Adelaide & South Australia Travel Adventures

Adelaide & South Australia

Holly Smith

HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC.

www.hunterpublishing.com

E-mail comments@hunterpublishing.com

IN CANADA:

Ulysses Travel Publications

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© 2009 Hunter Publishing, Inc.

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This guide focuses on recreational activities. As all such activities contain elements of risk, the publisher, author, affiliated individuals and companies disclaim any responsibility for any injury, harm, or illness that may occur to anyone through, or by use of, the information in this book. Every effort was made to insure the accuracy of information in this book, but the publisher and author do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any liability for loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, misleading information or potential travel problems caused by this guide, even if such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause.

Contents

All About Australia

The Dreamtime

The Explorers

The Criminals

The Settlers

The Gold-Seekers

The Vintners

The Adventurers

The Rebels

The Citizens

The Soldiers

The Australians

Six States, Two Territories, & Many Islands

Surrounding Properties

The Government

The Land

A Moving Puzzle

A Vast & Barren Core

Refreshing Waterways

Farmland Bounty & Natural Riches

Australian Flora: Unique & Unexpected

The Forests & Fields

The Deserts

Australian Wildlife: Weird & Wonderful

Brilliant Bird Life

Bugs, Grubs, & Spiders

Turtles, Snakes, & Crocs

Other Water Creatures

National Parks & Protected Areas

The Australians

The People

Crazy for Sports

Australian Arts

Poets & Writers

Visual Arts

On the Stage & Big Screen

Theater

Movies

Australian Music

The Australian Palate

Distinctly Aussie Cuisine

Down the Hatch

Getting Here & Getting Around

Getting to Australia

By Air

From North America

From Europe

From Africa

From Asia

Connections with China

Connections with India

Connections with Indonesia

Connections with Malaysia & Singapore

To Antarctica

By Sea

Cruise Ships

Getting Around Australia

By Air

Major Airlines

Regional Airlines

Charter Airlines

By Sea

Cruise Ships

By Train

By Road

Buses

Driving

Basic Road Rules

Car Seats for Children

Major Preparations

Car Rentals

Other Helpful National Resources

Motorcycles

Biking

Travel Information

General Information

Addresses & Phone Numbers

Banking

Businesses, Shops, & Attractions

Climate

Credit Cards

Currency & Exchange

Customs

Disabled Travelers

Health & Safety

Internet

Language & Manners

Lodging

Major Hotels, Motels, & Resorts

Apartment Rentals

Home Exchanges

Bed-&-Breakfasts & Guesthouses

Hostels & Budget Accommodations

Camping

Mail & Postal Services

News

Shopping

Taxes

The Tourist Refund Scheme

The Mysterious VAT

Telephones

Cellphone Rentals

Time Zones

Tipping

Visa Requirements

Embassies & Consulates in Australia

Voltage

Whom to Contact

Australian Tourism Authorities

State Tourism Boards

City Information

Websites

South Australia

A Brief History

The Land

Flora

Fauna

What to See and Do

Jumping-Off Points

Traveling in South Australia

Getting Here

By Air

Airlines

Airports

By Bus

By Rail

Getting Around

By Air

Airlines

Airports

By Rail

Trains

Trams

Adelaide

The Southeast - The Fleurieu Peninsula

By Road

Buses

Adelaide

Outside of Adelaide

Driving

Car Hire

National Agencies

Local Agencies

Taxis

By Water

Cruise Ships

The Murray River

Kangaroo Island

Information Sources

Local Tourism Boards & Travel Services

Around Adelaide

Along the Murray River

Victoria

National Parks & Adventure Areas

Passes

Offices & Resources

Adventure Tour Companies

Additional Travel Agencies

Other Helpful Local Resources

Banks & Currency

Adelaide

Moneychangers

Emergencies

Hospitals

Clinics

Internet

Mail

Websites

The South & East

Coastal Towns

Kangaroo Island

The North

Adventures in South Australia

Great Beaches

In and Around Adelaide

By Air

Flightseeing

Hot-Air Ballooning

Skydiving

On Foot

Bushwalking

Belair National Park

Morialta Conservation Park

Mt. Lofty

Beach Walking

Marino Cove Conservation Park

Hallett Cove Conservation Park

Onkaparinga River National Park

City Walks

Mountain Climbing

Abseiling & Rock Climbing

Around Adelaide - Morialta Conservation Park

Onkaparinga River National Park

Wildlife Watching

Around Adelaide - The Adelaide Hills

Cleland Wildlife Park

Warrawong Earth Sanctuary

.Port Adelaide

St Kilda Mangroves

The Gorge Wildlife Park

Tours

On Horseback

Around Adelaide

On Wheels

Bicycling

Around Adelaide - The Adelaide Hills

The Mawson Trail

Mount Crawford Forest

The Jacob’s Creek Tour

Wine Country 

The Barossa Valley

The Clare Valley

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions

Scenic Drives

The Adelaide Hills

Torrens Gorge

Motorcycle Adventures

From Adelaide

Great Train Journeys

The Barossa Wine Train

On the Water

Cruising & Sailing Around Adelaide

Marinas

City Tours

Maritime Heritage/Shipwreck Trails

Torrens Lake

North Haven

The East- The Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Along the Murray River

