Purnululu National Park - Australia

The Purnululu National Park is a World Heritage Site in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The 239,723-hectare (592,370-acre) national park is located approximately 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of Kununurra, with Halls Creek located to the south. Declared a World Heritage Site in 2003, the park was inscribed as follows:[2]

...[is a] remote area managed as wilderness. It includes the Bungle Bungle Range, a spectacularly incised landscape of sculptured rocks which contains superlative examples of beehive-shaped karst sandstone rising 250 metres above the surrounding semi-arid savannah grasslands. Unique depositional processes and weathering have given these towers their spectacular black and orange banded appearance, formed by biological processes of cyanobacteria (single cell photosynthetic organisms) which serve to stabilise and protect the ancient sandstone formations. These outstanding examples of cone karst that have eroded over a period of 20 million years are of great beauty and exceptional geological interest.

Purnululu National Park World Heritage site

Aerial view of the domes and a canyon.
Echidna Chasm.
The Domes Walk, Purnululu National Park. The beehive-shaped domes are Devonian calcareous sandstone, with regularly alternating, dark gray bands of cynobacterial crust.
The World Heritage status of the region was created and negotiated in 2003, and the adopted boundary of the existing national park.[3] Since its listing, the Government of Western Australia has reserved additional areas located adjacent to the World Heritage Area, including the Purnululu Conservation Park and the Ord River Regeneration Reserve.[2] The site was gazetted on the Australian National Heritage List on 21 May 2007 under the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Act (No. 1), 2003 (Cth).[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purnululu_National_Park

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Queensland Cultural Centre In Australia

Queensland Cultural Centre is a multi-venue centre located at South Bank, Brisbane, capital city of Queensland. It consists of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), the Queensland Museum, the State Library of Queensland (SLQ), the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).

The original part was designed by Brisbane architects Robin Gibson and Partners and opened in 1985. In 2010, Robin Gibson and Partners were granted a "25 Year Award for Enduring Architecture" by the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA).[1]

The GOMA building designed by Kerry and Lindsay Clare,[2] directors of the Australasian firm Architectus, was added to the complex in 2006. In 2007, the building received three awards: a Brisbane Commendation and a Public Architecture Award from the Queensland Chapter of AIA; and a National Award for Public Architecture, again from AIA. Then in 2010, the Clares received the AIA's Gold Medal for their work.

In the same year, an extension of the SLQ building designed by the Brisbane architects Donovan Hill and Peddle Thorp was opened. For their design, the architects were awarded the prestigious Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture by AIA in 2007.

The centre is surrounded by sub-tropical gardens which are professionally maintained and developed by The Plant Management Company and are open to the public. There are several cafés, restaurants, bookshops and other public facilities located throughout the site.

In the immediate South Bank area there are restaurants, bars, parklands, walking paths, and swimming pools, the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's new radio and television headquarters which also house the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. With South Brisbane Railway Station directly opposite QPAC, many major bus routes running past the centre, and water transport available along the Brisbane River, the public has ready access to the centre. In 2009, a pedestrian and bicycle bridge called the Kurilpa Bridge was opened. It connects the Roma Street Railway Station area of Brisbane City with the centre, reaching South Bank next to GOMA and close to SLQ, QAG and the Museum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_Cultural_Centre

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Sydney Harbour Bridge In Australia

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district (CBD) and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic image of Sydney, and Australia. The bridge is nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design.[1][2] Furthermore, the bridge is ubiquitously known to Sydneysiders and Australians more widely, simply as "the Bridge".

Under the directions of Queenslander Dr J.J.C. Bradfield of the NSW Department of Public Works, the bridge was designed and built by British firm Dorman Long and Co Ltd of Middlesbrough and opened in 1932.[3][4] The bridge's design was influenced by the Hell Gate Bridge in New York.[5] It is also the sixth longest spanning-arch bridge in the world, and it is the tallest steel arch bridge, measuring 134 m (440 ft) from top to water level.[6] It was also the world's widest long-span bridge, at 48.8 m (160 ft) wide, until construction of the new Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Harbour_Bridge

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Royal Botanic Gardens In Australia

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, is the most central of the three major botanical gardens open to the public in Sydney (the others being the Mount Annan Botanic Garden and the Mount Tomah Botanic Garden). The gardens were opened in 1816, and are managed by the same trust that manages the adjoining The Domain. The gardens are open every day of the year, and access is free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Botanic_Gardens,_Sydney

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Mauao In New Zealand

Mount Maunganui /ˈmɒŋɡəˌnuːi/ is a town in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, located on a peninsula to the north of Tauranga. It was independent from Tauranga until the completion of the Tauranga Harbour Bridge in 1988.

