The great deserts and the "red heart
Australia is characterized above all by its desert, which defines most of its landscapes. Stretching across the center of the continent, the Outback is made up of rocky and sandy deserts that shape the curves of the landscape. Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the driest continent in the world: 70% of the country receives less than 500 mm of rainfall each year. When a few drops of rain do fall, the deserts take on magnificent colors, and their flora is more diverse than one might imagine. These arid zones are sparsely inhabited, with just 3% of the population. This facet of the country, synonymous with a hostile environment, explains why Australia is ultimately sparsely populated: after Mongolia and Namibia, the island-continent ranks third on the podium of the world's least populated countries. Two-thirds of the population is concentrated in the state capitals and on the coasts, with an estimated 4 out of 5 Australians living less than 50 kilometers from the sea.
Uluru. A 450-million-year-old remnant of the great Peterman Cordillera, Uluru is certainly one of the most representative symbols of the Australian desert. This curious, gigantic monolith, a sacred site for the Aborigines and a must-see for tourists, is surrounded by eucalyptus trees with silver trunks and grey-green foliage. The small town of Alice Springs and the famous Uluru, which form Australia's geographical "navel", are encircled by deserts that make up some 18% of the continent.
The Great Sandy Desert lies in central northern Western Australia. It is made up of dune fields and red sand plains.
The Gibson Desert, just south of the Great Sandy Desert, stretches along the Tropic of Capricorn, still in the state of Western Australia. Its arid plains stretch as far south as the Great Victorian Desert.
The Great Victorian Desert, Australia's largest desert, covers 420,000 square kilometers of land. Its name can be misleading: it does not cover the state of Victoria, but was named in honor of Queen Victoria. It straddles the states of South Australia and Western Australia. Separated from the Indian Ocean by the Nullarbor Plateau, it is characterized by its red soil and arid plains.
The Simpson Desert Cap to the east! Characterized by its sand dunes, the Simpson Desert stretches along the border between the three states of Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia. True to the characteristics of a desert, it is sparsely vegetated and extends its "moor of the dead" as far east as Birdsville and as far south as the great salt lake of Eyre. The latter is a 9,300 km² sea of grey satin. Its salt crust can be up to 50 cm thick, and less than 125 millimetres of water falls there every year! The depression of the Lake Eyre region is separated from the south by the Flinders and Lofty mountains. To the east, it is separated from the Murray plains by the Broken Hill domes.
The reliefs of Australia
Boomerang Coast. Located in the southeastern part of the continent, between the Great Dividing Range mountains and the Pacific coast, the Boomerang Coast is 3,000 km long, stretching from Adelaide to Brisbane and totalling one tenth of the country's area. These regions of rolling hills and vast plains are useful, humid and temperate Australia, easy to clear. The coast south of Sydney is one of the most varied. Small coastal plains are interrupted by rugged cliffs and beautiful bays. The Murray River, Australia's main waterway and 2,766 km long, defines the border between New South Wales and Victoria. The fertile banks of the Murray have become huge irrigated orchards. Perhaps too irrigated, as this region has been the scene of dramatic water supply problems in recent years. Other activities include cattle ranching for dairy products, grain and vegetable production and the Murray Valley vineyards. Its slopes are actually defined by high plateaus and forested mountains. The steep valleys, true canyons dominated by large vertical escarpments, form an impressive maze.
The iconic Blue Mountains, hidden under a blue steam from the eucalyptus oil, are part of the Great Dividing Range, considered the third longest mountain range in the world: nicknamed the Great Australian Cordillera, it is considered the only major mountain range in Australia. The almost permanent dryness of the Outback is partly due to this great mountain range which blocks the clouds and prevents rainfall.
Behind this mountainous barrier, extends the immense rocky plateau which forms two thirds of the continent. Even if some reliefs draw its landscape, Australia is a country that consists only of plains and low plateaus: it is the flattest of the continents. The monsoon in the north often causes monster floods which then literally overflow. All roads are cut off and cattle stations remain isolated until the water subsides. Sometimes, after the monsoon, the drainage of the water manages to fill Lake Eyre, but this happens only about twice a century. But most of the water of this river system, the poorest in the world, is lost in the sands. The Great Artesian Basin, with its innumerable water wells, is the only significant reserve on the entire Australian continent and extends over almost the entire eastern part of the country.
The East Coast, between mountains and the Great Barrier Reef
In the collective imagination, Australia is the arid wasteland characterized by its deserts. But there's much more to this great continent, the 6th largest country in the world, which is more than 50% larger than modern-day Europe, than its vast arid deserts. Head east to New South Wales to discover that it snows in Australia too!
Snow can fall on the peaks of the Snowy Mountains in the heart of the Australian Alps, where the highest peak in terms of altitude is Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m), the highest mountain on the continent in the national park of the same name. The east coast, however, is surprisingly low-lying, with little in the way of relief. The biggest river is the Murray River: 2,530 km long, it flows from the Australian Cordillera to the Indian Ocean. An extremely precious water reservoir, the Great Artesian Basin, spread across the states of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, is the world's largest and deepest artesian well, with 65,000 cubic km of water, and extends over 22% of Australia: it is the main source of portable water for a large part of the country.
Australia is the only continent without an active volcano : an astonishing exception, especially as the country paradoxically boasts the world's longest continental volcanic chain! The Cosgrove Chain stretches from Cape Hillsborough on Queensland's central coast in the southwest to Cosgrove in Victoria. Shaken by powerful volcanic eruptions due to the break-up of Gondwana, Australia experienced "super eruptions" that formed this long chain of volcanoes 33 million years ago. Underwater volcanoes have even been discovered in recent years off Sydney. Dating back 50 million years and located at a depth of 4,900 metres, this group of volcanoes could explain the origin of Australia's separation from New Zealand.
It's the beaches that characterize the landscape of Eastern Australia : there are officially 10,685 beaches! World-famous for the splendor of their white sands and the shades of blue of their crystal-clear waters, Australian beaches are paradises on earth. The whiteness of the sand at Whitehaven Beach, in the Whitsundays archipelago (Queensland), is so exceptional (98% pure silica) that NASA used it to make the lens for the Hubble Space Telescope. The country also boasts the world's largest sand island: K'Gari, or Fraser Island, is a surprising geological singularity: its tropical, thousand-year-old forests are the only ones in the world to grow in sand.
The Wild West and its natural treasures
Less well known and less explored, Western Australia still feeds the imagination of many travellers. Deserted and isolated, it stretches across the states of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. From the geological formations of the Bungles Bungles to the gorges of Karijini National Park, from the pink lake of Hutt Lagoon to the forests populated by century-old eucalyptus trees, Western Australia offers a varied and unspoilt natural environment.
The Nullarbor Plain, between South Australia and Western Australia, is totally devoid of rivers, and the rare rainfall infiltrates immediately. This region is one of the most desolate in Australia. To the north, the dunes of the inland deserts gradually give way to this limestone plateau, which slopes slowly southwards for 300 km, to dominate the sea, its cliffs and coastlines battered by the gigantic waves of the Great Australian Bight.
Ningaloo Reef. While the Great Barrier Reef to the east is far more popular, there's another barrier reef to the west, otherwise known as Ningaloo Reef. Located 1,200 km north of Perth and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it's no match for its eastern counterpart! Its coral reef, home to whale sharks, is 260 kilometers long. A dazzling spectacle of color!
Finally, Western Australia is home to the world's largest monolith : Mount Augustus, some 852 km north of the city of Perth. Some 1.7 billion years old, this 860-metre monolith is twice the size of Uluru and covers an area of 47.95 km².
