Useful Notes / Other Australian Towns and Cities

Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world, more so than most countries including the USA, the UK and Canada, but less so than a few other nations like Singapore or Japan. In fact in Australia, more than 80% of people live within 100 kilometres of the coast. Nevertheless, there are notable settlements across the entire country, as opposed to just Sydney and Melbourne.

New South Wales

• Sydney, the big one, or so it likes to call itself. Home of the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, gay people, the Sydney Swans and many, many rugby teams. For more, see this page.
• Newcastle, "the Capital of the Hunter (Valley)". Known for coal exports, a very large number of shipwrecks, Andrew Johns, polluted wasteland and Silverchair. Interestingly, many areas around Newcastle are named after towns/cities in the north-east of England. At least we've got no geordies!
  • But we do have Windale, known as the bogan breeding ground of Australia, and also boasts the dirtiest street in the country.
• The Central Coast, a region consisting of a number of cities and suburbs between Sydney and Newcastle (with Gosford smack-bang in the middle) stretching along the coast; accordingly, it has a lot of beaches. It was officially counted as part of Sydney or Newcastle before 2005. Home of the pop punk group Short Stack.
• The largest inland city in New South Wales: is either Maitland (pop 60 000) or Wagga Wagga (46 000). Wagga is technically smaller, but some Waggarians say Maitland doesn't count due to being only 20 minutes inland.
  • Also: Maitland is not part of Newcastle. This is important, you'd be surprised how often people need to be reminded of this.
  • Neither city has the title: Albury is the largest. Or it would be, anyway, if it weren't split into two cities since it straddles the NSW-Victoria border. Due to this, its official population is about the same as Wagga.
• Speaking of Albury, its first mayor was named James Fallon.
• Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia. Home of the Golden Guitar (with no strings) and... very little else. Annually overrun with tourists during the Country Music Festival, but an utter hole the rest of the year. Once regaled as 'The City of Lights' for being the first city in Australia to have widespread electrical lighting, but virtually forgotten in modern times. Large enough that people notice it, small enough that people realize there's very little to notice. So Okay, It's Average in city form, as some call it.
  • And suddenly one of the Rotary Clubs in Tamworth being called 'First Light' makes SO much sense. The More You Know.
• Armidale (to the north of Tamworth), notable for having Australia's first regional University (The University of New England).
• Bathurst is known nationwide (at least among racing fans) for the Bathurst 1000, a racing weekend which involves thousands of tourists descending upon the town to watch the V8s and drink beer.
  • And everyone in Bathurst hates it. Imangine, if you will, a swarm of locusts buzzing just at the cusp of your hearing for 48 hours. Try not to go insane.
• The Blue Mountains is located on the route between Sydney and Bathurst. Contains Scenery Porn and Eiffel Tower Effect due to its landscape like Three Sisters.
• Don't forget Wollongong - it's the third largest city in the state but due to its close proximity to Sydney ^note It's about 80km/50miles or an hour's drive south leads to it being forgotten or counted as a part of the larger city.
  • A part of the Illawarra region, which consists of the cities of Wollongong and Shellharbour, their suburbs, and all the farmland inbetween. Plus the beaches - 17 patrolled beaches, making it the largest branch of Surf Life Saving in the state.
  • Home to the University of Wollongong, which is the city's largest employer - followed closely by BHP Steel - which gives you a general sense of the region.
• Gundagai, a small town along the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne/Adelaide and within 100km of Canberra. It is well-known for the "Dog on the Tuckerbox".
• Yass, also along the Hume Highway, is often the turnoff point and last city for travelers heading to Canberra from Adelaide or Melbourne. But for many, it is mainly known as the location where Jason Raize, who originated the role of Simba in the Broadway version of The Lion King (1994), committed suicide in 2004.
• Byron Bay, Australia’s fastest-growing culture centre, is home to numerous bands trying to make it big, camper vans on its beaches housing said bands and a vintage train that runs on solar energy. Unfortunately, it’s also home to hipsters and anti-vaxxers. The occasional celebrity is known to buy a home (or two) there. Its most notable appearance in media has to be in Forza Horizon 3, where it's the first Horizon Festival site players set up at.
• Broken Hill, a mining town that physically lies in far western NSW, but is viewed by locals and non-locals alike as effectively part of South Australia. It operates on SA time; it's treated as part of SA for purposes of postal parcel rates and phone charges; advertising offers for SA residents almost always explicitly include Broken Hill; and even some legal opinions consider Broken Hill to be part of SA.^Background During Broken Hill's boom era in the late 19th century, the country's mining industry was closely tied with Adelaide, and Broken Hill was first linked to Adelaide by rail in 1888—nearly 40 years before it would gain a link to Sydney. When Australia adopted standard time in 1895, Broken Hill went on SA time because of its rail link to Adelaide.

