Winters, on the other hand, can be miserable, particularly in Victoria, where the short days add to the gloom. Head inland, and the temperatures rise further. You’ll find reliably warm summers at the coast with regular, but brief, heatwaves in excess of 40☌. However, Outback mainstays of mining and cattle ranching are not famed for their tolerance of homosexuality, so tread carefully in remote destinations. Melbourne closely follows, but there are scenes in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and to a lesser extent in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin.Īway from the cities, things get more discreet, but a lot of country areas do have friendly local scenes – impossible to pinpoint, but easy to stumble across. Famous as one of the world’s great gay cities, it attracts LGBTQ visitors from around the world. Sydney is the jewel in Australia’s navel. Visit Australia and experience the two big natural attractions: the 2000km-long Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast, with its complex of islands and underwater splendour, and the brooding monolith of Uluru (Ayers Rock), in the Northern Territory’s Red Centre. These are just some of the top places to go in Australia.īoth options provide thoroughly Australian experiences, but either will leave you with a feeling of having merely scraped the surface of this vast country. With an expanse of places to visit, Australia’s tourism means that you could spend months driving around the Outback, exploring the national parks, or hanging out at beaches or you could take an all-in, two-week “Sydney, Reef and Rock” package, encompassing Australia’s outstanding trinity of must-sees. Around 22 percent of Australians are descended from convicts.įor visitors, deciding where to go can mean juggling distance, money and time.
Australia ranks proudly ranks second in the Human Development Index, which measures a country’s progress by its life expectancy, education and income.It’s around twice the length of the Great Wall of China. At 5614km the dingo fence is the longest in the world, stretching from Jimbour to the cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain.Australia’s main exports are minerals, metals, fossil fuels, cotton, wool, wine and beef, and its most important trading partners are Japan, China and the USA.Only six percent of the country rises above 600m in elevation, and its tallest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, is just 2228m high. One-third is desert and another third steppe or semi-desert. About 92 percent are of European origin, two percent Aboriginal, and around six percent Asian and Middle Eastern. Australia’s population is estimated at just over 22 million, of whom some 85 percent live in urban areas.With an area of just over 7.5 million square kilometres, Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world.