Beautiful Australia can be identified as either a country, a continent, or the largest island in the world! It continues to move about seven centimetres north every year. In 1644, Australia was given the name New Holland by Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman; As of today, New Holland is no longer part of their identification. In 1804, an explorer named Matthew Flinders proposed to name the land as Terra Australis which was later abbreviated to the current Australia.
Did you know? Western Australia held a war against Emu birds!
TL;DR ... they didn't win.
Here's a brief on what happened - In 1932 between November 2nd and December 10th, soldiers from WW1 were given farm lands but Emus who just finished their mating season saw this new land as their new domain and ate. Everything. And destroyed. Everything. The soldiers confided with the Minister of Defence, who granted them guns to take care of their problem, thus started what is called "The Great Emu War". The end result of day one was "perhaps a dozen" of the attempted 50 were killed. By December 2nd, the numbers increased to approximately 100 Emus per week. Out of 9,860 rounds, only 986 were actual kills. The war ended with a "tactical withdraw" due to lack of ammo and no more support from the government.
Today, Emu meat can be found in many restaurants along with Kangaroo. Emu are very low in fat and cholesterol while also containing more iron than beef.
Other fun facts you may not know about Australia is:
🐨 Western Australia is three and a half times as big as Texas!
🐨 No part of Australia is further than 1,000 kilometres from the sea!
🐨 Perth is the most isolated city in the world! The nearest city is Adelaide which is over 2,100 km (1,305 mi) away.
🐨 The Great Barrier Reef, which is located off the coast of Queensland, is the largest coral reef in the world, extending over 2,012.5 kilometres.
🐨 Australia is home to one of the wonders of the world: The Sydney Opera House. Construction for the Opera House started in March of 1959 and did not get completed and opened until the 20th of October, 1973.
Enough gibbering on, smash these recipes down ya gullet and have a rippah of a time cooking them!