Australia is a country so distant from us that this fact is the only thing that most Russians know about it. The Australian continent once inhabited by European colonists is an amazing place where such strange animals, birds and plants are found, which are not found anywhere else. And many of them are very dangerous – no wonder Australians sometimes joke that everything in Australia creeps, swims or flies, is always ready to kill an unwary tourist.
The Europeans discovered a continent, later called Australia, in the middle of the 17th century. Originally, this land was called New Holland, although the Dutch did not undertake to develop a new territory.
Formally, the supreme ruler of Australia is the British Queen Elizabeth II.
Australia is the only continent on Earth where there is not a single volcano or modern glaciation.
Australia is the world leader in uranium reserves.
The fauna and flora of Australia has about 12,000 species, and 9,000 of them do not occur anywhere else on the planet.
Due to the arid climate in Australia, the use of water is officially restricted – for example, from 10 am to 4 pm, you should not water the grass and paths, and fill the pools. The effect of bans is weakening only during the rainy season.
The Australian island of Tasmania is one of the few places in the world where legally grown opium poppy is used for the production of medicines.
The Australian aborigines are the inventors of one of the oldest wind instruments on the planet – didgeridoo.
The largest cities of the Australian continent, Melbourne and Sydney, for a long time fought for the right to be called the capital of the state. To stop this dispute, the country’s leadership established a new city, specially built as a capital, at the same distance from Melbourne and Sydney. The city was called Canberra.
Australian states in many ways live their own lives: each of them issues their own driver’s license, develops the traffic regulations, sets the date for the transition to winter and summer time, and establishes state holidays. At the same time, the total number of holidays in each state should be the same, otherwise some people in Australia will have more days off than others, and labor laws prohibit it.
The Australian dollar is the first currency in the world, banknotes of which began to be made not of paper, but of plastic. Since then, this initiative was picked up by other countries, for example, Vietnam.
Australians have brought to the rank of a national product an edible mixture based on yeast extract (the most famous brand of such “delicacy” – Vegemite). Stuck, I must say, peculiar.
In Australia it is forbidden to import any vegetation, food, fur, wood, leather products and even land on the soles of shoes. Thus, Australians protect their ecology.
Residents of Australia can not, without good reason, not appear at the elections or evade participation in the census. Infringers face fines of $ 20 and 110 Australian dollars, respectively.
The first Europeans who settled in Australia, were the British expelled from their homeland for crimes. The functions of the first policemen were assigned to 12 criminals with the most positive characteristics.
The colonists from Europe completely destroyed the Tasmanian aborigines.
One of the leaders of the Cabinet of Ministers of Australia went missing while in power: Harold Holt went for a swim in the bay near Melbourne, and no one has ever seen him again.
In Australia, it was recorded a record long road train, moving along local roads – it consisted of a tractor unit with 79 trailers.
In Australia, it is forbidden to breed rabbits, because there are too many fluffy animals on the continent. They had to reduce their livestock with the help of a specially created virus. Note that initially in Australia there were no rabbits at all – they were brought to the continent by Europeans.
In Australia, the series of the children’s animated series “Pig Peppa” was banned, in which the main character became friends with a spider. The authorities considered that teaching children not to be afraid of spiders in a country inhabited by many poisonous species of these animals is not the best idea.
