Avalook at Australia News

Issue Number 8, 28 January 2000

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ISSN 1443-0797

Editors: Eric Lindsay and Jean Weber
info@avalook.com.au

In this issue...

A trip by car along the east coast -- Sydney to Airlie Beach
Australian Internet cafes and other access points for e-mail
Australia Day - 26 January
Virtual Australia Web site
Waltzing Matilda
Discussion lists about Australia
Some sites of interest for news, events, history, and more
Conversion of currency and units of measurement
Subscription information

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A trip by car along the east coast -- Sydney to Airlie Beach

We've finally written up the July 1998 trip when Eric moved to Airlie Beach. I had moved several months earlier, so he drove my car from the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney) to Brisbane, where I met him, and we continued the trip up the Queensland coast together.

The report includes some photos, notes about some of the towns and attractions along the way, and links to some associated Web sites.

http://www.avalook.com.au/eastcoast/ebltrip98/index.htm

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Australian Internet cafes and other access points for e-mail

We've been compiling a list of public internet access points (often called internet cafes) for our own use, but have decided not to try to maintain a list on this website, partly because it's too much work to keep up to date.

(Note in April 2002: I've amended this item to remove a link to a list that's out of date. As we mention in some of our travel pages from 2001, we found Internet access at public libraries, tourist information offices, general stores, pubs, newsagents and backpackers' hostels. And almost everywhere we asked, the shopkeepers and information offices all knew where the closest access point was -- unlike a few years ago.)

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Australia Day - 26 January

Australia Day commemorates the day that British Captain Arthur Phillip came ashore at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788, with 11 convict ships and established a British convict colony.

The day (a public holiday, the last of summer, and just a few days before the school year starts again in most parts of the country) is marked by citizenship ceremonies and announcement of the Australian Honours List. Most people just go to the beach or otherwise relax.

A couple of sites with information on Australia Day:

Virtual Australia (August 2000 note: this site recently moved and does not have all its pages working. The Australia Day page is not yet available.)

About.com

We're sure there are many other sites with historical notes on the founding of Sydney and other events in (white) Australian history, but we haven't come across them yet. We'll let you know when we do! (Please send us your favourites.)

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Virtual Australia Web site

The home page for this site (mentioned above under Australia Day) says: "The aim of this website is to help school children around the world with their school projects and help adults around the world plan their holidays or business trips - but mainly it's just to entertain, amuse and educate!"

They have lots of information, grouped under Culture and Customs, Flora and Fauna, History, Online Australia (websites they believe are definitely worth a visit), Freebies (including free Australian graphics for use on personal Web pages), and others. (August 2000 note: this site recently moved and does not have all its pages working. The Australia Day page is not yet available.)

http://members.tripod.com/virtaus/

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Waltzing Matilda

Here's a Web site about a famous Australian song. This page has a bit of history about the song and the times when it was written. Look at some of the other pages on the site for quite a bit of related information.

http://www.waltzingmatilda.com/wmhist.html

This page has the words as orginally written:

http://www.waltzingmatilda.com/wmwords.html

My thanks to Tracey Widauer mailto:missis@gmx.net for those links. Tracey is "List Mum" for the AllaboutAustralia discussion list (see below for more information).

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Discussion lists about Australia

We thought about running a discussion list about Australia but decided we didn't have time, and besides, there are others around. Why not join one of them instead? We belong to two discussion lists and used to be in a third. There are more, many of which sound very interesting, but who has time to keep up with everything that interests them? Certainly not us!

Allabout Australia

The AllaboutAustralia discussion list is a friendly group of people on at least 4 continents and major islands, who talk about whatever interests them, mostly related in some way to Australia, although the conversation can wander off in all directions: sports, weather, recipes, who's doing what and travelling where, and so on.

Tracey Widauer mailto:missis@gmx.net, the List Mum, says: "This list was created to benefit many Aussies who are living away from home as well as people around the world who want to learn more about Australia. This list is designed to exchange recipes, chat, ideas on almost any topic!"
 

Australia-travel

The Australia-travel discussion list gets less traffic than Allabout Australia, but every now and then it leaps into life. It's more focussed than the other list. Kenneth, the List Owner, says: "This is a list that will discuss any aspect of traveling to and within Australia. If you have any questions, hints, good advice, places we must see or whatever, write to the list and hopefully someone can answer you or will benefit from your experiences."
 

OzDream

Jean used to be on this list but had to give it up (no time). Glen, the List Owner mailto:ozdream@iname.com says, "Ozdream [is] a list for and about my Favorite Place, Australia... jump in any time you see a topic of interest or you have anything to say on or about Australia. Any topic Travel, History, Oz Speak, Bush Tucker you name it. Politics is OK as long as it is a discussion and not fighting!"

To subscribe to any of these lists, or others about Australia, go to the Yahoogroups web site, http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for the list you want. Click on its name to go to the page about that list. At that page, click the "Subscribe" button. (Note: If you're not already a member of Yahoogroups, you'll need to join before you can sign up for any list.)

The directory for Australian travel sites is: http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Regional/Countries/Australia

(AllaboutAustralia is listed under Recipes > World Cuisines > Australia, so I expect you could find lots of interesting lists about Australian under categories other than Travel.)

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Some sites of interest for news, events, history, and more

Springboard

A very interesting site with heaps of information, if you have the time to wander around and explore it.

Update early June 2000: the above site has been changed to be part of the main Telstra site
 

Peter Lalor Secondary College Web Project

A collection of questions about Australia in different categories, made by school children. Well worth a look, and great for trivia quizzes! (Editor's note, October 2000: Unfortunately, this site has moved and I haven't discovered where it went. If I find out, I'll fix it here.)

(Thanks to Tracey Widauer for these links. Tracey is "List Mum" of the AllaboutAustralia discussion list; see above.)

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Conversion of currency and units of measurement

(on line) Universal Currency Converter

http://www.xe.net/ucc/

Windows-based conversion tools for measurements:

Conversion Buddy

Freeware from James E. Presley
 

Convert

Freeware from Josh Madison

With both programs, you can create custom conversions as well as use the built-in ones.

Master Converter

Shareware from Savard Software mailto:rodney@savard.com

Once you have registered and paid your [US$15] fee (credit cards accepted), you receive regular updates. Many other shareware and freeware conversion programs are available.

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