Northern Territory

• Darwin, the smallest capital city in Australia, with a population of around 121,000. Bombed by the Japanese during World War II and devastated by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. It was rebuilt both times.
  • It was also a member of the USSR for three days when storms cut off communication with other capitals and local revolutionaries wrongly assumed that meant all the groups in other cites were moving. Three days later, the state was given back when contact was restored. One assumes that considerable embarrassment ensued.
  • People from Darwin are actually called Darwinians - unfortunately, Australian census results do not track how many of them actually believe in evolution...
  • Home to a lot of crocodiles (and therefore crocodile-based tourist attractions, including jumping ones). They are partly the reason that no one swims in Darwin and surrounds (the other part being box jellyfish which are prevalent in the Wet Season, which is the time of year anyone would want to swim).
  • Darwin is tropical (or semi-tropical, depending on who you ask) and so has two seasons rather than four: the Wet and the Dry. They have similar maximum temperatures (around 32 degrees C) but the Wet is much more humid. Locals love both for different reasons (six months of clear blue skies in one, spectacular tropical storms in the other).
  • A popular tourist destination, particular during the Dry Season. This is partly due to its proximity to Kakadu (a World Heritage site) and Litchfield National Parks, and to Arnhem Land.
• Alice Springs, that place right in the middle of the map. Surprisingly larger and greener than most tourists expect, but it's still mainly a tourist and Aboriginal town, frequented for travellers on their way to Uluru. Because it's so close to the geographical center of the continent, it was chosen as the location of Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap.
• Jabiru, a small town two hours from Darwin, is notable for being a uranium mining town in the middle of a national park (Kakadu to be exact).

Victoria

• Melbourne, Sydney's arch-nemesis. Home of Australian Rules Football and where all the V8 cars get built. Note: it's pronounced Mel-bun or -burn, not Mel-born. It's considered the cultural capital of Australia, because Sydney has all the important landmarks. For more, see this page.
  • Victoria in general tries to have a sporting event going on every weekend, with most of these occurring in Melbourne; some events are held elsewhere, such as Philip Island's hosting of the Grand Prix.
  • Important suburbs that frequently appear in media: St Kilda (famous for the beach and music Mecca Esplanade Hotel).
• On that note there's the state's second largest city, Geelong (which is a wholly separate city, as much as some would like to convince you otherwise). It's best known for being between Melbourne and the coast, having an oil refinery, having the state's largest prison, being absolutely batshit crazy about its AFL team, and being royally screwed over during the gold rush when false maps were printed showing Melbourne closer to the goldfields.
  • Due to recent changes however, the city is now known more for its very high unemployment, alcoholism, meth addiction and its recently elected, flamboyant, paparazzo-turned-mayor. The phrase "Gee-troit" is becoming common usage in Victoria.
• Bendigo, Victoria's largest inland city. A major regional centre, it is well known for its history and heritage, being located in the goldfields region of the state. It is a major tourist destination due to its grand heritage listed buildings, both public and private, monuments, statues and gardens.
  • Also home to the Talking Tram.
• Ballarat, Victoria's largest inland city. A major regional centre, it is well known for its history and heritage, being located in the goldfields region of the state. It is a major tourist destination due to its grand heritage listed buildings, both public and private, monuments, statues and gardens.
  • Also the origin of the children's rhyme "Copy Cat from Ballarat". The towns are have essentially the same history (save Ballarat being the site of Australia's only armed rebellion), and the debate over which is larger is confusing as the 2006 Census states Ballarat, but later unofficial sources state Bendigo.
    • The '21 census doesn't settle it completely. Ballarat has the larger urban area (116,000 to Bendigo's 103,000), but Bendigo's local government area has a bit over 121,000.
• Sale, a reasonably large and well-serviced city located virtually in the middle of nowhere. Its primary draw is its status as the home of the Royal Australian Air Force's primary training school, the former site of a major oil mining operation, and a swing bridge that still operates. Also, it has a ridiculous number of lakes and wetland reserves.
• Mornington Peninsula, home to lots of beaches and McMansions, at least two of which belong to Tones and I.
• Daylesford, a spa town further inland, rests on an inactive volcano. It’s home to an artsy community and has one of the highest concentrations of lesbians in the country.

