1911 An international competition was launched to find the best plan for the new city. The design by an American landscape architect named Walter Burley Griffin won the competition.

1927 The temporary federal parliament building was completed and federal parliament moved from Melbourne to its new home in Canberra.

1978 It was decided that a new parliament building was needed to replace the temporary building which had been used for over fifty years.

1988 The new Parliament House was opened by Queen Elizabeth 2.

Coober Pedy

The name Coober Pedy is derived from the Aboriginal words "kupa piti", which means "white man's burrow".
The description is apt because most people live and work underground.

Coober Pedy is located 836 kilometres (510 miles) north of Adelaide and about 300 kilometres south of Uluru.

It is a desolate landscape devoid of vegetation and water. It is an extremely hot place too. The entire landscape is pockmarked by the telltale tailing of countless opal mines.

In 1915 a young boy named Willie Hutchison, who was out with his father prospecting for gold, discovered the first opal there. Since then the town has grown to about 2500 people.

Coober Pedy produces about 90% of the world's opals.

Because of the extreme heat during the summer almost all buildings are located underground.

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef stretches along the east coast of Queensland in Australia. It is the world's largest coral reef . It is over 2000km (1250 miles) long! It is not a single reef at all. It is made up of over 2900 individual reefs very close to each other

WHAT IS A CORAL REEF?

A coral is a tiny marine polyp. It is the living part of the coral reef. There are many different kinds of corals. These are what gives the coral reef its colourful appearance. Corals feed mostly on plankton. Coral grows in warm climates where there is clear salt water and sunlight. They don't like pollution.

A coral reef is a natural barrier made of the bodies of living and dead coral. It is normally just below the surface of the water.

It is made of two parts the:

• white part is made from the bodies of zillions and zillions of polyps which have died over hundreds and thousands of years.
• colourful part is the living part of the coral reef. It is made up of living polyps.

WHO LIVES HERE?

· 1500 species of fish

· 400 different types of coral

· 4,00 molluscs (like clams and the sea slug)

· 500 species of seaweed

· 215 species of birds

· 16 species of sea snake

· 6 species of sea turtle

· Whales visit during winter

New South Wales

New South Wales is the fourth largest state in Australia. It is 801,600 sq km in size.

About 6 million people live in New South Wales. One in three Australians lives in New South Wales.

SYDNEY

Sydney is the capital of the state of New South Wales. It is Australia's oldest and largest city. The defining symbols of Sydney are its Opera House and "coat hanger bridge".

Sydney is the commercial capital of Australia.

About 3.8 million people live in the greater Sydney area.

THE BEACH

Bondi and Manly are some of the famous beaches along the New South Wales coast a short distance from Sydney