I would like to illustrate the points I've made by showing you a series of slides. This first image shows you the location of Australia in the world as it is. And then, the continent is superimposed on to the same latitudes in the northern hemisphere and the same latitudes in the southern hemisphere.
Let us briefly look at the relative sizes and the latitude of Australia in relation to Eastern Asia. For example, the southern most section of Australia, Tasmania is roughly the same latitudes to Tohoku region of Japan or perhaps southern Hokkaido. You can see there the major cities of Australia, Melbourne and Sydney has similar latitudes to major cities in Japan. Sydney would be fairly similar to Tokyo. Perhaps Melbourne would have the same latitudes as Niigata or Sendai. However, the large size of Australian continent means that the northern environments of Australia similar to Thailand and Vietnam in the east westerly direction. It extends from northwestern India across to central China, so this gives some idea of the relative size of the Australian continents. You simply post on to Africa. Most of it expands to the latitude to the Sahara desert.
Here again，the political geography of Australia with the six states and two territories. This shows you the different regions quite well. The Western Plateau which I was talking about, the three basins and Carpentharia Basin, Lake Eyre Basins and Murray-Darling Basin and Coastal Plain right around the continents and also the island of Tasmania.
Let us now look at the regions of the Western Plateau; perhaps the most famous site in the Western Plateau is that of Ayers Rock. Ayers Rock is a residual folded mountain; you can see the fold lines quite clearly. And the coastal ridges in them have been formed by wind, the force of wind blowing granite sand against the rock and that cutting them away. Next, there is Ayers Rock there are the Olga’s here, or the Aboriginal names of Olga’s, `Katachiga'. And again the rounded shapes of these rocks reflect the power of the wind in cutting the rock down to these shapes and giving it a fine surface.
This is the tourist resort with Ayers Rock in the background. The tourist resort was built in the last few years and shows the popularity of this environment for foreign visitors. There are very strict guidelines for tourist there, you can only try climb Ayers Rock early in the morning or late afternoon because during the mid-day or after the temperature can reach 45-46 degrees centigrade, so it's very hot.
This is also the western plateau and the reason I'm showing you these slides, is to show you that the desert in Australia is not a sandy desert. It's essentially a rocky desert, small particles of rock. And the Australian name for this rocky desert is a Skiba play, so it is very different from the Gordy desert or the Sahara desert in the world, which are predominantly sandy deserts. The Australian desert is mainly a rocky desert.
A four-wheel drive vehicle with the dry creek there behind it and this of course is a test to the cyclonic nature of rainfall. Very little rain they’re with just a little bit of water at one edge of the river, however, after a heavy rainstorm, this is what it can look like. The river overflowing and the roads are cut. You can get anything after 8,100 million meters of rain within 24 hours. And then the whole river overflows, but within three or four days it falls again and perhaps no more rain 8-10 months. Therefore other sources of water are needed. And the main source of water is artesian water and this water comes from the geological rock’s strata deep in the earth surface. A well is drilled and sometimes there’s enough pressure on the water to bring it to the surface by itself. However, other times, there’s not sufficient pressure and the wind pumps had be installed. The wind pumps have a wheel blow the wheel turns, which then pumps the water up from under the ground. The plant life, the vegetation also has to adapt to the very arid environment and one form of adaptation is the shortage of water within the plant. This is a bail tree or a bottle tree. In north western of Australia and it’s called a bottle tree because of the shape and it’s so fat because it stores water and it thus able to survive long periods of drought. The Aborigines knew about this and when they were suffering from the shortage of water and they would often drill into bail trees and tap the water. This environment also has other species of plants, which are unique to it. This is the red kangaroo paw. It’s called a kangaroo paw because the shape of the flower. It’s like a paw of a kangaroo. There is also the Bansia. This one is called Bansia. This one is called Bansia and it is regarded as one of the most beautiful Australian native flowers with a shape of a kangaroo paw. It’s like kangaroos on the bushes. The original inhabitants of this environment are the Australian Aborigines.
Only a minority of men now lives this way. Most of them now live in small settlements of towns or even in cities. They are famous for their artwork and the style of artwork and the theme of the artwork are drawn from the environment around them. For example here, paintings on the rock cave on the edge of Ayers Rock. You can see the hands, the shape of human hands there. And this is the boomerang shape, which is the weapon they have cut to hunt kangaroos. This is the boomerang. It is used for hunting kangaroos and other animals and if you want to know now to throw it correctly. It will hit the animals at the back of the neck there and then come back to you. Here, a kangaroo painted on bark. The bark or skin of the trees is frequently used for artwork at the Aborigines. This is a bark and a kangaroo. Here, a turtle painted by the Aborigines who lived near the coast along the northern shore of the Australian continent.
Farming in this environment is very sparse. Some of the sheep are as large as Shiga prefecture, and the reason for that is that there is very little water and therefore you may have one sheep for each square kilometer of land.
This is rounding up sheep before they are shopped. Then sheep or cattle are sometimes transported in big trucks convoys to the sale yards near the coast.
Mining, I mentioned, mining is the most important economic activity in this environment. Here is a large open cut iron ore mine in Hubara in the northwest of Australia. The trucks bring the iron ore down from the surface. Large flat plain, then here we are moving towards the Central Basin.
This is a feathered environment for Marino sheep. Marino sheep produce the best quality wool in the world and they combine a small body with a very large bulk of wool and in fact this environment is ideal for them because the layer of wool acts like an air conditioning system. This is shearing sheep. This is a Shearer and he takes the animal between his legs and has to hold it down and shear the wool or cut the wool with a razor rather than a large electric razor, which is mainly used.
