澳大利亚的介绍--

“The Dreaming” or “The Dreamtime”
梦创时代，是原住民文化的重要组成部分。它是 指原住民的神话中所指的远古时期，那时起球形 成了其目前的形态，生命和自然的形式和周期也 在那时开始。有关梦创时代的传说构成了今天原 住民的价值观和社会关系。澳大利亚原住民以为 只有在梦境之中，人才可以得到对远古创始期的 认知，故称其为Dreaming 。
A macropod（大足的） which is sometimes as much as two meters in height . It sits upright on its extremely powerful back legs and moves by jumping .
It is also a marsupial（有袋的） which means that the young “joeys” , or baby kangaroos , live in the mother’s pouch（袋） until they are ready to fend for themselves（独立照顾自己） .
The continent of Australia lies between equatorial （赤道附近的） South East Asia and the Antarctic . With a coastline of 30 000 kilometres and a land area of 7 682 300 km2 , it is the largest island in the world . Its land area almost equals that of the United States . It is also the smallest , flattest and driest continent in the world . The country also includes Tasmania（塔斯马尼亚 岛） , an island just to the south , the Torres Straits （托雷斯海峡） Islands off the northern coast of the mainland and a small number of islands in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans .
澳大利亚第二国歌
歌曲产生背景：1895年，彼德森同他的未婚妻莎拉。 雷利（Sarah Riley ）一起，访问了莎拉的同校朋友克 里斯蒂娜。麦克菲森（Christina Macpherson）在昆 示兰偏远地区的家宅。在那里，他听到克里斯蒂娜用 自鸣筝演奏了一首叫做“Craigeelee”的乐曲，彼德森 喜欢这首曲子的 那种怪诞和梦幻的感觉，于是产生了 为该曲子填歌词的想法。 主人带他在家宅附近参观的 时候，他看到了池塘边一个新剥下来的羊皮。显然是 有人偷了羊，把它杀了吃肉。于是主人麦克菲森告诉 他在1894年9 月发生的一次剪羊毛工罢工的故事。当 时，剪羊毛工放火烧了麦克菲森的家宅，还杀了一百 多只羊。麦克菲森和三个警察追捕他们的时候，其中 一个剪羊毛工宁愿被 警察射杀也不愿被捕。彼德森受 此启发，于是把这些所见所闻写成这首歌词，而克里 斯蒂娜则把她弹奏的曲子记录了下来，一首传世之作 就诞生了。
There were somewhere between 200 to 250 different languages spoken on the continent . Some of these languages still exist today:
The Arrernte people lived in the desert regions of Central Australia . The Thurrawai , the Dhurga and the Dyirringa peoples , lived on the fertile plains of the Illawarra in the South East . The Gundungurra and the Ngarigu are the People of the table lands and the snowfields to the west of these plains , in the land on which Canberra , the Australian capital now stands .
The Peoples of the Dreaming belonged to over 500 different groups or nations with different languages and cultures but they were bound together by their belief in the Dreaming . “The Dreaming” or “The Dreamtime” is the most enduring religion in Australia today .
Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania
Torres Straits
The distinctive features of the land
Two of the country’s most distinctive physical features are the Great Dividing Range（大分 水岭） and the Great Barrier Reef（大堡 礁） .The Great Dividing Range extends as an almost unbroken series of plateaus（高原） down the East Coast of Australia , from northern Queensland , through New South Wales and into Victoria , whilst , off shore , the Great Barrier Reef , the largest coral structure in the world , extends for over 2 000 kilometers along the coast of Queensland .
the Great Barrier Reef（大堡礁）
the Great Barrier Reef（大堡礁）
the Great Barrier Reef（大堡礁）
the Great Barrier Reef（大堡礁）
the Great Barrier Reef（大堡礁）
Hale Waihona Puke The distinctive animals
Platypus (鸭嘴兽)
Often described as the world’s most unusual animal because it is a small , web-footed （长蹼足动物） , egg-laying mammal （产卵哺乳动物） with a bill（鸟嘴） like a duck and can stay under water for as long as 14 minutes .
Pitjanjara is the language of a number of different family groups whose country is in the central and southern desert region .
The Jawoyn people belong to the tropical north of the country
The continent is thought to have formed from the disintegration of Gondwana –the great southern supercontinent –in a process of separation occurring from 250 to 90 million years ago . Isolated from other major island masses , Australia’s distinctive flora（植物群） and fauna （动 物群）evolved through its long period as an island continent . Animals that are unique to the continent include .
（毛鼻袋熊）
A squat（低矮的） round , bear-like , burrowing （挖地洞的） marsupial , about one meter in length , with short legs , small ears and eyes and a thick , coarse fur of brown or grey .
（树袋熊）
Another marsupial but one which looks like a small wooly , grey and white bear . It lives mainly in the branches of trees , especially the eucalyptus （桉树）whose leaves comprise the koala’s main diet .
lyrebird (琴鸟)
-Australia’s national bird
lyrebird
We do not know exactly how long the country has been occupied but the earliest discovered site of occupation is about 47 000 years old . To put this in perspective , since the First Fleet arrived in 1788 there have been only eight generations of settlers . On the other hand , there have been at least 18 500 generations of the Peoples of the Dreaming .