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This picturesque little city of Hobart in Tasmania is a busy seaport, notably serving as the home port for Australia's (and France's) Antarctic activities. It supports several other industries (notably including a high-speed catamaran factory and a zinc smelter) as well as a vibrant tourist industry. Visitors come to the city to explore its historic inner suburbs, to visit the weekly craft market in Salamanca Place, as well as to use the town as a base from which to explore the rest of Tasmania.

Despite the best intentions of government health schemes and cultural marketing initiatives, the traditional Australian palate is amply serviced by an extensive takeaway food industry.

Australia is home to perhaps the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world - that is, those of the Aboriginal Australians, an artistic tradition that began to receive international recognition in the late 20th century. It has also produced notable artists coming out of Western traditions whose most distinctively Australian feature is the gradual development of a way to represent the equally distinctive Australian landscape.

Australian literature began soon after the establishment of the country by Europeans. Early popular works tended to be of the 'ripping yarn' variety, telling tales of derring-do against the new frontier of the Australian outback. Writers such as Rolf Boldrewood, Marcus Clarke and Joseph Furphy embodied these stirring ideals in their tales and, particularly the latter, tried to accurately record the vernacular language of the common Australian. These novelists also give valuable insights into the penal colonies which helped form the country and also the early rural settlements. The transportation of prisoners, emigration to this once remote nation and the persecution and prejudice suffered by its indigenous peoples all contribute to a sense of alienation and exile which can be seen to run through at least the early writings of Australia.

Australia is unusual because the animal population evolved largely out of contact with the other continents. A very high percentage of Australian animals are endemic (found nowhere else) including about 70% of its birds and 95% of its mammals. Over time, marsupials filled most of the ecological niches that are occupied by placental mammals in most other parts of the world.