Again this environment, very large fields, here, holes prepared so that water can collected in them. In the background the natural of vegetation. In this area, the Central Basin, wheat farming is very important. Farms are quite large often 2-3,000 hectares in size. Harvesting is done in December with very large mechanical harvesters. The wheat is then transported and stored in these large storage bins called ‘silos’ and then it is taken by frail train to the flour mills or to the ports of Melbourne, Sydney and Perth from which it is exported to other countries.
This environment can also be quite dry, and when the soil is very dry it can crack like this and of course nothing will grow. The other problem when there is a draught or no rain is that the vegetation of plants die, this means when the wind blows, it can blow the tops soil of land. And there have been instances where in Melbourne, electric lights had to be lit at one o’clock midday because the horizon was so dark with dust and sand. This is the Darling River, the Murray River and their tributaries. And this is the environment in which a bulk of intensive farming under irrigation occurs. However, too much water can result in the salt in the soil becoming salty. The salt is drawn up, and then the water evaporates and the salt remains and that of course it means the plants’ lives will die and farming cannot occur.
This is a humane irrigation area around the Murray River in Victoria and in the southwest. Irrigation, water is frequently transported from one channel to the other by the force of a revolving water mill, which transports it from one channel to the other. And here you see, water in a higher channel than a log or bay of the entrance and this enable water to flow into this channel whenever it is needed by the farmers. This is the result of irrigation, very intensive farms; here growing grapes around the city of Mildura in northwestern Victoria
Let us now look at the eastern highlands. As I mentioned, these mountains are generally the highest in Australia. However, by the comparison with Japan they are very low and often quite flat with the rivers having cut deep valleys into them. There are favored location for hiking and rock climbing as you can see here.
These are the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Again, you can see they are relatively flat with valleys separating one reach from the next. The blue color is given these mountains by the effect of sunlight and the oil in the eucalyptus leaves. The eucalyptus leave contains oil. And in the eve of the day the oil starts to evaporate and in the afternoon when the sunlight shines on the eucalyptus evaporate in the air it assumes this blue, sometimes crimson color.
Early gold mining means that many trees were removed from here. And again soil erosion has set, has started. And this can be very bad with big canyons being formed by rainwater washing down the soil. The coastal environment also has large forest. This specie of eucalyptus called ‘Mountain Ash’. It’s found in the southeast of the continent. It can grow up to 40-45 meters in height. This also a Mountain Ash forest with the lower layer being ferns. You only get this type of wet environment in areas which have a subtly location. They cannot stand the northerly winds, which are often dry.
This is a dairy country with the black and white cows near Melbourne producing a particularly quantity of milk. Cows being milked rather than an assembly line in the Toyota Factory.
Here the growing of the grapes in the valley immediately to the northeast of Adelaide.
Now, we look at the coastal environment and the cities of Australia in a little bit more detail.
This is the coastline near Melbourne. Again, there are environmental problems here because the use of the coastline by many people can lead to the trampling of plants, and thus, the beginning of water and wind erosion. Therefore, these scant ways have been built to enable the people to enjoy the scenery without damaging the ecology of the environment.
Let us now look in a little bit more detail at some of Australia’s large cities. This is Melbourne laid down in a checkerboard pattern lied south, along the northern bank of the Yarra River with the major streets being 30 meters wide and the smaller streets being 12 meters wide, and each block being 10 hectares in size.
As I mentioned before, the gold mining here made Melbourne very rich and the ornate buildings of some of the early banks reflect this. This is a Princess Theater in Melbourne, a very ostentatious and lavish building built in the 1980s and it’s the third theater in the world, which had a removable ceiling.
This is Adelaide, very similar plan to Melbourne except here you have two towns; North Adelaide on the northern bank of the Torrens River and Central Adelaide on the southern bank.
The public buildings in Adelaide are built very much in the British style. This is the general post office. The main square is called Victoria Square, and this is the statue of the Empress Victoria of Britain.
Sydney, the largest city in Australia is on the southeast coast and it is located on a harbor, a particularly good harbor because right in the center of the city, the water is still 12-14 meters deep so ships can come straight in, and the city of opera house.
This was the point where European settlement of Australia began, Sydney Coast . The first European arrived on the 26th January 1788. This is the entrance to Sydney Harbor with the Pacific Ocean in the background and the beach suburb of Manly.
Brisbane, north of Sydney. Brisbane is on the river and the city center is in the peninsula in the meander Brisbane River with the Pacific Ocean right at the top of the map. Here you can see the city center of Brisbane in the meander of the river. This is another meander of the Brisbane River with the University of Queens land, in the center. Its major campus and some adjacencies.
Again, Melbourne shown in the checkerboard plan on the northern bank of Yarra River. Here you can see the Yarra River and the city of Melbourne on its northern bank, Art Center, Cultural Center on the southern bank of the river. These are some of the latest European style mansions built by the wealthy merchants and financiers after the gold rush year. A typical Italian garden looking towards a large European style mansion.
This is Perth in the southwest of Australia on the Swan River. A eucalyptus tree in King’s Park in Perth and one of the interesting pictures of the eucalyptus tree is that they use their barks not their leaves. This tree has just lost its bark.
Finally, the national capital, ‘Canberra’. This is the house of the parliament and this was environmentally designed so that, in fact, firstly the top of this hill was cut off. Then, the parliament house was built and then the hill was put back on top of it again so the house of parliament is inside of the hill and the only feature visible is displayed at the top.