Tours

Kayaking

Around Adelaide - St Kilda Mangroves Aquatic Reserve

Swimming

Adelaide

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

Around Adelaide - Shipwrecks of South Australia

Port Adelaide Ships’ Graveyards

Adelaide’s Underwater Heritage Trail

Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail

Investigator Strait Maritime Heritage Trail

Jervois Basin Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail

Wardang Island Maritime Heritage Trail

Cultural Excursions

Around Adelaide

St Kilda

Holdfast Bay Federation Trail

Kaurna Meyunaa, Kaurna Yerta Tampendi Walking Trail

The Tjilbruke Trail

Warriparinga Wetlands Reserve

Tours

The East

In the Air

Flightseeing

The Barossa Valley

The Murray River

Sailplanes

The Murray River

Helicopter Flights

The Barossa Valley

Hot Air Ballooning

The Barossa Valley

Skydiving

On Foot

Bushwalking

The Heysen Trail

Beach Walking

The Coorong National Park

Abseiling & Rock Climbing

Around Victor Harbour - The Bluff

Spelunking

Naracoorte Caves Conservation Park

Wildlife Watching

The Southeast - Along the Coast - The National Parks

Blue Whale Aggregation Conservation Assessment Region

The Coorong National Park

Wildlife Tours

Around the Towns

Port Adelaide

Victor Harbor

The South Australian Whale Centre

Urimbirra Wildlife Experience

Granite Island Nature Park

Wildlife Cruises

Along the Murray River - Around Berri - Murray River National Park

Blanchtown - Brookfield Conservation Park

Around Murray Bridge - Monarto Zoo

Around Swan Reach - Swan Reach Conservation Park

Yookamurra Earth Sanctuary

Regional Wildlife Tours

Wildlife Cruises

The Southeast - The Coorong National Park

The Northeast - The Flinders Ranges

On Camel

The Southeast - The Fleurieu Peninsula

Black Swamp Wetlands

The Northeast - Sturt National Park

On Camel & Horseback

The Southeast - The Fleurieu Peninsula

The Coorong National Park

The Murray River

The Northeast - The Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions 

Along the Murray River

The Northeast

Simpson Desert Regional Reserve

Simpson Desert Conservation Park

Strzelecki Regional Reserve

Witjira National Park

Tours

Scenic Drives

From Adelaide

The Great Ocean Road

The Southeast

Along the Coast - The Coorong National Park

Blue Lake

Motorcycle Adventures

The East

The Murray River

Swimming

The Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Surfing

The Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

The Southeast - The Coast - The Fleurieu Peninsula

Port Noarlunga Aquatic Reserve

Around Mt. Gambier - Piccaninnie Ponds Conservation Park

The Murray River - The River Boat Trail

Port Elliot Maritime Heritage Trail

Cultural Excursions

The Southeast - Along the Coast

The Coorong National Park

The Murray River

Murray Bridge

Ngaut Ngaut Conservation Park

Wine Country

Wineries

The Barossa Valley

The South: Around Lyndoch

The South: Around Tanunda

The Center: Around Seppeltsfield Road

To the West: Around Marananga

To the East: Around Angaston

Around McLaren Vale

Tours

The Northeast

Flinders Ranges National Park

Yourambulla Caves Historic Reserve

Dreaming Trails Tour

Kanyaka Station

Kangaroo Island

On Foot

Bushwalking

Flinders Chase National Park

Cape Gantheaume Conservation Park

Kelly Hill Caves Conservation Park

Beach Walking

Cape Borda

Flinders Chase National Park

Sandboarding

Little Sahara

Rock Climbing

Remarkable Rocks

Spelunking

Kelly Hill Conservation Park

Wildlife Watching

Seal Bay Conservation Park

Cape du Couedic

Wildlife Tours

On Horseback

On Wheels

Bicycling

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions

ATVs

On the Water

Cruising & Sailing

Kayaking

The Chapman River

Swimming

Surfing

Scuba Diving

Kangaroo Island Maritime Heritage Trail

The North & the West

By Air

Flightseeing

The Far North

From Coober Pedy

The Southwest

The Eyre Peninsula

