Homebush Bay - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Great Barrier Reef - Queensland, Australia.

 


The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labeled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland.

Whitehaven Beach - Whitsunday Island, Australia.

Whitehaven Beach is a 7 km stretch along Whitsunday Island, Australia. The island is accessible by boat from the mainland tourist ports of Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour, as well as Hamilton Island. The Whitehaven Beach Ocean Swim is a two km open swimming competition held on the Beach in November each year as part of the Hamilton Island Triathlon Event. The 2012 event was held on 11 November 2012

Sydney Harbour - Port Jackson -Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Port Jackson, comprising the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea (part of the South Pacific Ocean). It is the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The location of the first European settlement in Australia, Port Jackson has continued to play a key role in the history and development of Sydney.

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Homebush Bay - Sydney, Australia.

Homebush Bay is a bay on the south bank of the Parramatta River, in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The name is also used to refer to an area to the west and south of the bay itself, which was formerly an official suburb of Sydney, which has now become the suburbs of Sydney Olympic Park, Wentworth Point and part of the neighbouring suburb of Lidcombe. Homebush Bay is located 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of City of Auburn. Homebush and Homebush West are separate suburbs.

The bay has natural and artificial shoreline on the southern side of the Parramatta River between the former suburb of Homebush Bay and the suburb of Rhodes. The bay was contaminated with dioxin and other chemicals by Union Carbide group which led to commercial fishing bans in most of Sydney Harbour and health advisories about limiting the quantity of fish eaten from the Parramattta River. Fishing is prohibited in Homebush Bay for health reasons. Other contamination includes phthalates, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT and heavy metals. The eastern shore of the bay was remediated starting in 2008 to remove about 75% of the dioxin from the bay. Remediation was completed in mid-2010.

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Tasmania - Australia

Tasmania (abbreviated as Tas and known colloquially as "Tassie"; /tæzˈmeɪniə/) is an island state that is part of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres (150 mi) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the main island of Tasmania, the 26th largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of 507,626 (as of June 2010), almost half of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city Hobart.

Tasmania's area is 68,401 square kilometres (26,410 sq mi), of which the main island covers 64,519 square kilometres (24,911 sq mi). Tasmania is promoted as a natural state; almost 45% of Tasmania lies in reserves, national parks and World Heritage Sites and the state was the founding place of the first environmental party in the world.

The northernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania is Boundary Islet, a nature reserve in Bass Strait which due to a mapping error is shared with the state of Victoria. The subantarctic Macquarie Island and its surrounding islands are also under the administration of Tasmania as a nature reserve and part of the Huon Valley Council local government area. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, and the southernmost internationally recognised land in Australia.

The land is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before English colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait.

The penal settlement of Van Diemen's Land (named by explorer Abel Tasman in honour of Dutch colonial governor Anthony van Diemen) was founded in 1803 by the British Empire to forestall any claims to the land by French explorers during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1856 it became a self-governing colony and renamed Tasmania, and in 1901 it became part of the Federation of Australia. About 65,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land before transportation ceased in 1853.

The Aboriginal population was estimated to have been between 3000 and 7000 at the time of colonisation, but was almost wiped out within 30 years by a combination of violent guerrilla conflict with settlers known as the "Black War", intertribal conflict and, from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described by some historians as an act of genocide by the British.

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Great Barrier Reef - Queensland, Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labeled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland.

A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecosystem include runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985.

The Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is an important part of local groups' cultures and spirituality. The reef is a very popular destination for tourists, especially in the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over $3 billion per year.

In November 2014, Google launched Google Underwater Street View in 3D of the Great Barrier Reef.

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Great Barrier Reef - Queensland, Australia. by Asith Mohan Mangalore

Whitehaven Beach - Whitsunday Island, Australia.

Whitehaven Beach is a 7 km stretch along Whitsunday Island, Australia. The island is accessible by boat from the mainland tourist ports of Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour, as well as Hamilton Island. The Whitehaven Beach Ocean Swim is a two km open swimming competition held on the Beach in November each year as part of the Hamilton Island Triathlon Event. The 2012 event was held on 11 November 2012

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Whitehaven Beach - Whitsunday Island, Australia. by Asith Mohan Mangalore