Airlie Beach in Australia

26 June 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

© flickr.com - DANIEL JULIE/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – DANIEL JULIE/cc-by-2.0

Airlie Beach is a coastal locality in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Airlie Beach had a population of 1,208 people. Each year the residents of Airlie Beach celebrate The Blessing of the Fleet on Whitsunday or Pentecost Sunday.   read more…

Raine Island National Park in Queensland

27 March 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

Green Sea Turtles and Masked Boobies © National Marine Sanctuaries - Mark Sullivan

Green Sea Turtles and Masked Boobies © National Marine Sanctuaries – Mark Sullivan

Raine Island is a vegetated coral cay 32 hectares (79 acres) in total area situated on the outer edges of the Great Barrier Reef off north-eastern Australia. It lies approximately 620 km (390 mi) north-northwest of Cairns in Queensland, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) east-north-east of Cape Grenville on the Cape York Peninsula. Raine Island is the site of the oldest European structure in tropical Australia, a stone beacon built in 1844, and harbours the world’s largest remaining population of green turtles. An important environmental icon, the island is totally protected from public access. It got its name from Captain Thomas Raine (1793–1860), the English mariner who discovered it. Raine Island is a vegetated coral cay dominated by low herbaceous annual vegetation (Batianoff et al. 1993). The cay is composed of a central core of phosphate rock surrounded by sand and extensive fringing reefs. It lies just off the eastern edge of the continental shelf, next to a shipping channel known as the Raine Island Entrance and Pandora entrance. The entrance allows shipping to enter the water of the Great Barrier Reef.   read more…

Sydney Road in Melbourne

14 February 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Shopping Reading Time:  9 minutes

© orderinchaos/cc-by-sa-3.0

© orderinchaos/cc-by-sa-3.0

Sydney Road (in its northernmost part also known as the Hume Highway) is a major urban arterial in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Sydney Road starts at the northern end of Royal Parade at the boundary of Parkville and Brunswick and continues north through Brunswick, Coburg, Coburg North, Hadfield, Fawkner, Campbellfield, Somerton and Craigieburn, where it joins the Hume Freeway. The section passing through Brunswick and Coburg, between Park Street at its southern end and Bell Street near the site of the former Pentridge prison, at its northern end, is Melbourne’s longest continuous shopping strip, with an abundance of small businesses and a variety of restaurants and coffee shops, clothing stores, places of worship, and community services. It is well known for its wedding fashion shops, discount shopping and a number of specialist food stores.   read more…

The European Union: Real Estate and Demography

25 May 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Editorial, EU blog post series, European Union, Living, Working, Building Reading Time:  467 minutes

(Latest update: 22 August 2022) First, there is not THE real estate market – not national and certainly not international. In fact, the market situation is very fragmented due to the general conditions, in other words, many individual markets, collectively referred to as “the market”. Metropolitan Area A faces different challenges than Metropolitan Area B and Metropolitan Area C can not even understand what A and B are talking about. Where there is comparability, is the housing situation in the “affordable segment” in urban centers in all western EU states, the US and Canada. This is where the call for the state, which should intervene regulatively, quickly becomes louder. In free market economies, however, this is on the one hand not wanted and therefore on the other hand, only limited possible. That’s pretty okay, because the market is inherently profit-oriented and that’s just what it will stay, otherwise investment incentives for new construction would sooner or later be completely absent. The “rental price brake” (Mietpreisbremse) exemplifies the problem. At the same time, more and more social housing is being let out of the rental price brake without replacement investment being made. In the following, single aspects are examined in more detail using the example of Germany, whereby the scenarios also apply to other western countries such as the EU states, the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but also, e.g., to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul in South Korea, Tel Aviv in Israel and other emerging metropolitan regions around the world.   read more…

Canberra, the capital city of Australia

23 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  14 minutes

View from Mount Ainsle, showing the Australian War Memorial, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) parade and the parliment house © Petaholmes/cc-by-sa-3.0

View from Mount Ainsle, showing the Australian War Memorial, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) parade and the parliment house © Petaholmes/cc-by-sa-3.0

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of 400,000, it is Australia’s largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), 280 km (170 mi) south-west of Sydney, and 660 km (410 mi) north-east of Melbourne. A resident of Canberra is known as a “Canberran”. Although Canberra is the capital and seat of government, many federal government ministries have secondary seats in state capital cities, as do the Governor-General and the Prime Minister.   read more…

