Key facts about Outback

• Australia is the oldest, flattest, most stable continent in the world – this is the essence of our Outback.
• The longest stretch of straight railway track in the world crosses the Nullarbor Plain. From Nurina in Western Australia to near Watson in South Australia, the track is dead straight for 487 km.
• Coober Pedy in South Australia is known as the ‚opal capital of the world‘. Its population is made up of more than 45 nationalities and, with year-round extremes in temperature, over half of the population lives in below-ground ‘dugouts’.

  

  Fascinating Australian Outback (Photo: Tourism Australia)

• Australia produces 95 per cent of the world’s precious opals and 99 per cent of its black opals.
• The world’s longest continuous fence known as the ‘Dingo Fence’, is 5531km long and 1.8 m high. It runs from South Australia, through New South Wales and into Queensland.
• Anna Creek Station in South Australia is the largest cattle station in the world, covering an area of 24,000 sq km (6 million acres) – making it about the same size as Belgium.
• The Combo Waterhole outside Winton in central Queensland is a peaceful billabong lined by paperbark gums. It is also the birthplace of Australia’s national folk anthem, ‚Waltzing Matilda‘, which was first performed here in a local pub.
• In some parts of Australia, mail is delivered by light plane. The 2,600-km Port August-Boulia mail run is believed to be the longest in the world.
• Kalgoorlie in Western Australia is not only Australia’s largest producer of gold, but has the world’s largest political electorate covering a mammoth 2.2 million sq km.