� 1st June was Australia�s official start to winter?
� A doona is a blanket in a cover? We had to buy one from a charity shop as it got so cold in the campervan
� Australia has plastic money (notes) that doesn�t tear or get dirty easily and it�s OK if you put it into the washing machine by mistake?
� 5 cents is the smallest Australian coin? Shops have a round-up or round-down policy but we never seemed to have a supermarket bill rounded down!
� There are euros in Australia? Not money but a type of kangaroo.
� The Australian coast is around 37,000km in length? We drove 5000km by car up the east coast from Sydney to Port Douglas, 7000km from Darwin down to the southwest and back to Perth in the campervan and 1000km by car from Adelaide to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road. We travelled 1600km from Alice Springs to Adelaide on The Ghan train and flew 7000km connecting various cities.
� The Ghan Train is named after Afghanistan cameleers who laid the route across the centre of the country? It is one of the longest railway tracks in the world (Darwin to Adelaide).
� Of the 20 million people living in Australia, � live within 3 to 4km of the coast. So we guess we must have passed within waving distance of most of the population.
� Augusta is the most southwesterly point of Australia where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet? We went up the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse there.
� Australia is the driest continent on earth and is currently experiencing a major drought? However, Perth has just had its wettest June since the 1970s. Our waterproofs came in very handy.
� The names of many towns that we visited in the southwest end in �up�? e.g. Yallingup, Nornalup. �Up� is an aboriginal term for �a place to go� so that Yallingup is �The place of love�.
� About 700,000 camels are now living wild in central Australia and are being culled as they are eating all the vegetation.
� Ayers Rock�s aboriginal name is Uluru? We walked around its base at sunrise (about 10km).
� The Great Ocean Road was built by men who survived the first world war? It is spectacular even in the rain!
