So...you're looking for island heron australia accommodation. Let's face it...that long haul flight is certainly worth it. Whether it's Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, or even the Great Barrier Reef - Australia has it all.

Not only that, any Australian will gladly tell you that there is so much more to see and do than what you just see in the brochure!

That's why it's so important to get your travel plans sorted out properly - and, in our opinion - long haul and australia specialists Bridge The World are the best there are online, and they can tailor a travel plan just for you...

Despite being considered by some almost an anathema to literature the Australian born business man Rupert Murdoch is one of the most powerful men in media worldwide. His influence on literature includes the ownership of numerous newspapers in several countries and the publishing firm HarperCollins.

Writers who have achieved world recognition include Thomas Keneally, Les Murray, Colleen McCullough, Nevil Shute, Morris West, Jill Ker Conway, Booker Prize winners D.B.C. Pierre and Peter Carey and Nobel Prize winner Patrick White. In the popular music sphere Australian bands and musicians have had considerable international success. Some notable examples include the 1960s successes of The Easybeats and the folk-pop group The Seekers, through the heavy rock of AC/DC, the disco of the English-born Bee Gees, the slick pop of INXS and more recently Silverchair and Savage Garden. In the new millennium, garage rock bands Jet and The Vines have achieved popular success locally and in the United States and the United Kingdom, with the work of both featuring prominently in films and advertising.

The name Australia derives from Latin australis meaning southern, and dates back to 2nd century legends of an "unknown southern land" (ie. terra australis incognita). The English explorer Matthew Flinders named the land Terra Australis which was later abbreviated to the current form. Previously, when the Dutch explored the area they named it Nova Hollandicus or New Holland.

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.

Australia has a highly concentrated ownership of media companies. Newspapers are dominated by two companies, News Corporation and John Fairfax Holdings. News Corporation publishes the only daily national newspaper, The Australian, as well as a daily newspaper in every capital city except Perth. Its holdings include The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), Herald Sun (Melbourne), The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) and The Advertiser (Adelaide).

Melbourne is the capital and largest city of the state of Victoria, and the second largest city in Australia, with a population of 52,117 in the Central Business District and 3,488,750 in the metropolitan area (census 2001).