Australia Exploration

Sydney is a cosmopolitan, multicultural city surrounded by golden sand beaches, World Heritage areas, lush national parks and acclaimed wine regions. Sydney owes much of its splendor to its magnificent harbor. Arriving by ship provides an unequaled impression, showing off the city’s famous landmarks: the dramatic white sails of the iconic Opera House and the celebrated Harbor Bridge, looming over the skyline.

Located on the south coast of New South Wales where the River Clyde enters the sea, Bateman’s Bay is the closest seaport to Canberra, Australia’s capital. As such, it is a popular weekend getaway for Canberrans, a majority of whom are government employees. The town has always been associated with seafood. The town’s establishment dates to the mid-19th century when Irish immigrants started Australia’s third fish and chips shop there, which still stands today. It soon became a center for the harvesting, and later farming of oysters in the Clyde River estuary. The area is referred to as Australia’s Oyster Coast. Some 90 miles inland lies the Australian Capital Territory, and the planned city of Canberra. Canberra was built starting in 1908, as a compromise to the claims of both Sydney and Melbourne, which were vying to become the national capital. It is one of the few such separate national capital territories, which include Washington D.C and Brasilia. Located on a broad flood plain between a scattering of sub-3,000 foot peaks, Australia’s largest inland city is laid out in a hub-and-spoke design encircling Lake Burley Griffin, formed by damming several meandering creeks and named for the city’s planner. The Parliament Triangle is a wedge of the circle containing the Old and New Parliament, the Anzac Parade and the impressive Australian War Memorial. Like other designed national capitals, Canberra boasts many monuments, arts centers, museums and a pair of major universities.

The city’s candid, friendly character today belies its history as a penal colony. It also enjoyed a heyday as a whaling center in the 1830s. Today the wharfside warehouses of Salamanca Place are filled with shops and restaurants, and the settlers’ cottages in battery park are lovingly restored by proud owners. Tasmania maintains a lot of agricultural heritage, and enjoys a slightly sedate pace of life. See the dazzling new Museum of Old and New Art, which opened in January of 2011.

The city’s candid, friendly character today belies its history as a penal colony. It also enjoyed a heyday as a whaling center in the 1830s. Today the wharfside warehouses of Salamanca Place are filled with shops and restaurants, and the settlers’ cottages in battery park are lovingly restored by proud owners. Tasmania maintains a lot of agricultural heritage, and enjoys a slightly sedate pace of life. See the dazzling new Museum of Old and New Art, which opened in January of 2011.

Portland occupies a peninsula on the southwest coast of Victoria, and is Victoria’s earliest European settlement. The town boasts over 200 buildings from the 19th century, and offers a self-guided Historical Buildings Walk map. A nostalgic Portland Cable Tram runs along the waterfront, and the Maritime Discovery Centre offers insights into the seafaring history including a sperm whale skeleton. The Botanic Gardens is another popular attraction on the tramline, as is the Powerhouse Vintage Car Museum. Cape Nelson State Park has a tall, white lighthouse.

Australia’s third-largest sea island, after Tasmania and Melville Island, is a haven for wildlife and a popular escape for nature-loving mainlanders from Adelaide and Melbourne. Seabourn Sojourn’s call will occur during the annual birthing season of the New Zealand sea lion and Australian fur seal colonies on the nearby beach conservation areas. Marine tours seek the playful porpoises and dolphins offshore, while land-based excursions visit preserves for koalas and wallabies, as well as the popular local wineries.

A well-protected harbor in Boston Bay on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, Port Lincoln is an important port for grain shipment, fishing for bluefin tuna and multi-species aquaculture. It is also proud to call itself Australia’s Seafood Capital. First charted in 1802, it was not truly established until a government subsidized settlement in the 1840s. There are a number of mill and settler’s cottages preserved today, and the eccentric Koppio Smithy Museum holds a centuries-spanning collection of everything from pioneer implements, barbed wire displays and carriages to vintage cars and bicycles. Another specialty museum with a particular focus on Port Lincoln is the Axel Stenross Maritime Museum highlighting the fishing and maritime history with displays and old wooden boats, including some built at the Stenross shipyard. Other attractions of the area range from natural features such as the Whaler’s Way limestone coast, and the Glen Forest Animal Park to snorkeling with sea lions or cage diving with great white sharks. The town also boasts a railway museum and a prominent statue of the graceful thoroughbred Makybe Diva, owned by a local tuna fisherman and the only horse to win the coveted Melbourne Cup three times.

Southern Australia’s most graceful city lies nestled along the coastal plain between the Gulf St. Vincent and the Adelaide Hills. Unlike its eastern Australian city counterparts, convicts did not colonize Adelaide. Europeans, most of whom were British, first settled Adelaide in 1826. Other settlers to the region included German, Polish, Afghan, Chinese, Italian, Lebanese, Spanish and Scandinavians. The city was designed from the very beginning with wide streets and numerous town squares, marvelous Victorian and Edwardian architecture, parks and wide-open spaces. The city preserved many of its unique stone houses built by the original settlers, as well as the more grand historic public buildings constructed during the Gold Rush years.

At the Conservation Centre, view koalas at tree-top level on a skywalk, and attend the sunset “Parade” when Little Penguins waddle from the sea to their nests among the dunes.

Located at the mouth of the Yarra River, Melbourne was founded by free settlers in 1835, 47 years after the first European settlement in Australia. Transformed rapidly into a major metropolis by the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s, Melbourne became Australia’s largest and most important city, and by 1865 was the second largest city in the British Empire. Today, Melbourne is a major center of commerce, industry and cultural activity, and is consistently ranked as one of the most livable cities in the world.

This picturesque town near the border of New South Wales and Victoria was the site of a thriving shore-based whaling industry that depended on the cooperation of orcas, which herded baleen whales into Twofold Bay. Learn about it at the small but informative Killer Whale Museum. The Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre concentrates on smaller sea-life. Ben Boyd’s Tower looms over Disaster Bay in the scenic national park named after the eccentric 19th-century magnate. The town’s name is unrelated to the biblical garden. It was named for George Eden, first Earl of Auckland.

Sydney is a cosmopolitan, multicultural city surrounded by golden sand beaches, World Heritage areas, lush national parks and acclaimed wine regions. Sydney owes much of its splendor to its magnificent harbor. Arriving by ship provides an unequaled impression, showing off the city’s famous landmarks: the dramatic white sails of the iconic Opera House and the celebrated Harbor Bridge, looming over the skyline.