Mount Maunganui is also the name of the extinct volcanic cone that rises above the town, which is now officially known by its Māori name Mauao,[citation needed]


but is colloquially known in New Zealand simply as The Mount.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Maunganui

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Birrarung Marr In Australia

Birrarung Marr is an inner-city park between the central business district in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and the Yarra River. It was opened in 2002. The name means 'river of mists' and 'river bank' in the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people, the Indigenous inhabitants at the time of European settlement of the Melbourne area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birrarung_Marr,_Melbourne

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Purnululu National Park In Australia

Purnululu National Park is a national park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2003.

Location
Aerial view of the domes and a canyon.
It is located in north east of Western Australia. The nearest major town is Kununurra to the north, or Halls Creek to the south.

Purnululu is the name given to the sandstone area of the Bungle Bungle Range by the Kija Aboriginal people. The name means sandstone or may be a cordon of bundle grass. The range, lying fully within the park, has elevations as high as 578 metres above sea level. It is famous for the sandstone domes, unusual and visually striking with their striping in alternating orange and grey bands. The banding of the domes is due to differences in clay content and porosity of the sandstone layers: the orange bands consist of oxidised iron compounds in layers that dry out too quickly for cyanobacteria to multiply; the grey bands are composed of cyanobacteria growing on the surface of layers of sandstone where moisture accumulates.
http://ewikipedia.org/wiki/Purnululu_National_Park

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Montague Island In Australia

Montague Island (36°15′S 150°13′E) is 9 kilometres offshore from Narooma on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. It was sighted by James Cook and named Cape Dromedary, then identified as an island and named by the master of the Second Fleet convict transport Surprize after George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax.[1][2] Montague Island is a popular tourist destination, known for its lighthouse, wildlife (especially little penguins), and recreational activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montague_Island_(Australia)

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Tawharanui Regional Park In New Zealand

Tawharanui Peninsula is a finger of land projecting into the Hauraki Gulf from the east coast of the much larger North Auckland Peninsula of New Zealand. It separates Omaha Bay to the north from Kawau Bay and Kawau Island to the south. The nearest sizable town is Warkworth.

Tawharanui Regional Park covers 588 hectares of the peninsula's land and Tawharanui Marine Reserve covers the northern coastal sea. Both are administered by Auckland Council [1] which also owns the regional park.

Geologically the peninsula consists of Waitemata Sandstone on top of folded and uplifted greywacke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawharanui_Peninsula

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Auckland Museum In New Zealand

The Auckland War Memorial Museum (or simply the Auckland Museum[1]) is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its collections concentrate on New Zealand history (and especially the history of the Auckland Region), natural history, as well as military history.

The museum is also one of the most iconic Auckland buildings, constructed in the neo-classicist style, and sitting on a grassed plinth (the remains of a dormant volcano) in the Auckland Domain, a large public park close to the Auckland CBD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_War_Memorial_Museum

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Rotorua Museum In New Zealand

The Rotorua Museum of Art and History is a local museum and art gallery located in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand.[1][2][3]

The museum is housed in the old Bath House building at the spa town of Rotorua, located in the Government Gardens. Rotorua Museum opened in the south wing of the Bath House in 1969; Rotorua Art Gallery opened in the north wing in 1977. In 1988, the museum and gallery combined to form the Rotorua Museum of Art and History.[4]

The museum is run by the Rotorua District Council. It has collections covering fine arts, photography, social history, and Taonga objects from the Māori culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotorua_Museum

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Australian War Memorial In Australia

The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia. The memorial includes an extensive national military museum. The Australian War Memorial was opened in 1941, and is widely regarded as one of the most significant memorials of its type in the world.

The Memorial is located in Australia's capital, Canberra. It is the northern terminus of the city's ceremonial land axis, which stretches from Parliament House on Capital Hill along a line passing through the summit of the cone-shaped Mount Ainslie to the northeast. No continuous roadway links the two points, but there is a clear line of sight from the front balcony of Parliament House to the War Memorial, and from the front steps of the War Memorial back to Parliament House.

The Australian War Memorial consists of three parts: the Commemorative Area (shrine) including the Hall of Memory with the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, the Memorial's galleries (museum) and Research Centre (records). The Memorial also has an outdoor Sculpture Garden. The Memorial is currently open daily from 10 am until 5 pm, except on Christmas Day.

Many people include Anzac Parade as part of the Australian War Memorial because of the Parade's physical design leading up to the War Memorial, but it is maintained separately by the National Capital Authority (NCA).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_War_Memorial

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