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Visiting Australia: Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers to the questions overseas visitors actually ask about Australia — visas, costs, best months, driving, wildlife, coffee and tipping.

Australian Food and Coffee: What to Order, and How to Order It

The coffee is the best in the world and the pub meals are enormous. What a flat white is, how to order at a bar, what a parmi is, why nobody tips, and the dishes you should not leave without trying.

Whale Watching in Australia: Where, When and How to See Them

Forty thousand humpbacks migrate up and down Australia's coasts every year, and for six months you can see them from a headland, a ferry or a boat. Here is the calendar, the best spots on each coast, and how to choose a cruise.

HANG ON, "STRALYA"?

About the name

It's how the country's name actually comes out of an Australian mouth. Say Australia at conversational speed and the unstressed first syllable vanishes: uh-STRAY-lee-uh becomes STRAY-lee-uh, which is Stralya. Relax the l as well and you get Straya, the spelling printed on tea towels and shouted on Australia Day.

Australians have been enjoying this joke for sixty years. In 1965 the graphic artist Alastair Morrison, writing as Afferbeck Lauder (which is "alphabetical order" said that same fast way), published Let Stalk Strine, his rendering of how an Australian says Australian. Same gag, one syllable further along.

Stralya.au is an independent guide to Australia for people who don't live here: trip planning, regions, wildlife, food, and the Australian products people abroad go looking for. Some product links earn a commission through the Amazon Associates programme, at no extra cost to you.

You've arrived. Here's what nobody told you.

Visiting Australia: Frequently Asked Questions

Australian Food and Coffee: What to Order, and How to Order It

Whale Watching in Australia: Where, When and How to See Them

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HANG ON, "STRALYA"?

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