Climb every mountain

Australian teenager Alyssa Azar, aged only 16, is currently in full-time training to become the youngest person ever to conquer Mount Everest. She’s already been to Everest base camp twice and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Perhaps surprisingly, Australia’s mountains tend to be relatively small, compared to those in other parts of the world, but like much […]

Rugby – A Ruffian’s Game?

Although the “gentleman’s game” of football is arguably the most popular game in the world, its spin-off, the “ruffian’s game” of rugby has plenty of followers in Australia and other countries across the globe. While the first recorded instance of an international rugby match was between England and Scotland (in 1871), nowadays national rugby teams […]

Australia – The Creative Continent

Australia is known as being a country where people tend to be chilled out and can take a joke. Sometimes these jokes can be very creative. Recently Melbourne resident Tom Overend returned from an extended holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia to find his bachelor bedroom transformed into an enchanted castle fit for a fairy princess. […]

The wonders of Australia

Australia is home to some of the most iconic places in the world. Whether it’s the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the man-made world, or Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Wolfe Creek Crater in the natural world, Australia is full of places which are literally like nowhere else on earth. Some of […]

Fashion down under

Australian fashion-lovers have two new reasons to celebrate. Firstly celebrated fashion label Saint-Laurent will open its online store to Australian shoppers and secondly Sarah Jessica Parker has announced that she will be opening her own fashion line, focusing, naturally on shoes. While other celebrities have had questionable reactions with their forays into fashion and beauty, […]

Canberra – The compromise capital.

It’s not unusual for countries to move their capital cities. Russia’s capital was formerly St Petersburg, Turkey’s was Istanbul and Scotland’s was Dunfermline. It is, however, unusual for a nation’s capital to be decided as a compromise. In this case both Sydney and Adelaide claimed the right to be capital of the new country and […]

Australia – Growing with conviction

There’s a lovely story (which might even have some degree of truth) about a middle-aged Australian lady, who received an unexpected bequest from a relative in England. When she remarked to the lawyer, who brought the good news, that she didn’t know what to do with the money, he suggested that she use some of […]

Australians are socializing everywhere

Australia has the reputation of being a sociable country, so it’s hardly suprizing that social networks have been enthusiastically adopted there. What may be surprizing is just how enthusiastically they have been adopted. The 2013 Yellow Social Media report shows that the march of the smartphone continues in Australia. For the first year smartphones have […]

Fine dining above Australia

For years plane food has been the stuff of travellers’ nightmares and comedians’ dreams.  This was as true of Australia as of everywhere else in the world.  Now, thankfully, advances in technology, have made it possible for  passengers to get a decent meal, even in the air and the airlines have made steps to adapt […]

Australia is developing new principals

Being sent to the principal’s office has traditionally been bad news for students (and their parents); however Australia is developing an innovative approach towards student-teacher relations. They are giving students the opportunity to be a principal for a day. During this time, they will need to hold an assembly, join in a staff meeting and […]