The Rocks in Sydney

18 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Shopping Reading Time:  9 minutes

The Rocks Area from the water © flickr.com - Alex Proimos/cc-by-2.0

The Rocks Area from the water © flickr.com – Alex Proimos/cc-by-2.0

The Rocks is an urban locality, tourist precinct and historic area of Sydney‘s city centre. It is located on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, immediately north-west of the Sydney central business district. The Rocks became established shortly after the colony’s formation in 1788. It was known as Tallawoladah by the Cadigal people. The original buildings were first traditional vernacular houses, of wattle and daub, with thatched roofs, and later of local sandstone, from which the area derives its name. From the earliest history of the settlement, the area had a reputation as a slum and the arriving convicts’ side of town, often frequented by visiting sailors and prostitutes. After November 1790, many of the inhabitants were also aboriginals. In 1823, the district had a population of about 1,200. During the late nineteenth century, the area was dominated by a gang known as the Rocks Push. It maintained this rough reputation until approximately the 1870s.   read more…

Q1 Resort & Spa in Gold Coast

1 May 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month Reading Time:  11 minutes

Q1 Resort and Spa © flickr.com - paul (dex) bica/cc-by-2.0

Q1 Resort and Spa © flickr.com – paul (dex) bica/cc-by-2.0

Q1 (an abbreviation of Queensland Number One) is a supertall skyscraper in Surfers Paradise in Queensland in Australia. The residential tower on the Gold Coast lost its title as the world’s tallest residential building to the 337-metre The Marina Torch in Dubai on 29 April 2011. It is now the sixth tallest residential tower in the world and is the tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere and the second-tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, behind the Sky Tower in Auckland in New Zealand. The Q1 officially opened in November 2005. The landmark building was recognised as one of Queensland’s icons during the state’s 150th birthday celebrations.   read more…

Theme Week Queensland – Gold Coast

13 October 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  13 minutes

Entrance to Surfers Paradise Beach © Rocky88/cc-by-sa-3.0

Entrance to Surfers Paradise Beach © Rocky88/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Gold Coast is a coastal city in Queensland, approximately 66 kilometres (41 mi) south-southeast of the state capital Brisbane and immediately north of the border with New South Wales. With a population of 640,000, The Gold Coast is the sixth-largest city in Australia, making it the largest non-capital city, and the second-largest city in Queensland. The first settlement in what is now South East Queensland was as a penal colony at Redcliffe. The Gold Coast region remained largely uninhabited by Europeans until 1823 when explorer John Oxley landed at Mermaid Beach. The hinterland’s red cedar supply attracted people to the area in the mid-19th century. Later in 1875, Southport was surveyed and established and grew a reputation as a secluded holiday destination for wealthy Brisbane residents. The Gold Coast region grew significantly after the establishment of the Surfers Paradise hotel in the late 1920s. The area boomed in the 1980s as a leading tourist destination and in 1994, the City of Gold Coast local government area was expanded to encompass the majority of the Gold Coast’s metropolitan area, becoming the second most populous local government area in Australia after the City of Brisbane. Today it is a major tourist destination with its sunny subtropical climate and has become widely known for its surfing beaches, high-rise dominated skyline, theme parks, nightlife, and rainforest hinterland. It is also the major film production hub for Queensland. The Gold Coast will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.   read more…

Theme Week Queensland – Fraser Island

9 October 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  12 minutes

© panoramio.com - Korkut Tas/cc-by-sa-3.0

© panoramio.com – Korkut Tas/cc-by-sa-3.0

Fraser Island is located along the southeastern coast of the state of Queensland in Australia. It is approximately 250 kilometres (160 mi) north of the state capital, Brisbane. It is a locality within the Fraser Coast local government in the Wide Bay–Burnett region. Its length is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and its width is approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi). It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1,840 km². It is also Queensland’s largest island, Australia’s sixth largest island and the largest island on the East Coast of Australia. Estimates of the number of visitors to the island each year range from 350,000 to 500,000. The chance of seeing a dingo in its natural setting is one of the main reasons people visit the island. The use of boardwalks and marked tracks by visitors is encouraged to reduce erosion. Fraser Island has over 100 freshwater lakes, as well as the second highest concentration of lakes in Australia after Tasmania. The freshwater lakes on Fraser Island are some of the cleanest lakes in the world. A popular tourist area is Lake McKenzie which is located inland from the small town of Eurong.   read more…

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