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Before white settlement, Aboriginal people survived off the native plants and animals of the Australian environment for thousands of years. Bush foods such as berries, roots and nectars were a vital part of the aboriginal diet in many areas. In the late...

Each year the Sydney Festival offers a rich and diverse program spanning all art forms including dance, theatre, music, visual arts, film, forums and large scale free outdoor events. The National Multicultural Festival is held over two weeks and features...

Protestant and Roman Catholic churches hold Christmas Day services on 25 December. The Eastern churches - the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Russian Orthodox church and the Armenian church - celebrate Christmas on 6 or 7 January. Christmas is the celebratio...

Image courtesy of the National Trust of Queensland, Hou Wang Temple. The businesses in Chinatowns offered accommodation, medicinal herbs, fresh food grown by Chinese market gardeners and groceries. A Chinese school, a language and culture centre and a Ch...

While tools varied by group and location, Aboriginal people all had implements such as knives, scrapers, axe-heads, spears, various vessels for eating and drinking, and digging sticks. Aboriginal people achieved two world firsts with stone technology. T...

Cable Beach, Broome, north-west Kimberley Coast, Western Australia. Most of Australia's population lives close to the coastline and the beach has long occupied a special place in the Australian identity. Based on this definition, the Coastal Studies Uni...

Easter commemorates the resurrection (return to life) of Jesus Christ following his death by crucifixion. Easter eggs are traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday, however stores start stocking Easter treats well before the Easter holiday period. Early on Ea...

As Australia had no native grape varieties suitable for wine-making, grapes were imported from Europe and much of the wine produced was shipped back to the United Kingdom. Early wine production at Lindemans, established in the Hunter Valley (New South Wa...

The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon. In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant James Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Barque Endeavour. Coo...

Eventually, the arrival of people from diverse societies created a cultural diversity that is now an integral part of Australian society and identity. Image courtesy of the Migration Museum, History Trust of South Australia. Migration Museum, History Trus...

The bush has an iconic status in Australian life and features strongly in any debate about national identity, especially as expressed in Australian literature, painting, popular music, films and foods. The bush was revered as a source of national ideals b...

Creating the Canning Stock Route was the answer to a host of challenges presented by the Australian outback. Surveyed and created in the early 1900s, the scale of the Canning Stock Route is epic. John Carty, oral historian and anthropologist from the Au...

J. C. Armytage, Return of Burke and Wills to Coopers Creek, engraving, in Australia by Edwin Carton Booth, opp. Explorers set out to discover rivers and land suitable for agriculture as well as to survey the land. A major expedition usually produced a p...

Many Australians are directly or indirectly involved in farming. For those Australians not involved with farming, the country's recent rural and agricultural history still has strong links to the heritage and culture of Australia. Wheat and other grain ...

Almost all of Australia's native mammals are marsupials. There are only two types of monotreme in the world - the platypus and the echidna - and both of them are found in Australia. Platypuses are found all along the eastern coast of Australia, from Tas...

One of Australia's greatest treasures is her flora - a staggering 24,000 species of native plants have been identified compared to England's 1700 native plants. Australia's native plants vary across the many different natural environments of the country....

Aboriginal dancers telling Dreamtime stories at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. The Dreaming for Australian Indigenous people (sometimes referred to as the Dreamtime or Dreamtimes) is when the Ancestral Beings moved across the land and created life...

With mounting evidence and stories circulating about their seemingly miraculous ability to find people, Aboriginal trackers' abilities became legendary in the minds of white Australians. Paul Raffaele, Aboriginal tracker Teddy Egan and son. The Australi...

It also contains links to sites that may use images of Aboriginal and Islander people now deceased. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are complex and diverse. In Australia, Indigenous communities keep their cultural heritage alive by passin...

Image courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald. Lawrence Hargrave, who achieved the first powered flight in 1894 with four box kites, was said to be symbolic of many Australian inventors and Australian innovation; 'He was interested in the invention, not th...