South Australia

• Adelaide, the city of churches. Every second block is a church as a result of the migration of people of a lot of faiths in the city's early history. Every other one is used as a dumping ground for the mob... the water is horrible (no thanks to the upstream states, QLD, VIC & NSW), but the women look fantastic. It's practically surrounded by the source of most of Australia's wine. ^note Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale,just to name two of the biggest.. It is also said to be the serial murder capital of the world, and why not? Nothing much else happens there.
  • And they throw great motor sports events (Pre 1995 Australian Grand Prix [F1], and the Adelaide 500 [V8 Supercars]. Melbourne received the rights to host the Grand Prix in 1995; Adelaideans are still a little bit bitter about that, although some other Adelaideans point out that the bitterness is misdirected due to the fact that the Adelaide city council didn't even bother trying to keep the Grand Prix in the first place because they were so sure Adelaide would be picked again when the contract was up.
  • As of late, they've also had quite the problem with bikie gangs.
  • Adelaide is also well-known for having the second-largest Christmas parade in the world^note National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant, which is often held on the second Saturday of November every year, the largest anime convention in the Southern Hemisphere^note AVCon, which is held annually in July, an entire month dedicated to adult festivals^note the Adelaide Fringe Festival, held from mid-February to mid-March each year, and an agricultural show^note the Royal Adelaide Show, held around late-August yearly.
  • Oh, right. Wrestling fans from overseas may know it as the birthplace of Rhea Ripley.
• Glenelg, located about 10km southwest of Adelaide, is known for being the first settlement of South Australia. For awhile, it was also known for its tramline, which was the last remaining tramline in general use in South Australia until 2018.
• Port Adelaide, located 15km northwest of Adelaide, is mainly known for the Port Power football club, the "City of Adelaide" Clipper, the railway museum, several dolphin sightings, and constantly being screwed over by the Liberal party.
• Murray Bridge, located about 50 miles east of Adelaide. The city is a major crossing of the Murray River, hence its name, and is best known for the mythical "Bunyip", which has been immortalized by a machine along the river that, when a button is pressed (or a dollar coin is spent prior to 2018), will cause the bunyip to pop up and roar. Twice.
• Port Lincoln, mostly only notable for having the largest natural harbour in the world, which is an export hub for the Eyre Peninsula region. Quite a pretty place, though the region is prone to bushfires. Also produced Makybe Diva, one Australia's most famous racehorses, who won the Melbourne Cup three times in a row. Not to mention Tunarama, in which one of the main events is the hammer throw of a fake tuna (it used to be a real frozen tuna, but it started to be too expensive).
  • Actually, it's where Makybe Diva's owner, tuna magnate Tony Šantič, is based. Makybe Diva was in fact foaled in England, and didn't set foot in Australia until about 15 months after her birth.
• Coober Pedy, the archetypical Australian mining town. A common tourist stop on the way to Alice Springs, it's literally surrounded by slag piles, mine shafts (watch your step!) and machinery, and has mining-related attractions including an underground hotel (with swimming pool). A large producer of Australian opal (the rainbow kind), they've even found a plesiosaur skeleton made of opal. Almost the entire town's population live underground to try to escape the extreme heat. The town is also one of the locations found in Forza Horizon 3.
• Kadina, Wallaroo, and Moonta, the three towns that make up the Copper Coast on the Yorke Peninsula. The towns were founded by Cornish settlers to mine a rich source of copper discovered in the area.
• Snowtown, a small town roughly 100 miles north of Adelaide. It's notorious for a serial killer hiding his bodies in barrels of acid in a bank vault.
• Mt Gambier, the second biggest population centre in South Australia. It's located roughly halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne, built around and on the slope of a extinct Maar-complex volcano of the same name, and is the home of the blue lake, a 70-metre-deep lake which turns a spectacular, almost-glowing cobalt blue in the summer. Also present is the Umpherston, a botanical garden inside a very deep sinkhole. It's also the only place in South Australia where the tap water tastes any good.

