Australia for Poms Trivia Quiz

Answer: Queensland

The then Lieutenant James Cook arrived on what the native the Kaurareg people call Bedanug (or Bedhan Lag) on August 22, 1770. He named the small island in Torres Strait at the northern tip of Queensland "Possession Island" and claimed the entire eastern seaboard of the Australian continent for the British Crown. Dividing the continent in half with a vertical line, he named the eastern (British) half New South Wales. Prior to Cook's arrival, the entire continent had been named New Holland. The western boundary of New South Wales was moved eastward in 1825 to the 129th meridian, and shortly after this the Swan River colony changed its name to Western Australia.

More than eighty years after cook's arrival, in 1851, a public meeting proposed the separation of what is now the state of Queensland from the rest of New South Wales. Queen Victoria accepted the proposal in June, 1859, and in December that same year Queensland Colony was founded with Brisbane as its capital.

Answer: William IV

Australia's fifth-largest city with a population of 1.3 million in 2014, the city of Adelaide stands north of the Fleurieu Peninsula on the east coast of Gulf St Vincent. Surrounding the city on the sides not bordering the bay are the inappropriately-named Mount Lofty Ranges, which are really little more than a ring of low-lying hills.

The city was named for Her Serene Highness Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, born in 1792 in the town of Meiningen in the central-German state of Thuringia. The eldest daughter of George I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, by arrangement the 25-year old Adelaide married His Royal Highness The Duke of Clarence and St Andrews (who was 27 years older than her) in July, 1818, just a week after first meeting him.

The death of his elder brother, Frederick Duke of York, without issue in 1827, left Prince William as heir-presumptive to the British throne. When his eldest brother, King George IV died in 1830, he ascended as King William IV with his wife becoming Queen Adelaide. In 1836, the newly established capital city of Britain's newest colony on the other side of the world was duly named in honour of the King's wife.

Efforts to continue the direct line proved fruitless, with Adelaide losing two daughters in their first three months and giving birth to stillborn twin boys. As a result, when William died in 1837 it was his niece, Princess Victoria of Kent who became Queen, with Adelaide living out her remaining days (she died in 1849) not as "Queen Mother" but as Queen Dowager: still quite an accomplishment, though, for a princess from an obscure German state.

Answer: Brisbane

You can work out where The Gabba is by a process of elimination: the location of the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) and the SCG (in Sydney) are self-evident, as is the Adelaide Oval, and "The WACA" (an acronym for Western Australia Cricket Association) is obviously in Perth. Officially called the Brisbane Cricket Ground, it is universally known as "The Gabba" because it is located in the wonderfully-named suburb of Woolloongabba.

Don Bradman scored the first test hundred at The Gabba, against South Africa in 1931. England's Maurice Leyland scored the second (and the first in an Ashes series) in 1936, the first meeting of the teams after the 'Bodyline controversy'.

It would then be almost 40 years before another England player scored a test hundred at The Gabba, Tony Grieg doing so in 1974. Ian Botham in 1986 and Mark Butcher in 1998 were the only additions in that list prior to the 2010 heroics.

For the record, Michael Clarke's 259* against South Africa in 2012 eclipsed Cook's record individual score at the ground.

David Gower's magnificent 158 against New Zealand in 1983 was the first ever one-day international century scored at The Gabba. More than 30 years later, it still stood as the highest ODI innings on the ground.

Answer: Melbourne

Melbourne is the state capital of Victoria and the second-largest city (after Sydney) in Oceania. It lies between Port Philip Bay and the Dandenong Ranges, rolling hills and mountains that stretch eastwards from the city's suburbs. Officially declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847, Melbourne quickly became one the largest and wealthiest cities in the world as a result of the Victorian gold rush, which began just three years later.

The classic AC/DC line-up featured Melbournian Phil Rudd on drums, vocalist Bon Scott (real name Ronald Belford Scott, born in Forfar, Scotland), Glaswegian brothers Angus and Malcolm Young on guitar and bassist Cliff Williams (born in Romford, Essex). Scott's sudden death in 1980 led to the addition of another Englishman, Brian Johnson from Gateshead, who took over the vocal duties.

AC/DC are still going strong more than 40 years after they were formed. Health issues forced the retirement of Malcolm Young in 2014, meaning that only Johnson, Williams and Angus Young remain from that hey-day first decade. They have been joined by Malcolm Young's nephew, Stevie Young, another Glasgow native, and drummer Chris Slade, a Welshman from Pontypridd in Glamorgan, leaving Australia's most famous musical export Aussieless.

Answer: Flemington Racecourse

Flemington Racecourse stands on the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne's northwestern suburbs. The river rises near Mount Macedon in the Great Dividing Range in the Victorian interior around 40 miles northwest of central Melbourne. Right across from the raceway lies Footscray Park, classified as a heritage place and one of Australia's best-preserved examples of an Edwardian park.

The 2,312-meter pear-shaped course at Flemington Racecourse has a 450-meter final straight for longer races, and a six-furlong straight for sprints. Horses go around the course in an anticlockwise direction and a capacity crowd of 120,000 can squeeze into the three grandstands on big race days. A bronze statue of the legendary New Zealander Phar Lap, winner of the Cup in 1930, is a popular attraction. (For the really devoted race fan, his mounted hide can also be seen in the city, at the Melbourne Museum, located next to the Royal Exhibition Centre in Carlton Gardens.)

