Amazing Australian Achievements
Aussies are pretty ingenious people, and over the
years they have achieved quite a bit, below are only a few of their
achievements, but this page will get a lot longer...
America's Cup
A yacht race which was always won by the Americans.
Until Australian entrepeneur and millionaire Alan Bond decided it
was time the cup ended up in Australian hands and put big sums of
money into building a superboat named Australia II which under skipper
John Bertrand in 1983 wrestled the cup out of American hands much
to the delight of ecstatic Australians.
Prime Minister at the time Bob Hawke told Australian workers to
take a holiday to celebrate this sensational win. “I tell
you what, any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is
a bum!,”
Cape Tribulation road
This one is more of a non-achievement really; it took
the local council no less than TEN years to surface the 36 kilometres
of road from the Daintree river ferry to Cape Tribulation. When
you consider the 6700 km. long Great Wall of China was also built
in ten years, at the rate of a mile a day, that does make you wonder
about the productivity of council workers a bit.....
Dingo fence
Stretching nearly 5500km across the central deserts
of Australia, the 1.8 metre high dingo fence was erected to prevent
dingoes entering South Australia from the north and eating their
sheep and is still being maintained today.
East to west rail link
In 1917 the railway linking Perth to Sydney was completed.
135 Sydney suburbs walked
90 year old Alan Waddell has walked 2000 kms through
every street of 135 Sydney suburbs, and you can read all about it
on his website www.walksydneystreets.net
Fastest London to Sydney flight
Aviators Ross and Keith Smith were rewarded with a prize by the
Australian government for making the fastest London to Sydney flight
ever in 1920, it took them only 720 hours or 28 days!
( This record has been broken since then).
First flight
Australian Lawrence Hargrave is credited with discovering
that a curved wing gives more lift than a flat one and having made
the first flight.
On November 12, 1894, he flew his box kite off the cliffs at Stanwell
Park in Sydney, a decade before the Wright brothers made their first
flight in the US in 1903.
Larrimah pub
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
This pub in the town of Larrimah, Northern Territory,
about 700km. south of Darwin, was reportedly built in only
one weekend! Larrimah that nowadays has only 16 residents
was a bit livelier in World War Two when many soldiers were based
here. The pub used to stand fifty kms away from its current location
but as it was hard to access in the wet season during flooding the
army swung into action and moved the pub to a more convenient spot.
Northern Territory railway
After more than a hundred years of talking about it
the 1420 km. N.T. railway has finally been built and was completed
in october 2003 at a cost of $ 1.3 billion. Workers had to battle
the desert heat and at times worked under big lights in the night
and slept in the day, had to negotiate with Aborigines to avoid
sacred sites. By november 2003 already five million dollars in bookings
was made for the first passenger service planned to start around
february 2004, the first freight train, measuring 1200 metres in
length and carrying 4000 tonnes, left Adelaide on 15 january 2004
for the 43 hour and 2979 km. journey. Mainly a freight line, the
railway is also expected to bring an extra 30,000 tourists to Darwin
each year. Territorians wanting to celebrate the arrival of the
first train were shocked to hear that alcohol was banned at the
arrival party (even for the 600 VIPs) , this was a major break with
tradition for a city that for many years held the record of having
the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world and has
an annual beercan regatta with boats made of empty beercans. A crowd
of 10 000 people welcomed the train on its arrival around lunchtime
on saturday 17 january. Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare
Martin said the first journey along the 3000km railway was ``a dream
for Australia come true'' , Prime Minister John Howard said; "this
is a great moment is the history of Australia, this is a reminder
of Australia at its best." Chris Corrigan, a man who has made
his fortune in the transport industry said; they've spent $2 billion
building a railway for five trains a week and a few cartons of beer
and I expect the financial returns on that to be smaller than ticks'
testicles. But for the first year of operations they carried more
freight than had been anticipated. It certainly provides a great
way for travellers to see the Northern Territory outback in comfort.
Rubyk Cube
Lina Estevao, of Sydney, NSW, at the age of 75 years
can resolve the Rubyk cube (3x3) from any scrambled position in
less than 3 minutes! Her husband Jorge is very proud of his wife
and believes that she is the only senior citizen, the oldest australian
and the fastest adult capable of this amazing personal achievement.
