Across Oceania

AUSTRALIA

Australia is the sixth largest country in the world but has the lowest population density in the world: only 2 people per square kilometre. Australia’s coastline stretches almost 50,000 kilometres and is linked by over 10,000 beaches, more than any other country in the world.

The iconic kangaroo is unique to Australia and one of our most easily recognised mammals. There are an estimated 40 million kangaroos in Australia, more than when Australia was first settled. Australia developed a unique fauna when it broke away from the super-continent Gondwana more than 50 million years ago. Today, Australia is home to a wealth of wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. Australia also supports at least 25,000 species of plants, compared to 17,500 in Europe. That includes living fossils like the Wollemi pine and the grass tree, and brilliant wildflowers.

Since 1945 more than six million people from across the world have come to Australia to live. Today, more than 20 per cent of Australians are foreign born and more than 40 per cent are of mixed cultural origin. Believed to be the world’s oldest civilization, Aboriginal people have lived and thrived on this continent for more than 50,000 years.  Aboriginal societies made many unique advances long before the Europeans arrived. They invented the aerodynamic boomerang and a type of spear thrower called the woomera. They were also the first society to ground edges on stone cutting tools and the first to use stone tools to grind seeds, everyday tools developed only much later by other societies.

Australia offers a huge range of travel experiences that goes far beyond your dreams …