The Gawler Ranges

On Foot

Bushwalking

Northeast

Flinders Ranges National Park

Tours

Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary

Sandboarding

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Sleaford Sand Dunes

Abseiling & Rock Climbing

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Murphy’s Haystacks

Pildappa Rock

Ucontitchie Hill

Fossicking

The North

Around Coober Pedy

Tours

Andamooka

Spelunking

The Southwest - The Nullarbor - Around Ceduna

Nullarbor National Park

Wildlife Watching

The Far North

Innamincka Regional Reserve

The Eyre Peninsula - Around Ceduna

The Nuyts Archipelago

Around Port Lincoln

Baird Bay

Lincoln National Park

Tours

The Nullarbor

Great Australian Bight Marine Park

The Far Northwest

The Gawler Ranges

Lake Eyre National Park

On Camel

The Far North

Around William Creek

Around Lake Eyre

On Wheels

Bicycling

The Northeast

The Flinders Ranges

Tours

The Far Northwest

The Great Victoria Desert

Four-Wheel-Drive Excursions

The North

Around Coober Pedy

The Far North

The Explorer’s Way

The Oodnadatta Track

Where to Stay

Tours

The Birdsville Track

The Strzelecki Track

The Eyre Peninsula - The Seafood & Aquaculture Trail

The Gawler Ranges

Nullarbor National Park

Yellabinna Regional Reserve

Yumbarra Conservation Park

The Googs Track

Tours

The Far Northwest - The Great Victoria Desert

Great Victoria Desert Nature Reserve

Tallaringa Conservation Park

Tours

Scenic Drives

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

The Seafood & Aquaculture Trail

Cross-State Excursions

On the Water

Boating & Sailing

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Ceduna

Port Lincoln

Tumby Bay

The Far West

The Great Australian Bight - Around Ceduna - St Peter Island Conservation Park

Kayaking

The Far North

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Port Lincoln

Surfing

Innes National Park

Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

The Southwest

Ceduna

Port Lincoln

Whyalla

Sightseeing

Adelaide

A Walk Through History

Natural Explorations

Cultural Pursuits

City Tours

Around Adelaide

Exploring History

Glenelg

Hahndorf

Birdwood

The National Motor Museum

Carrick Hill

Fort Glanville Conservation Park

Old Tailem Town

The East - Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Victor Harbor

The North & The West

The North

Coober Pedy

Tours

Around Coober Pedy

The Breakaways

Around Marla

Mintabie Opal Fields

The Dog Fence

The Southwest - Around the Towns

Port Augusta

Other Attractions

Where to Stay

In Adelaide

Hotels & Resorts

Other Options

Around Adelaide

Wine Country

The Barossa Valley

The Clare Valley & McLaren Vale

Along the Murray River

Murray Bridge - Kangaroo Island

The North & The West

Coober Pedy

Parachilna

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Port Augusta

The Nullarbor

Ceduna

Minnipa

Apartments & Condos

Adelaide

Houseboats & Riverboats

Around Adelaide

The Southeast - Along the Murray River

Farmstays, Homesteads, & Stations

Around Adelaide

The East - Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

The Barossa Valley

The Clare Valley

The West - Southwest

The Eyre Peninsula

Along the Coast - Around Ceduna

St Peter Island

Cabins & Lodges

The Southeast

Along the Coast

Bed-and-Breakfasts and Guesthouses

Around Adelaide

The Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Wine Country

The Clare Valley

Around McLaren Vale

Along the Murray River

Murray Bridge

Kangaroo Island

The North

Coober Pedy

Budget Accommodations & Hostels

Adelaide

Around Adelaide

The Southeast

The Fleurieu Peninsula

Aldinga Beach

Cape Jervis

Kangaroo Island

The North

Coober Pedy

Camping

Around Adelaide

Around the National Parks

Adelaide

The Southeast

The National Parks

Naracoorte Caves Conservation Park

The Murray River

Murray Bridge

The North

Around Lake Eyre

