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Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century.No formal claims were made until 1770,when Capt.James COOK took possession in the name of Great Britain.Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.The new country was able to take advantage of its natural resources in order to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II.Long-term concerns include pollution,particularly depletion of the ozone layer,and management and conservation of coastal areas,especially the Great Barrier Reef.A referendum to change Australia's status,from a commonwealth headed by the British monarch to a republic,was defeated in 1999.
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Australia seem to be cursed with an insatiable yen for the unknown and they bend to it willingly,fleeing for weeks,months even,into that vast spot in the middle called the outback.And it's a big out back; you can travel indefinitely without coming within cooee of a phone call or an email.Nuts!Instead you have to make do with landscapes that shift from saffron to ochre beneath a seamless canopy of deep indigo.And then there are ancient Aboriginal cultures,dazzling salt pans,secretive reptiles,rough-cut canyons and pristine gorges.Some Australians simply go walkabout,traversing national parks filled with such devilish critters as koalas,sugar gliders and knee-high wallabies.Others whiz through world heritage rainforests on mountain bikes or apply ropes to their limbs,chalk to their hands,truly skimpy shorts to their nether regions and scale lofty summits like bronze-backed insects.And some simply launch themselves into the sky with parachutes attached to their backs.