Western Australia

• Perth, the city synonymous with bogans and miners. Famous for being really far away from every other capital city, it's also home to AC/DC and Pendulum.
  • Technically Fremantle (Freo) is home to AC/DC, specifically Bon Scott.
  • Perth is one of the most isolated major cities in the world (it's edged out by Honolulu), and the most isolated with a population of greater than 1 million (though again, Honolulu will probably join it in that club in the 2020s). Probably not helped (psychologically) that the Easterners still think that the locals live in tin sheds.
  • And Perthians are quite proud of the fact that they're closer to Singapore than they are to Sydney.
  • Fun trivia fact: Perth is almost exactly antipodal (i.e. "where you'd end up if you dug a tunnel through the centre of the Earth from") to Bermuda.
• Fremantle (Freo) as mentioned above is the home of AC/DC. Also the home of the America's Cup (yachting) for a while in the early 80's. You may recognise Freo if you've read "Stark" by Ben Elton too.
• Geraldton, an ever-growing city 400km north of Perth that to Western Australians themselves is considered the bogan capital.
• Bunbury, a small city that is rapidly becoming a southern suburb of Perth.
• Mandurah, a southern suburb of Perth or the second-largest city in WA (see Geelong). Famous for its dolphins, crabs and for being the fastest-growing city in Australia at the Turn of the Millennium. Origin of the StewdioMACK series.
• Albany, the forgotten city in WA. Lovely coastline, but freezing weather. Also the site of Australia's last whaling station, which closed in 1972 and is now open for tours.
• Margaret River, a town several hours south of Perth famous for its surf break, its food and - most importantly - its wine.
• Wittenoom, a small town in the middle of nowhere, famous (or infamous) for 3 things: a blue asbestos mine where almost all the workers caught asbestosis, a book about said mine called Blue Murder, and a song about said mine by Midnight Oil called Blue Sky Mine.
  • Technically, it's not even a town anymore: it was degazetted in 2007 (so is therefore no longer referenced on maps or roadsigns◊), it has no government services and no electricity. Strangely enough, eight people still live there. Nobody can seem to decide, though, if there's a dangerous amount of asbestos particles around or not, hence signs like this◊ are around the town.
• Broome, a small town that's popular with tourists due to its winter weather, history and large numbers of crocs. It was also bombed by the Japanese in World War II.
  • It is the biggest pearling site in Australia.
• Kalgoorlie, the home of the largest open-pit gold mine in Australia. It's the REAL reason why the eastern states don't want the west to secede.
• Esperance, home to beautiful pristine beaches that are full of biting march flies. It was also the crash site for parts of the American research satellite Skylab. The shire government fined the U.S. $400 for littering. It went unpaid for thirty years.
• Marble Bar, known for being so incredibly hot that even the rest of Australia gapes in horror. It's known to get up to 49.2 °C (121 °F) and got a world record of the longest consecutive days of maximum temperatures at or above 37.8 °C (100 °F) that went for 160 days.
• New Norcia, The only Monastic City in Australia, a Benedictine Community known for their impressive culinary skills, and for being such a ridiculously good stargazing spot the ESA built a Deep Space Antenna there.