Around Coober Pedy

The West

The Nullarbor

Minnipa

Where to Eat

Food & Tasting Tours

Adelaide

Classic Dining

In Adelaide

Casual Dining

Fun Dining

Around Adelaide

Classic Dining

Casual Restaurants

The Southeast Coast

Wine Country

McLaren Vale

Along the Murray River

Murray River

Casual Restaurants

The Southeast - The Fleurieu Peninsula

Wine Country - The Barossa Valley

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Minnipa

Fun Dining

Wine Country - McLaren Vale

Tours

The Fleurieu Peninsula

The Southwest - The Eyre Peninsula

Port Lincoln

Activities & Entertainment

Resources

Publications

Hotlines

Tickets

Around Adelaide

By Day

The Arts

Galleries

Music & Theatre

Entertainment

Festivals - Wine Country

Sports

Adelaide

By Night

Bars

Casinos & Clubs

Movies

Shows

Kangaroo Island

By Day

The Arts

Family Fun

The North & The West

By Day

Sports

The North - Coober Pedy

Shopping

Around Adelaide

Malls & Markets

Shops & Boutiques

The Adelaide Suburbs

Malls & Markets

Shops & Boutiques

The South Coast

Kangaroo Island

Local Produce

All About Australia

The Dreamtime

Imagine a world covered in ice sheets more than a kilometer thick, with the endless forests and fields between them covering a landscape that today is deep underwater. A dry, flat valley connects the Australia mainland with New Guinea to the northeast, and just 45 miles/72 km of sea – rather than some 299 miles/483 km, as it is now – separates the continent’s northwestern edge from the southeast coast of Asia. Inland, cool greenery covers what will in eons be the stark red Outback desert, and the very heart of the country is pocketed with vast lakes and wetlands surrounded with lush, windswept fields. This was Australia 60,000 years ago, in the time of the first Aborigines.

What brought these first dark-skinned, wiry-haired, bony-limbed humans to the continent is a mystery, but the abundance of food kept waves of humans migrating south. The original settlers first camped along the islands and north coasts near Darwin, then worked their way down the east coast near Sydney over the next 15,000 years. Slowly, tribes moved farther down the continent, finally reaching the south coast near Melbourne about 40,000 years ago, and even Tasmania by around 28,000 BC.

The new cultures thrived on this freshly-carved continent, living nomadic lives that took little from the land and flourished in both tropical and desert environments. Tribes were adept at the arts, painting hundreds of images along sheltered rock overhangs and in shallow caves, where the earliest, simple scenes of families and hunters gradually expanded to include kangaroos, thylacines, boomerangs, spears, and even the surrounding foliage. More than 500 Aboriginal groups existed throughout Australia, most with their own language or dialect. Each culture’s traditions and events were preserved through songs, stories, and finely-honed rock etchings and paintings. The tribes also appointed themselves caretakers of the earth around them, their art and rituals recording specific characteristics of the land and creatures under their domain.

And to survive in what was quickly becoming one of the world’s harshest environments, the Aborigines created an innovative array of tools for hunting and building. The most unusual was the boomerang, a flat, curving piece of wood thrown outward to knock out game. Smaller weapons were flung at small prey such as birds. They returned to the hunter in a full circle if he missed. Bigger, heavier boomerangs, which were often carved and painted with intricate designs, were used to stun larger prey like kangaroos. The tribes also used axes, javelins, and woomeras, long attachments that extended the range of their spears. Nets were woven to trap wallabies, wombats, and smaller game. Dingos were domesticated and taught to chase down kangaroos, or to search for such burrowing game as wombats.

