Page 25 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Australia

A POR TR AIT OF A USTR ALIA  23

but an understanding of ancestral beings
is an invaluable guide to traditional
lifestyles. Aboriginal painting is now
respected as one of the world’s most
ancient art forms and modern Aboriginal
art began to be taken seriously in the
1970s. Aboriginal writers have also come
to the forefront of Australian literature.
Younger Aborigines are beginning to
capitalize on this new awareness to
promote equal rights and, with Aboriginal
cultural centres being set up throughout
the country, it is unlikely that Australia
will dismiss its native heritage again.

Society
Given Australia’s size and the fact that
early settlements were far apart, Australian
society is remarkably homogeneous.
Its citizens are fundamentally prosperous
and the way of life in the major cities and Wine barrels lining the wall of a winery’s cellar in Australia, ageing
towns is much the same however many the contents before they are bottled for release
miles divide them. It takes a keen ear to
identify regional accents. and conservative. For many years, Australia
However, there is some difference in was said to have “ridden on the sheep’s
lifestyle between city dwellers and the back”, a reference to wool being the
country people. Almost 90 per cent of the country’s main money-earner. However,
population lives in the fast-paced cities the wool industry is no longer dominant.
along the coast and has little more than a Much of Australia’s relatively sound
passing familiarity with the Outback. The economy is now achieved from coal, iron
major cities preserve pockets of colonial ore and wheat, and as the largest diamond
heritage, but the overall impression is producer in the world. Newer industries
modern, with new buildings reflecting such as tourism and wine making are also
the country’s youth. In contrast, the rural increasingly important. Australians are
communities tend to be slow-moving generally friendly and relaxed, with a
self-deprecating sense of
humour. On the whole,
Australia has a society
without hierarchies, an
attitude generally held
to stem from its convict
beginnings. Yet, contrary to
widespread belief, very few
Australians have true convict
origins. Within only one
generation of the arrival
of the First Fleet in 1788,
Australia had become a
Isolated Outback church in Silverton, New South Wales nation of immigrants.