Lonely Planet Beautiful World Australia

Such is Australias scale that it can be snowing at one end of the country while daytime temperatures may be tropical at the other. In the hours that it takes to fly across its 8.6m sq km area (or the four days if you take the Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin), youll pass over vast deserts, forests, mountains, gorges and lakes. It is, after all, a continent. Forty five million years ago, Australia split from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana and remnants of that lands fauna and flora evolved into the unique Australian species that you see today quokkas in Western Australia, quolls in Tasmania. Tracts of forest that date back to the era of the dinosaur survive in several locations. But, as art critic Robert Hughes wrote in The Fatal Shore , his seminal account of Australias founding, Australia is not, to me, a picturesque little country full of cute marsupials at the end of the world.

Its land may be old and the earliest humans arrived 50,000 years ago but Australias modern cities are some of the youngest and most creative on the planet, some fewer than 200 years old. This book of photography depicts the most beautiful aspects of Australias natural world and its most extraordinary scenes. Well travel from the warm waves of the Queensland coast, ushering surfers to shore, to the red deserts of its centre, where the land is so inhospitable that settlements are subterranean. Well also visit Australias thriving, cosmopolitan cities, experience rural life, and climb its highest mountains, trees and a very famous bridge. Weve organised the book by state and territory: the personality of each shines through the images, from raw and rugged Tasmania to the rocky, alien landscapes of the Northern Territory.

New South Wales | Byron Bay, bohemian town Turnervisual | Getty Images Outback | The Milky Way above Bourke David Trood | Getty Images Blue Mountains National Park | Hanging Rock at Blackheath Craig Holloway | 500px Byron Bay | Dolphins at Cape Byron RugliG | Shutterstock Byron Bay | Surfers paradise Andrey Bayda | Shutterstock Hunter Valley | Food and vines Andrey Bayda | Shutterstock Bondi Beach | Star beach of Sydney Jonathon Stokes | Lonely Planet Jervis Bay | Hyams Beach Kevin Mirc | EyeEm | Getty Images Kosciuszko National Park | Snow gums in the Snowy Mountains Paul Wallace | 500px Snowy Mountains | Wild brumbies Faraz Mirzaagha | 500px Canberra | City Hill in the capital Martin Ollman | 500px Canberra | Parliament House Australian Scenics | Getty Images Canberra | The Australian War Memorial Ingo Oeland | Alamy Stock Photo New South Wales | The waratah, state emblem Anna Calvert | 500px South coast | Illawarra Fly Treetop Walk Jonathon Stokes | Lonely Planet South coast | The Grand Pacific Drive zetter | Getty Images Sydney | The city harbour Taras Vyshnya | Shutterstock Sydney | Sydney Harbour Bridge Alberto Mazza | 500px Sydney | Sydney Opera House Catherine Sutherland | Lonely Planet Sydney | Bondi Icebergs seawater pool superjoseph | Shutterstock Sydney | Hipster hang-outs Matt Munro | Lonely Planet Sydney | Hipster hang-outs Catherine Sutherland | Lonely Planet Silverton | Outback hotel David Trood | Getty Images