Is anyone out there ready to challenge her incredible skills and
manual dexterity? If so drop them a line at: jestevam@idx.com.au
Snowy Mountains Scheme
A project covering an area the size of Switzerland to divert water
to the Murray and Murrumbidgee river systems and to produce electricity
for the southeast of Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and
South Australia.
Construction ran from 1949 until the official opening in 1972 by
the Governor General, Sir Paul Hasluck.
Under the supervision of engineer Sir William Hudson over a 100,000
workers from 30 nations built 16 major dams, including the largest
dam in the southern hemisphere at Talbingo, 7 power stations, 145km
of interconnected tunnels and 80km of aqueducts at a cost of over
$1billion (over $5billion in today's terms).
The scheme helped transform Australia's economy from one based on
agriculture to one including heavy industry. Environmentalists were
less happy about the once Mighty Snowy River drying up into a pathetic
trickle and efforts were made in the late 1990s to restore some
of the flow again.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Also locally known as the Coathanger, Sydney's Harbour
Bridge is one of the main land marks of the city. End of the 1990s
it became the venue for the biggest ever Sydney fireworks, to be
followed by even bigger the next year etc. and it probably still
sticks in many peoples minds around the world as it was watched
by billions at the time of the Sydney2000 Olympics. Construction
on this feature started in 1922 when it was planned to be the world's
longest single span bridge but just before completion in 1932 the
Americans, known to do everything a bit bigger than others, built
a bridge in New York that was just a fraction longer than the 503
metres this bridge measures. Sixteen people died during its construction.
The bridge is still continuously being painted, when they finish
at one end it is time to start at the other end, it takes 10 years
and 30,000 litres of paint for every coat. One of the painters,
Paul Hogan, got that tired of this never ending job that he went
into showbiz as a TV comedian and then made a few Crocodile Dundee
movies. Nowadays you can go on a guided
tour to climb the bridge which gives you some spectacular views
over Sydney.
Sydney Olympics
The Sydney Olympics in 2000 proved very succesful,
the Olympics President Juan Antonio Sancharez even declared them
the best ever, much to the surprise of many who had become very
sceptical when one delay and stuff-up after the other was reported
during the building process and even the chief organizer quit. But
the combined efforts of no less than 110,000 people saw the Games
officially opened on time on September 14. Transport coped well
with nearly six million people moving around Sydney to see the games,
11000 athletes from 200 countries competed and Aussie athletes managed
to keep 16 gold medals in the country. The games were planned to
be the Green Games with all building designs being the ultimate
in energy efficient design, solar powered etc. but this was scaled
back a little when the costs were realized.
A whole range of (some a bit outdated) Aussie singers was pulled
on stage to sing to the world in a huge opening ceremony where Aboriginal
runner Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic Flame.
Sydney managed to obtain the Olympics just after the Americans had
made a good profit out of their Olympic Games but just because Americans
make a profit out of something does not necessarilyy mean that Aussies
can do that too, it still remains to be seen if the $7 billion spent
on the Olympics returned a profit or not.
Nowadays you can visit Olympic Park where the athletes were housed
during the games, after the games the houses were sold and have
now become residential areas.
Sydney Opera House
A design competition in 1955 produced 233 entries
but it was Danish architect Joern Utzon who won the job though he
never finished it as he quit in 1966. He had run into huge arguments
with the builders who had considerable trouble to convert this idea
from a design on paper in to the real thing, and he was pushed out
by Sir Davis Hughes who downgraded his role in the project and with
held payment of his fees. Construction took far more time and money
than expected and ran from 1959 till 1973 when it was officially
opened by Queen Elizabeth II . The original $7 million budget blew
out to a whopping $102 million and a team of Aussie architects were
left to finish the interior design after Utzon quit, by then it
was realized that though it looks nice from the outside it is a
bit cramped inside.
In June 2007 the Opera House gained World Heritage Listing, joining
more than 800 other sites including the Taj Mahal, the Statue of
Liberty, the Great Wall of China and Egypt's pyramids.
Do you know of any amazing Australian achievements?
Then contact us!
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