Backbencher

Lecture two was titled Geography: Taylor and Cumberland. It was appropriately named after Griffith Taylor and Kenneth Cumberland, two of the most famous geogrphers in Australia and New Zealand. There are three main regions on the continent of Australia. They are the East Australia highlands, the Interior Lowland Basin, and the Western Plateau. The East Australia Highlands are the more humid area where most of the rain seems to fall. There is a mountain range in that region that is big in Australia but would be considered pretty small by American standards. The Interior Lowland Basin is what people generally tend to think of when they think about Australia. It is covered in bush and has a very low altitude, which is surprising since it is inland. The Western Plateau consists of volcanic formations with sandy desert. There is little rainfall, often 20" or less a year. In New Zealand they have two different regions: the felden and arden regions. The Felden region is a lot better for farming than the Arden region is. One thing that I found interesting about this lecture was first of all the fence that they put across the entire continent to try to keep dingos out. Another thing that I found quite interesting was that both countries seem to draw their identities off the landscape. We saw some really cool photos of how the people have shaped the land in order to make it more livable. One example would be the sheep farms that they have. Dr. Isern showed us pictures of the ruins of the houses and they were made of sort of a mud mixture. They also had a lot of water tanks in sheep country as it is a rather dry area. One way that they think differently from Americans is how they take care of the land too. In America, when land is getting poor vegetation, we tend to not graze it as much. Down under, however, they tend to introduce more animals to graze it and make it better.