Everyone participated in finding bounty on the earth. Women gathered bush raisins and bush tomatoes (fruits and berries from desert plants). Seeds were stone-ground into flour, mixed with moisture into a pasty dough, and cooked over the fire. Water was found at billabongs, by tapping into underground streams, and by cutting into the hollow roots of moisture-rich shrubs and trees. Certain types of frogs, which lived deep underground in drought times, were eaten for the moisture stored in their bodies. Small, sharp sticks were whittled to dig plump white, protein-rich witchetty grubs from the earth, while longer sticks helped reach into termite and ant mounds, or dig up deep-set plants with edible roots. The land was regularly burned to create new pastures, where fresh plants would grow and grazing animals could be easily hunted.

The Explorers

To outsiders, the Australian continent was sheer enigma during these eras, and most of those in the burgeoning cities of Europe and Asia had neither care nor curiosity about its existence. Known only as Terra Australis Incognita, or The Unknown Southern Land, Australia conjured up images of clear, sparkling seas and white, sandy coasts, with snowy mountains and alpine valleys in between. In the 1400s, Portuguese traders made their way along Australia’s north and east coasts; their sketches, known as the Dieppe Maps, were crude but accurate clues to the vast continent. In 1606, William Jansz cast off from Java toward the Cape York Peninsula in the Duyfken, and christened the land New Holland. A year later, the Spanish explorer Torres – as in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea – made his way down the Great Barrier Reef.

The Dutch continued to make headway toward mapping the continent, as Dirk Hartog’s Eendracht cruised into Shark Bay in 1616, and Francois Pelseart’s Batavia cruised toward the western coast in 1629. Abel Tasman wandered along the south coast and Tasmania in 1642, calling his discovery Van Diemen’s Land after the governor of the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia). The remote, foreboding spot was turned into a harshly-managed penal colony, and it was 202 years before the island was rechristened in Tasman’s namesake to shake off its stigma of death and despair.

In 1688 and 1699, the British arrived on Australia’s west coast when pirate William Dampier traversed the shoreline between Carnarvon and Broome on his way north to Indonesia. A scientific expedition in the Pacific Ocean, mounted in 1768 by the British, finally led foreign explorers to actually get a foothold on the Australian continent. Manning the Endeavor was 40-year-old Captain James Cook, who was in charge of an intrepid group of naturalists, scientists, artists, and astronomers employed to record everything they found on their journey. Somehow, even after Dampier’s adventure, England had so far missed out on the fact that Terra Australis was no longer a myth. Hence, the crew’s mission was to first find the continent, and then to actually dock the boat, get out, and explore for all they were worth.

The team first landed in New Zealand, then made it to the far southeastern tip of Australia, which Cook dubbed Point Hicks. The crew couldn’t find a safe landing spot, however, so they headed north along the coast for nine more days until they came to a sheltered spot they named Botany Bay. After a respite to log accounts of the area’s strange flora and fauna, the men again headed northwest, this time skimming along the coast parallel to the Great Barrier Reef. The sharp shelves snagged the ship in northern Queensland, however, and the crew was waylaid for six weeks where the settlement of Cooktown now stands. When they finally cast off, the next leg of their journey rounded the northeastern tip of Cape York. Cook anchored off a bit of land he rather greedily dubbed Possession Island, then stuck the Union Jack flag into the ground and claimed the entire territory of Australia for England.

Ignoring the fact that other people might already live on this strange continent, English royalty judged the land to be terra nullius (no one’s land), and immediately gathered Australia into their growing flock of colonial countries. Cook’s landing points were quickly named, and most still stick today, including Botany Bay near Sydney, the Indian Head bluffs on Fraser Island, Magnetic Island off Townsville, and Cape Tribulation. Cook also bestowed the entire continent with the new name New South Wales, after his homeland. Little more needed to be done to complete his major coup of convincing the world that the Australian continent belonged to the British, and the British alone.

And Cook’s adventures didn’t end yet, as he continued to explore the east coast of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. Back at home, though, his descriptions of the lush, remote continent had an unexpected effect; rather than sparking visions of a huge resort playground for European rulers, they were instead stirring up thoughts of a convenient criminal outpost. In England, it was an era of war, chaos, and poverty, when – despite there being some 200 offenses legally punishable by death – convicts were overflowing the prisons and bands of thugs were often left to take over the streets. Cook’s journey to isolated Norfolk Island in 1774 inspired further ideas for another out-of-the-way penal colony. It didn’t take long to gather some of England’s worst criminals for an eight-month voyage down under, where they could do little to damage England’s shining reputation and growing Asian domain.

