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Even if you are not emigrating, you are probably just as apprehensive
about the land you are approaching. "What is Australia?" you ask. It is the world's largest island and smallest continent. It has a huge red centre, with symbolic Ayers Rock -- Uluhru -- the largest monolith on Earth.
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living coral in the world, and the snowfields of The Great Dividing Range are greater than those of Alpine Switzerland. But don't tell them that they are the biggest braggarts, and remember that a "Pommy Bastard" is a term of endearment. Many youngsters, under 26, even choose to take a whole year out and apply to Australia House for a working visa. Fewer funds are needed if you can work your way around the continent, and it can be a good experience to muck in with other nationals. The vast central plains are desert, or semi-desert, and nearly always deserted. The thought of the spirits of Aboriginal ancestors blowing across measureless miles of their dreamlands, might be compared to a remark made by Marco Polo on a Gobi Desert crossing, in 1274:
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"Beasts
there are none; for there is nought for them to eat. But there is a marvelous thing
related of this Desert, which is that when travellers are on the move by night, and one of
them chances to lag behind or fall asleep or the like, when he tries to gain his company
again he will hear spirits talking, and will suppose them to be his comrades. Sometimes
the spirits will call him by name; and thus shall a traveller oft times be led astray so
that he never finds his party. And in this way many have perished."
