temperatures are high, averaging 31 degrees C in January; winters are mild, with a July average of 11 degrees C. Along the Pacific coast stretches the Great Barrier Reef, the largest in the world. There are fantastic beaches and islands with world class resorts. The coastal plain rises to the tablelands, with waterfalls and forests. And inland, after crossing the Great Dividing Range, is the vast Outback, a world away.
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