The Australian $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes are made out of recycled plastic shopping bags. The Royal Australian Mint, (Denison Street, Deakin, A.C.T. 2600) is always pleased to receive COD any of your plastic shopping bags that you may care to send them.
However, Target bags present a real problem because the red circle is not easily adapted, and David Jones bags are just impossible.
The Emblem
Emus and Kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason. However, it has been regularly reported in certain towns in Queensland that when no one's watching, they do.
A group of nature lovers around Innisfail still spend a lot of time trying to catch them out. Ex-Premier Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen is reported to have a collection of photographs of rare single sightings.
Waltzing Matilda
One of the great waltzes of the world. However, while the author of the words was always known to be Banjo Paterson, the composer of the famous tune remained for many years a mystery.
Not until the Allied forces marched into Vienna at the end of the Second World War was it learnt that the music had actually been composed by Johann Strauss II while on a brief visit to Sydney on The Beagle.
Much to everyone's surprise it was also learnt that Johann Strauss II had used the incident of his meeting with Banjo Patterson and the time they spent cruising together the beautiful shorelines of Sydney Harbour, in the operetta 'A Night in Venice.'
Incidentally, Waltzing Matilda was rumoured to have been Queen Victoria's favourite waltz and she could not attend a single public execution without humming it.
Advance Australia Fair
Written for the great international Sydney Expo of 1888. It was for this Expo that France's Gustav Eiffel shipped out the Harbour Bridge.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service
Started by Errol Flynn, the legendary Tasmanian actor in 1928. As Tasmania had no medical services until this time, Flynn founded this early Medivac from Sydney to service Tasmania's population which at the time was 106. Plus one Aboriginal woman.
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