Queensland

• Brisbane, the Queensland capital. Home of the Brisbane Broncos and Brisbane Lions. Not to mention the Queensland Reds. The try-hard of the eastern capitals, attempting to match Melbourne and Sydney and failing every time, or at least that's what those southern snobs like to think. Clearly it's so backward that the Mexicans (aka people from South of the Queensland/New South Wales border) keep coming there to live.
  • Also now host to Australia's ebola treatment centre, leading to the city gaining the nickname "Brisbola"
  • Also, unlike most of the other state capitals Brisbane is not split across multiple local governments (Sydney is split across 31 for example), Brisbane is governed by a single city council making it Australia's largest local government by population. This is because the Queensland government really likes combining smaller local governments into larger entities. Most of the other towns on the list have gone through similar processes with the most recent being 2011 (though Brisbane itself and Ipswich were spared that time)
• Gold Coast, the country's largest non-capital city by a mile, has almost all the major theme parks in Australia: Dream World, Warner Bros. Movie World, Sea World, and Wet n' Wild Water World. It used to have hot meter maids in golden bikinis, but instead it now has oldies and screaming brats. Its also the setting of H₂O: Just Add Water. Surfers Paradise in the City of Gold Coast is one of the locations found in Forza Horizon 3.
• Beerwah, a small town in the Sunshine Coast area about 80 km/50 miles north of Brisbane and home to Australia Zoo, made famous by Steve Irwin.
• Toowoomba, the state capital of drug use and homophobia. Whoo! The third-largest inland city in Australia. Famous for suggesting the use of recycled water... reclaimed from sewage for drinking water. Also famous for its annual festival "Carnival of Flowers", though a lengthy drought and a flash flood or two forced its cancellation once or twice.
• Cairns, the gateway to both the Great Barrier Reef AND the Daintree rainforest, it has possibly a higher population of tourists than it does local citizenry.
• Rockhampton, halfway between Brisbane and Cairns. Also, something to do with cattle. And the Tropic of Capricorn.
• Ipswich, Brisbane's drunken, inbred sister... which is still better than Toowoomba.
  • Fun fact: large portions of Ipswich sit over an old abandoned coal mine (it's why the city was founded in the first place). The mine was abandoned because of an accident that set the coal seam on fire. And it's still burning (or smouldering anyway; it doesn't get much oxygen).
  • Also the home of RAAF Base Amberly, the largest, by area, military airfield in the Southern Hemisphere, though a lot of that is empty space. Former home of the F-111 fighters.
• Bundaberg, the home of Bundaberg Rum and... not much else.
• Mount Isa, aka The Isa, once the largest city in the world by area according to Guinness World Records. Situated in the state's northwest and supported by mining lead, silver, copper and zinc. The town's skyline is dominated by incredibly tall chimneys, which have a semi-iconic status in representations of the place.
• Townsville (not to be confused with that Townsville), the 'capital city' of the North folks. Sure, Cairns has all the shopping... and tourists... and fun things. But Townsville's still bigger! It's also the largest garrison city in Australia, and it's home to a hideous hotel dubbed the 'sugar shaker' after its shape. It also has a huge white stick-figure of The Saint painted on the giant stone hill in the middle of town. If you need to ask why anyone would rappel down a sheer cliff to paint a giant stick-figure, you don't understand Australia.
  • Also notable as the hometown of Julian Assange.
• Caboolture. ...Er, Keith Urban comes from there. Which lead to a number of people thinking the Urban Country Music festival was named for him (it wasn't). One of the local schools is the only state-run school with an original classroom still in use as a classroom since its foundation 140 years ago.
• The Fraser Coast, home to the twin cities of Maryborough and Hervey Bay. The former is known for being the birthplace of Mary Poppins creator P. L. Travers and its large proportion of historical buildings, while the latter is known for its status as a tourist magnet and whalewatching spot, and for having far too many roundabouts. The region also includes Fraser Island.
• Charleville, the largest town in the south west of the Outback region. The only reason it ever makes the news is when it floods. The only people that go there are tourists going to see the the Cosmos Centre and the Bilby Centre at National Parks and Wildlife.
• Weipa. You know those small towns in American programs that all band together to cover up a murder? Here's the Land Down Under's one. Weipa is a mining town, a military base, and has crocs, sharks, snakes and spiders... and they all eat each other. And they sell guns at the corner shop. Lots of guns. Pretty much everyone who lives there is either military or mining, and are rumoured to make a sport of shooting people in boats.
• Birdsville, a tiny south-western Queensland town with a population of around 120 people. It's home of one of the more prominent Horse racing events in Australia.
• Longreach, the birthplace of Qantas, Australia's national airline. Anyone in Brisbane will tell you the name is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Woodford, home to the annual Woodford Folk Festival. Not to be confused with the town of the same name in the Blue Mountains area of NSW.

