Indigenous Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been the continent’s custodians for over 50 millennia, with a deep connection to country and unique cultures that are especially palpable in places like Ubirr in Kakadu National Park, Uluru and the Flinders Ranges. At the beginning of Australia’s European settlement, over 500 Aboriginal ‘nations’ covered Australia, with their own distinct beliefs, traditions and languages. Numerous museums and cultural centres delve into Aboriginal history and culture, including Melbourne Museum and Perth’s Boola Bardip.

Early European Settlement

Although Europeans had sailed along the Australian coast for centuries – a fact explored at Perth’s WA Shipwrecks Museum – it was the British who claimed the continent as their own in 1788, establishing a penal colony in what is now Sydney’s The Rocks. Over the next 80 years, these white colonialists would transport over 160,000 convicts to Australia. Relics from this convict era include Port Arthur Historic Site and Fremantle Prison. Not all parts of non-Indigenous Australia were established as convict settlements, among them Melbourne and South Australia.

Gold Rush