Spectacular Australia

Fülszöveg

Australia is a vigorous young nation astride an
ancient continent. Remnants of the earliest geo-
logical forms, indeed, the earliest forms of life,
have been found there. It is uncertain how long
Australia's Aborigines have inhabited the land,
though the latest evidence suggests up to 80,000
years. Europeans arrived little more than 200
years ago in what was to become the furthest
mass migration in history. They found this vast,
parched land, the flattest and driest continent,
alien and unforgiving, but intriguing and beauti-
ful nonetheless.
Spectacular Australia is revealed here in 200
splendid color photographs, including panor-
amic gatefolds, by some of the most distin-
guished Australian photographers. They have
captured, state by state, the variety, contrast, and
vivid colors of this sun-baked landscape and its
inhabitants. The Great Barrier Reef, with its
jewel-like cays and living reefs, is the biggest
coral reef on the planet, stretching 2,000 kilo-... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Australia is a vigorous young nation astride an
ancient continent. Remnants of the earliest geo-
logical forms, indeed, the earliest forms of life,
have been found there. It is uncertain how long
Australia's Aborigines have inhabited the land,
though the latest evidence suggests up to 80,000
years. Europeans arrived little more than 200
years ago in what was to become the furthest
mass migration in history. They found this vast,
parched land, the flattest and driest continent,
alien and unforgiving, but intriguing and beauti-
ful nonetheless.
Spectacular Australia is revealed here in 200
splendid color photographs, including panor-
amic gatefolds, by some of the most distin-
guished Australian photographers. They have
captured, state by state, the variety, contrast, and
vivid colors of this sun-baked landscape and its
inhabitants. The Great Barrier Reef, with its
jewel-like cays and living reefs, is the biggest
coral reef on the planet, stretching 2,000 kilo-
meters along the continental shelf off
Queensland. The massive, glowing monoliths
that rise from the ochre soil and mulga scrub of
the Red Centre in the Northern territory con-
trast sharply with the snow-capped peaks and
frozen lakes in the rain-soaked wilderness of
Tasmania. The plains at the foot of the eastern
highland range, the Great Divide, are lush,
green, and fertile; not so the scorched stone and
sandy deserts of the interior and its crystalline
white salt lakes. When the great river systems of
the northwest flow, they flood, breaking their
banks to inundate the landscape and then just as
quickly evaporate to a parched trickle and,
finally, dry beds.
Many of Australia's animals and plants are also
guite unique. If the kangaroo, platypus, and
koala are now familiar, countless others were
strange enough to prompt the great naturalist
Charles Darwin to ponder again upon the origin
of the species during his 19th-century visit.
Much of Australia's natural grandeur remains
relatively undisturbed, despite pockets of deve-
lopment, cultivation and grazing on a vast scale,
and timber felling and mining. Large national
parks in all states—and the meager rainfall of the
hinterland—have helped protect its wild and
diverse landscapes. Though sparsely populated,
it remains, paradoxically, one of the most urba-
nized nations. Western Australia, for example, a
state almost the same size as India, has a popula-
tion of barely 1.5 million, a million of whom live
in Perth, the state capital. The whole continent is
comparable in size with the United States, but
the vast majority of its 18 million people cling to
coastal cities, mainly along the eastern seaboard. Vissza