Australia

=Interesting Things You Should Know about Australia=

The Eureka Tower in Melbourne, by Adrien
The Eureka Tower was opened on October 11 2006. It's the sixth tallest building in the world. It took four years and two months to build it, and it cost about $500 million.

There are 92 storeys and 3680 stairs. The lifts travel more than nine floors per second.

The Eureka Tower was named after the Eureka Stockade. The Eureka Stockade was when the miners tried to overthrow an unfair government during the Gold Rush in 1854. They didn't win, but the government made changes and it led to the beginning of democracy in Australia.

The gold on the top eleven floors at the top of the tower represents the gold rush, and the red stripe represents the blood shed in the Eureka rebellion.

The whole building weighs about the same as 40,000 elephants.



The Sydney Opera House by James
The Sydney Opera House is one of the most famous buildings in the world. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20th 1973. It cost $102 million to build.

The building is 185 metres long and 120 metres wide. Amazingly it can hold 200,000 people.

The Sydney Opera House was designed by a Danish architect called Jorn Utzon.

[[image:657px-Australia_deserts.JPG width="327" height="300" align="left" caption="Australian Deserts"]]Deserts, by Heela and Lilla
Australia is known for its sandy deserts. Australia has five major deserts and they are:
 * the Simpson Desert
 * the Gibson Desert
 * the Tanami Desert
 * the Great Victoria Desert and
 * the Great Sandy Desert.

[[image:450px-Blue_Linckia_Starfish_great_barrier_reef.jpg width="180" height="240" align="right" caption="Great Barrier Reef"]]The Great Barrier Reef, by Vinogi
Australia is well-known for the largest coral reef in the world, the Great Barrier Reef. This 500,000 year old reef is famous for containing 1500 species of coral,500 species of seaweed,16 species of sea snakes and 6 species of sea turtles, and that's only the beginning! The Grear Barrier Reef is 2600 km long stretching over an are of about 344,400 km long and consistists of about 900 different islands.

Another famous landmark in Australia is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This 39,000 tonne bridge is the widest long span bridge in the world. Taking more that eight years to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 19th of March 1932.

Lake Eyre by Adrien
Lake Eyre was discovered by Edward John Eyre in 1839. It's in the middle of a desert in South Australia. The surface of salt crust covers 9323 Square kilometres. It is the thirteenth biggest saltiest lake in the world: Lake Eyre North is 144km long and 77km wide. In dry seasons there is often very little water in the lake but in wet seasons it floods. Donald Campbell was a British speed record breaker who wanted to record the world's fastest speed on land. In 1963 he tried to test his at Lake Eyre because the surface was bone dry and as hard as concrete. But that year it rained and rained and the floods stopped him from doing it.

All photos on this page are from Wikipedia Commons.