The Criminals

Eleven more British ships glided into Australian waters in 1788, bringing tools, goods, and detailed plans for a new settlement at Port Jackson, near where the cosmopolitan world city of Sydney stands today. Cook’s original landing point at Botany Bay had lacked water, fertile soil, and adequate moorage for the thousands of passengers expected to disembark here, so a British government team had scouted out the better port six miles/10 km farther northeast. More significantly, the ships also brought the first 759 convicts from England’s jam-packed prisons, who were closely watched by 206 guards. The ships that followed brought hundreds more criminals, effectively jettisoning about one-fifth of England’s worst outlaws.

Captain Arthur Phillip, the fleet’s commander, governed the new Port Jackson colony from 1788 through 1792, during which time more than 160,000 adult and child convicts were sent to the outpost. Irish rebels joined the masses starting in the early 1800s, staging an unsuccessful uprising at a government farm on Castle Hill, on the colony’s outskirts. Outside the prison walls, Sydney was a flourishing town of timber homes, wide wharves, and neat brown docks set along rocky shores and backed by mountainous temperate forests. Over the following century, more penal colonies were set up all around the continent’s edges, with settlements established at Moreton Bay, near modern-day Brisbane, in 1824; at Albany, Western Australia, in 1827; and at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1830.

The Settlers

Besides the authorities, guards, their families, Asian migrants, and the local Aboriginal tribes, there were few others to fill the country but convicts. Prisoners with good behavior received conditional pardons, which meant they were free but couldn’t leave the colony. Those who were granted full pardons were free to pick up and settle down anywhere they liked, and most headed straight for the cities. Others, however, preferred to continue their rogue lives, and headed out to seek their fortunes in the unknown Outback. Many prison colonies were also abandoned and turned into proper settlements soon after they were established, providing secure dwelling places for convicts who were starting new lives.

When the English arrived in Australia, there were already 250,000 to 750,000 Aborigines dwelling in 500 to 650 small groups all over the continent, much like the Native Americans before the British arrived on the east coast of America. Each group had its own language, social customs, and laws, as well as a separate but overlapping territory with neighboring tribes. These generally congenial people still lived in small groups and depended on their natural resources to survive, respecting the ways of outsiders they met and observing strict tribal laws that nurtured and replenished the land. However, during the next century, the British quickly took over these Aboriginal regions, expelling the clans out to the most barren terrain or into slavery on farmlands and plantations.

After 1813, when Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth, and William Lawson finally blazed a trail through the formidable Great Dividing Range, the fertile central riverlands were opened for settlement. So great was the region’s farming potential that by 1831 the British government was pushing even its poorest citizens into migration. New towns quickly built up along the best bends and estuaries, with Melbourne established in 1835 and Adelaide planned a year later. The Murray River, Australia’s largest and longest waterway, soon became the major crop and wool transport lane in the south.

The Gold-Seekers

In May of 1851, the world changed. Gold was discovered near Bathurst, New South Wales, inciting a flood of hopeful diggers from Sydney to try their luck in the mines.

The lure of riches also attracted many poor Chinese immigrants, who were despised by the locals as competition for what little gold there was.

As workers in Melbourne began disappearing to try their luck in the New South Wales goldfields, the city government offered a reward for anyone who struck gold within 180 miles/300 km of their own settlement. It took just a week for a prospector to turn up gold along the Yarra River, and by September huge lodes had turned up at Clunes and Ballarat, in central Victoria. Over the next decade the population of Victoria rose more than eightfold, from 77,000 to 540,000, while the country as a whole swelled from 400,000 to a million-plus residents.

Much of the gold was tapped out by the 1890s, however, and the sparkling new Outback gold towns quickly dwindled into dusty, delapidated villages. Those who didn’t strike gold tried their luck at farming, planting the country’s early fruit orchards and berry fields. Today Australia is still a key producer of apples, avocados, bananas, and pineapples, and the country’s berries are among the world’s best. Surprisingly, in the Mediterranean-like climate of the upper south coast, you’ll also find olive groves, tangerine orchards, and asparagus fields.

The Vintners

Something else was going on around this time as well, the beginnings of a massive and important industry which today is a defining character of Australia. The first grape vines were planted by the original First Fleet immigrants, although it wasn’t until 1822 that the country’s first wine export