Australian Capital Territory

• Only one city/town in this area, Canberra, the capital city of Australia. It is located "exactly" between Sydney and Melbourne ("exactly" here being an apparently new definition of the word that Sydney snuck in when no-one was looking), after a spat over which should be the capital of Australia. In the end, the wise decision of "neither" was made and politics was quarantined off into the middle of nowhere so it wouldn't spread. Since most Australian cities are on the coast, building yet another coastal one as the capital would have taken business away from the others, so it was placed about 100 km inland. It's shaped like a giant bullseye, and it has roundabouts fucking everywhere. It was built on a sheep paddock (which should tell you something about Australia), and is generally considered boring due to being a pre-built city that lacks the population to fill it out. Lake Burley Griffin, the giant lake at the centre of the city, is completely artificial. The wildlife doesn't seem to mind, though.
• Fact: 'Canberra' means meeting place in an Aboriginal dialect.
• Though actual residents of Canberra like it just fine, dislike for Canberra is so great among other cities that it is common for people who live and work there to refer to themselves as being from Sydney or Melbourne, even if they haven't live in those cities in the last decade.
  • Many Sydneysiders agree that Canberra, as a whole, is a hole, most likely due to the fact it is dead boring, except for Questacon. Another possible reason why the capital is considered a hole by them; they are upset Sydney isn't the capital.
  • Likewise, many Melbournians consider Canberra a hole due to its lack of sporting events and places to bet on sporting events while extremely drunk; this is probably due to the perceived crappiness of Casino Canberra compared to Melbourne's own Crown Casino. The other main gripes are that apparently Canberra has no bars worth a damn if one desires something other than weak indie beer, bogan-filled clubs staffed with bouncers running other "business" on the side, and a distinct lack of variety in ethnic food restaurants. Like Sydney, they're probably also pissed that Melbourne's not the capital.
• Pretty much the main thing Canberra has going for it is its ridiculous number of universities concentrated within a tiny area - it's practically a ten-minute drive between any two of the biggest three, the University of Canberra, the Australian Catholic University, and the Australian National University. The practical upshot is a fairly elevated sense of rivalry; on Facebook, flame wars between UC and ANU students are incredibly common on both universities' profiles, with neither side proving that their "superior" education is paying off.
• The other biggest draw of Canberra is the Australian War Memorial. In addition to keeping a vast roll of the names of all Australians killed in action in war (it spans two entire walls in a really long courtyard), it maintains a large collection of interesting and rare (often exclusive) wartime paraphernalia in varying states of repair.
• Prostitution is (to an extent) legal in Canberra with at least one brothel (in the oddly-but-suitably-named Fyshwick). Enjoy!
  • Prostitution is legal everywhere in Australia, although brothels are only legal in Vic, NSW, ACT and Qld.

Tasmania

• There's this city called Hobart... people from Hobart are called Hobartians. They are definitely not called Hobastards. (Well, not by themselves, anyway.)
  • And also a little place called Port Arthur, home to the single largest mass shooting with a single assailant in recorded history. Until 2011, anyway.
• Cygnet, to the south of Hobart, is home to a loud and proud hippie vegan population as well as a snail racing championship. Every January, people from around Australia descend upon Cygnet to attend their annual folk festival.
• Launceston (pronounced LON-ses-ton not LAWN-ses-ton), in the state’s north, is the second-largest city in Tassie. Theoretically, it’s a three-hour drive from Hobart, but the continued roadworks on the Midland Highway make it more than that. Known for poetry festivals, the City Park monkeys and being dead even on a Saturday night.

Other Islands

• The Torres Strait islands, home to the other major group of Indigenous Australian people, the Torres Strait Islanders. They've been campaigning to secede from the state of Queensland and have their own territory for yonks.
• Christmas Island, apparently the birthplace of Sonic the Hedgehog. Formerly used as a processing area (read: prison camp, at least during the Howard government) for refugees.
• Norfolk Island, a.k.a. the Australian territory that demands passports for locals from the mainland and would tell the rest of us to sod off if they could. Oddly and totally unconnected to this is that it was founded by the mutineers from the HMS Bounty.
• The Whitsunday Islands are considered to be the place for island resorts in Australia. They're home to utterly gorgeous beaches and really swanky resorts.
• Rottnest Island, named after the adorable little quokkas that roam the island after they were mistaken for giant rats. It's used as a cheap and affordable holiday resort for Perth families, and a place to have fun at Schoolie's Leaver's Week. Has the sad history of being an 'Aboriginal Prison'.
• Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island and home to dingo attacks and clueless tourists. The two are not unconnected.
• Lord Howe Island, an absolutely beautiful, pristine island that's home to the world's southernmost Coral Reef, Kentia palms and the world's rarest bug. It also has glow in the dark mushrooms◊. Seriously.
• King Island, smack in the middle of Bass Strait. It's surrounded by shipwrecks, including a piece of the Shannon that ran aground about twenty metres off the coast, so one can run out and play on it if one wants to. Known for its dairy and cows. Lots and lots of cows, making lots of milk, cheese and beef. Also, kelp.
  • The cows don't make the kelp.
  • Many of the beaches are inaccessible by road, so if you want to go, you have to hike. A school that sends students to the affectionately termed (by the students, at least) "KI" has them seeing more of the island than locals do in their lives.
  • Oh, and this bloke called Frederick Valentich disappeared when flying there from Melbourne.
    • Melbourne: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what are your intentions?
    • Valentich: My intentions are - ah - to go to King Island - ah - Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it's not an aircraft.

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