The Culture Crawl: A Guide To Australia’s Cultural Landmarks

Australia is an incredibly vast and diverse country with a huge amount to offer anyone who visits, regardless of what their interests are. While many people think of Australia as an outdoor utopia with stunning beaches, beautiful national parks, incredible wildlife and countless opportunities for adventure, it is also home to some world-famous cultural landmarks. These landmarks tell the story of the geographic, ethnic and cultural origins that have shaped Australia into the nation that it is today.

If you are planning an Australian adventure as a domestic or international tourist, it’s important that you have a solid plan in place from the outset to maximise your time in this spectacular country. As Australia is so big, many of the important cultural sights are far apart so you need to plan your itinerary accordingly to ensure that you don’t miss out. Seek out package holidays that will put you in the right location to explore the sights that appeal to you and your fellow adventurers the most. With the right plan in place, you can be sure that you will have the adventure of a lifetime down under and avoid missing out on the best sights that Australia has to offer.

Let’s take a closer look at some of Australia’s most important and impressive cultural landmarks.

Uluru – Northern Territory
Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, is the largest sandstone monolith in the world and truly is a sight to behold. This place is of huge importance to aboriginal and Strait Islander communities but it is especially sacred to the Anangu people. Taller than the Eiffel Tower and with a circumference of more than 9.4 kilometres, Uluru is located in the very centre of the country. Often referred to as the heart of Australia, Uluru is undoubtedly one of the most important and iconic cultural sights and is an absolute must for anyone visiting the country.

Sydney Opera House – New South Wales
Famous all over the world, Sydney Opera House is the country’s top tourist destination, attracting more than eight million visitors every year. It hosts more than two-thousand shows a year, making it one of the busiest art centres in the world. Even if you don’t manage to catch a show while you’re here, the building itself is beautiful to look at. With its sail-like structure, this is arguably one of the most iconic buildings anywhere in the world and is the perfect structure to occupy the shoreline of Sydney harbour.

The Great Barrier Reef – Queensland 
Expanding over an area of almost 250,000 square kilometres, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure in the world. In fact, the Barrier Reef is so vast that it can be seen from space! Home to more than three hundred species of coral, more than five thousand different types of marine life, this truly is one of the most bio-diverse destinations anywhere on earth. Whether you dive, snorkel, or take a bottom glass boat tour, getting up close and personal with all that this incredible location has to offer is a quintessential Aussie travel experience.

Kakadu National Park – Northern Territory
Covering a staggering twenty-thousand square kilometre area, Kakadu National Park is the largest national park in Australia. Located on Aboriginal Land, it is still managed by local Aboriginal and Strait Islander people who work incredibly hard, along with Parks Australia to ensure that the park continues to thrive and stays protected. There are more than ten thousand crocodiles, almost three hundred species of birds and approximately two thousand types of plant life to be found here. You will also find rock art that is more than twenty-thousand years old and more recent rock paintings that show the arrival of European boats to the continent.

Port Arthur – Tasmania 
In 1833, the very worst British convicts, repeat offenders were shipped to Port Arthur in Australia, establishing it as a penal colony. Due to its remote location, it was the ideal location for a prison, where prisoners were involved in large-scale shipbuilding work that involved long hours and often brutal work. In 1877, the prison closed and was redeveloped into a town. The Port Arthur Historic Site is the best-preserved convict settlement in all of Australia and is one of the most important convict-era locations to be found anywhere in the world. Visiting Port Arthur today, you can put yourself in the shoes of these offenders, see where they worked, slept and experience what life in the nineteenth century was like here.

Visit Some Of Australia’s Most Iconic Cultural Landmarks
If you are planning to a trip down under, be sure to set some time aside to visit some of the fascinating cultural landmarks listed above. Spending some time at these places will deepen your understanding of how Australia has become the nation that it is today and help you to appreciate, even more, all that this great nation has to offer.