lign="justify"> s navy had ruled the seas for years and still wanted to. It s hard to imagine the hauteur of a people who believed they could come over and decide they could put down a flag and henceforth own a continent the size of Australia.fleet consisted mainly of convicts and their guards. Men outnumbered women four to one. They first arrived at Botany Bay, the area Cook had planted the flag on, but deciding it was too marshy. Phillip upped the whole fleet and sailed a few miles up the coast to Port Jackson, now known as Sydney Harbour. They put down at Circular Quay (the area just in between the Harbour Bridge and Opera House) and that s how Sydney began.1802, after various rebellions and plagues, a fellow called Matthew Flinders took his ship and circumnavigated the whole continent. Free settlers began turning up in the hope of making their fortunes. After the establishment of Port Jackson, from 1803 to 1836 settlements began in Hobart, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide, each now a state capital city.right into the guts of the place proved a harder ask. Most of Australia is harsh, arid desert. But men like Gregory, William Wentworth, and William Lawson found a way over the Blue Mountains (part of the Great Dividing Range of mountains that stretch for much of the east coast) trying to find the fabled inland sea. Many died, the most famous of whom are Robert Burke and William Wills who explored the desert for months trying to get from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north.of the most important things to happen to Australia in the early colonial days, at least as far as financial prosperity is concerned, was the introduction of sheep by Captain John Macarthur. After several experiments with various breeds Macarthur introduced a Spanish sheep called a Merino, which proved to be perfectly suited to the dry, arid conditions of Australia. Their wool made Australia rich. In 30 years the sheep population grew from 34,000 to half a million, the demand for this high quality fabric high in the factories of the Northern England. And it still is. There used to be a saying that 'Australia rides on the sheep s back' and while that may prompt uncharitable innuendo, the country became a viable member of the world on the strength of its woolly exports.important moment in the population of Australia was the discovery of gold in Bathurst, Ballarat and Bendigo. At first the authorities tried to keep it a secret, for fear that the agricultural industry would be short of workers when everyone ran off to find nuggets. But after a succession of lean years and with the news of the wealth that California had experienced in their gold rush, the government decided to reveal to people that Ballarat was the richest alluvial goldfield in the world.course, everyone went mad. Pro...
