Australia
World Heritage Parks, real
Australian Outback, snow-capped ski
fields, breathtaking beaches and coastlines, lush farming country and the
dazzling city lights of Sydney; New South Wales has a
lot to offer!!
Against this superb backdrop
you will find a network of adventure activities, historie country towns, arts
and crafts, great dining, food and wine trails, entertaiment and shopping and a
fascinating heritage and sboriginal culture. New South Wales is in the southeast part of the
Australian continent and is the most populous and heavily industrialsed
State in Australia, with highly urbanised
population.
The capital of New South Wales is Sydney,
Australia's
largest city and one of the world's great seaports.
New South Wales has a temperate climate which is generally freeof
extremes of heat and cold. Farmstay and country holidays in New South Wales can vary from properties
growing wheat, beff cattle, wool, oats, luceme, rice, maize, fruit, vegetables
and fish including oyster farming.
The farms located in coastal
regions are mainly for mixed farming operations, including dairying, beef
cattle and timber. Farmstays in the warmer northem regions of the Tweed, Richmond and Clarence
river areas, produce sugar and bananas. Farms located in New South Wales tablelands produce the
wold's finest wools in addition to lamb and beef. On the central slopes of the
Great DivingRange, you can find Farmstay oropertiesproducing cherries, apples
and pears.
HISTORY
Sheep came to Australia
with the First Fleet in 1788. They were brought by Governor Phillip from the
Cape of Good Hope in South
Africa. They had fat, long tails and their
wool was like hair. Sheep are not native to Australia. The first white people
wanted sheep for their meat and not their wool.
MERINO SHEEP
Three out of four Australian sheep are merinos. Most other sheep are
crossedwith merinos. The first merinos were bred in Spain. Australian merinos are now a
separate breed of sheep. Not all merinos look alike. There are four main
strains of merinos.
EXPORTS During
1985, wool was shorn from 168.1 million sheep and lambs in Australia. 97%
of our wool goes overseas. Australia
is still the biggest exporter of wool in the world. The main buyers of our wool
are: Japan, Europe, Russia, India,
Taiwan and South Korea. Great Britain
used to buy most of our wool but buys much less now. Most wool that Australia exports is still 'greasy'. This means it is just
as it was when shorn from the sheep.
Japan is the biggest
buyer of scoured wool. Scoured wool is the dirtiest wool which is washed before
being sold. Wool makes up one tenth of our exports and earns a lot of money for
our country.
LIFE ON A SHEEPFARM
The people who life on a sheepfarm are living far away
from the civilisation. Their farms are often more than 300 squaremelis
large, that is as big as the half of London
or as big as the smalles european countries. They need
motorbikes for travelling around their farms. In the past they took horses.
Once a year the "shearers" (that means woolcutters) travel in teams from
on station to anothe. They work very fast Most
shearers can shear 100 to 120 in one day. It's important to know, that there
are 16 million people in Australia
and 139 million sheep. In fact, Australian sheep grow up one quarter of all the
wool in the world.
The farmers have to pay attention for their sheep because there's the
wild dog called Dingo. In one nicht it can kill up to 20 sheep. Then the
farmers get the "doggers" to come. They are men who go out and kill the dingos.
Also for children the life there isn't easy. They can't go to school
because it's to far away. They talk with their teacher and their classmates on
the radio.
For people who live in a city this life is unbelieveable!! But the
farmers like their life on their sheepstation.
