Was named after a lively barmaid friend of Bourke and Wills. Bourke wanted to call the place "Red Rock And Running Water" but Wills, the taller of the brothers, as usual, won out and the area was named after Alice. She later moved to the area and set up a Club Med Sails Resort, which she still runs to this day.
Ayers Rock
The celebrated discoverers Burke and Wills, were requested by the Victorian Government to open up a supply route to the North. After a short sojourn at Ayers Rocks and the Olgas (see entries), they perished on the outskirts of Darwin, seven miles from help but not before discovering Ayers Rock en route.
I have noticed that Uluru and Ayers Rock are often mistaken to being one and the same thing. In fact Ayers Rock sits in the suburb of Uluru which is a suburb of Alice Springs. Uluru, by the way, in Spanish means 'nada'.
Barrier Reef
A string of unlucky entrepreneurs built both Hamilton Island and the Barrier Reef in the heady days of the booming Eighties.
The Reef was originally built above water but it was very cheaply constructed and has since sunk below the Ocean. This is of great concern to the Queensland Government who've decided that it's more economical to call it a Reef rather than a man-made isthmus, hoping that tourists won't notice.
Hamilton Island, on the other hand, which is also man-made has survived, but its golf course has sunk below the waves. One can still see the golf house in the distance and it is now called Hayman Island.
Caulfield
After extensive explorations, Holden Caulfield was the first person to discover the Australian native horse, the only non marsupial mammal along with the dingo, to have survived in the continent's harsh conditions. This horse provided the gene pool for all the subsequently great Australian race horses. The Melbourne suburb of Caulfield and its race course were named in his honour.
Fort Denison
Set in the middle of Sydney Harbour, close to the Australian Navy base, this massive sandstone structure rising several metres high, was built to keep out the Russians.
Lilyfield
The young Veronica Lilyfield set out from Pennsylvania with a group of women fighting Puritan repression in North America, to found the first lesbian colony in the country and settled in the area that now bears her name.
Port Douglas
Was named after Douglas Fairbanks the great Hollywood star of On The Beach. This very successful movie was shot in Queensland and turned the economy around in the area. Many other movies have been filmed on location there such as The Sound of Music, Alive! and The Ten Commandments.
The Rocks
Taking pride of place beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge is the site of Sydney's first confines. Known as The Rocks, this unique village is where the first European settlement in Australia began in 1788. Moll Flanders visited The Rocks and founded her famous girls school there. This establishment turned out young ladies of quality who were much prized by the young gentlemen of the Fifties. A slight problem arose when a former pupil, and a very bitter spinster, turned arsonist and burnt down the school on the site of today's Lowenbrau Keller, but not before families like the Coles, the Fosseys, the Katies and the Franklins were founded by former pupils of Moll's school.
Snowtown
Site of Australia's biggest serial killing where the remains of nine people were discovered in plastic bins in a bank vault. How on earth could a town in Australia get this name? A town in the driest state in the driest continent on earth, hotter than Hades, how come it is called Snowtown? It's because one day there was a freak meteorological incident, a freak inversion in the middle of summer and 4000 sheep froze to death, and as their corpses decayed, their fleece was dispersed by the wind, creating the illusion of a snow field.
Tasmania
To create a penal colony for the really bad ones, the British had the convicts dig a giant trench between the southernmost point of Australia and what is now the island of Tasmania. Taswegians have learnt to live in isolation although for several years discussions have been going on about linking the two.
![[RT pic]](cover21.gif)