A Few Facts (not fake news) about Australia and New Zealand

1.  Australia is the size of the United States. 

2.  If New Zealand were superimposed on the east coast of the US, it would stretch from New York to northern Florida.
3.  Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were sent to Australia from England; thus, the majority of the first white-skinned "settlers" were convicts.  Tasmania also became a penal colony and approximately 110 convicts were settled into New Zealand, although New Zealanders like to think of themselves as coming from a higher ancestral stock because it was settled as a religious colony. 

4.  Australia is the second driest country in the world (Antarctica is the first).  About 35 % of the continent receives so little rain, it is effectively desert. 

5.  The New Zealand Alps have been created by the pressure from two tectonic plates running into each other, and much of the altitude has risen during the last 45 million years (relatively young in geologic terms). According to a late 1970s inventory, the Southern Alps contained over 3000 glaciers larger than 2.5 acres.  Some of these glaciers are melting, however.   

      6.  The indigenous peoples from Australia and New Zealand did not originate from the same areas. The New Zealand Maori are Polynesian and probably arrived there around 700 years ago.  The Aborigines of Australia arrived 50,000 years ago. 

the Australian Aboriginal flag







the Maori flag