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Melbourne's own vibrant music scene has fostered many internationally renowned artists and musicians, with links to Nick Cave, Crowded House, AC/DC, John Farnham, Graeme Bell and Kylie Minogue.

Today's Australian cuisine is some of the most diverse available anywhere, due to the many cultural influences. Modern Australian cuisine has been heavily influenced by the country's South East Asian neighbours, and by the many waves of immigrants from there, and all parts of the world. Similarly, Greek, Lebanese and Italian influences are common. Fresh produce is readily available and thus used extensively, and the trend (urged by long-term government health initiatives) is towards low-salt, low-fat healthy cookery incorporating lean meat and lightly cooked, colourful, steamed or stir-fried vegetables.

Melbourne is home to nine of the sixteen teams in the Australian Football League, whose five Melbourne games per week attract an average 35,000 people per game. Melbourne hosts the Australian Open tennis, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments; the Melbourne Cup - the most prestigious handicap horse race in the world; the hugely popular 'Boxing Day' cricket test match held each year from 26-30 December at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (a massive arena that can hold up to 100,000 spectators); the Australian Grand Prix Formula One championship.

While Aussies take a loss hard, chances are that just a few hours later and with some beers in them, players and fans have forgotten about the sting of defeat and are back to enjoying Australian life.

With a population of approx. 170,000 people in the city proper (known as the "city of Sydney") and a metropolitan area population exceeding 4 million, the Sydney metropolis is the larger of the two main financial, transport, trade and cultural centres of Australia (the other being Melbourne, Sydney's long term rival to the title of pre-eminent Australian city).

Two of Australia's most traditional takeaway dishes are the meat pie and sausage roll. These come in varying grades, ranging from the mass-produced factory outputs of Four-and-Twenty and Big Ben, sold on every street corner in milk bars, through to gourmet pies sold by specialist pie shops. There is an annual competition to find the 'Great Australian Meat Pie', and the winners are greatly removed from their fat-laden antecedents.

By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid — 40% of the land mass is covered by sand dunes. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the country has a tropical climate: part is tropical rainforests, part grasslands, and part desert. The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over 1,200 kilometres. Uluru (until 1986 known as Ayers Rock), is the second largest monolith in the world and is located in central Australia (the largest being Mount Augustus in Western Australia). The largest city in the world by area (not by population) is Mount Isa in northern Queensland.

Darwin has a tropical climate with distinct wet and dry seasons. The dry season runs from May to September, in the coolest months of June and July daily temperature range is 19 to 30°C. In the Wet season is associated with tropical cyclones and monsoon rains, the majority of rainfall occurs between December and March, thunderstorms are common and humidity is regularly over 70 per cent.