Ryan Moore, born in Brighton, England in 1983, has been England's champion jockey three times (2006, 1008 and 2009) and has twice ridden the winner of the Epsom Derby: on Workforce in 2010 and on Ruler of the World in 2013. In October 2014, he won his first major Australian race, the Cox Plate run at the Moonee Valley Racecourse in Melbourne, and he followed that with victory in the Melbourne Cup just days later.

Moore's horse, Protectionist, became the first German-trained winner of the Melbourne Cup. He was not the first European-bred winner, though. Indeed, it was the fifth consecutive victory by a horse bred outside of Australia. The 2013 race went to Irish-bred Fiorente (having finished second the year before), Irish-bred and originally trained by Sir Michael Stoute in Newmarket, England. Green Moon, the 2012 winner, was another Irish product, while 2011 was an all-French affair with French jockey Christophe Lemaire riding French-trained Dunaden to victory. The 2010 race was won by the American-bred, French-trained Americain. Shocking, in 2009, was the last Australian winner prior to this streak. Shocking, indeed!

The alternatives are three more Australian horse-racing tracks: Caulfield is in eastern Melbourne, Tattersall's is in Glenorchy, Tasmania, and Canterbury Park is in Sydney.

Answer: Nobel Prize for Literature

Widely considered one of the best 20th-century English-language novelists, Patrick Victor Martindale White was born in 1912 in central London. Although born in England, White had one English and one Australian parent and the family moved to Sydney when he was only six months old, so he grew up Australian. White published his first novel, "Happy Valley" in 1939 and when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973 he became Australia's first recipient of that award. More than forty years after White's award, he remains the only Australian winner.

Australia's first Nobel laureate was Adelaide-born Sir William Lawrence Bragg. He shared the 1915 Physics prize with his father, Sir William Henry Bragg (born in Cumberland, England) for their work in the development of X-ray crystallography. The award of the 1994 Economics prize to John Harsanyi (born in Budapest, Hungary) left the Peace award as the only one (of the six) never won by an Australian. When Brian Schmidt (born in Missoula, Montana - the first Montana native to win a Nobel prize) claimed the 2011 prize for Physics, he became the thirteenth Australian Nobel laureate. Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901.

Of the alternatives, Melbourne-born John Bertrand became the first Australian winner of the America's Cup in 1983. His victory ended the longest winning streak in sporting history, the American team having won the 132-year domination of the event by the New York Yacht Club.

Sydney-born John Farrow became the first Australian nominee for a Best Director Oscar, for "Wake Island" in 1942. Farrow renounced his Australian citizenship in 1947, becoming an American citizen, and he later won an Oscar for Best Screenplay (in 1957) for "Around the World in 80 Days". He is the father of Mia Farrow. The nomination of Sydney-born director Peter Weir (his fourth nomination) in 2003 for "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" was the tenth Best director nomination for an Australian. It was also the tenth Australian nomination without a win, though.

In 1936, Englishman Harry Cooper became the first non-American to finish as high as second in The Masters, a feat he repeated two years later. Sydney-born Jim Ferrier became the second person to do so in 1950. South Africa's Gary Player became the first non-American winner in 1961. A number of Australians have filled the runner-up spot: Bruce Crampton in 1972, Jack Newton in 1980, Greg Norman in 1986, 1987 and 1996, and Adam Scott and Jason Day tied in 2011. Australia finally claimed one of those famous green jackets when Adelaide-born Adam Scott beat Argentina's Ángel Cabrera in a playoff to win the 2013 Masters.

Answer: Tasmania

Located on a peninsula on the southeastern coast of Tasmania, Port Arthur was the destination for the British criminals considered the most dangerous between 1833 and 1853. Those who had been sent to other penal colonies and had subsequently re-offended were also sent here.

With three sides of the peninsula surrounded by shark-infested ocean, the only escape route was inevitably well-guarded, so Port Arthur was regarded as virtually escape-proof. Not that prisoners did not find inventive ways to try: in one famous attempt, a prisoner made his escape disguised as a kangaroo, but surrendered when the guards made it clear they planned to shoot him to supplement their poor rations.

Closed as a prison in 1877, it was more than a century before the site's tourist potential was fully realized. Since the late 1980s, the site has attracted more than a quarter of a million visitors annually.

In 1996, Port Arthur was the scene of Australia's worst killing spree, with 35 killed and 25 wounded by a lone gunman. The perpetrator was sentenced to 35 life sentences plus 1,035 years -- just in case!

Answer: A cool breeze that blows in WA in summer months

The city of Fremantle stands at the mouth of the Swan River, and is the port that serves the nearby western Australia state capital, Perth. "The Doctor" is an afternoon breeze that provides Perth residents with some respite from the baking summer sun, blowing air cooled by the ocean from the direction of Fremantle.

Cricket fans will be familiar with the Fremantle Doctor, with playing conditions at the WACA often influenced considerably by the arrival (or not) after lunch of the Fremantle Doctor.

On summer days when The Doctor does not blow, afternoon temperatures in Perth often exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The downside, though, is that conditions on the beaches deteriorate considerably when the 15-20 mph winds start blowing sand everywhere.

Answer: Mount Townsend

Rather like the fashionably weak story lines on "Home and Away", you couldn't make this stuff up. There were once two mountain peaks, just a couple of miles apart in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. There was the craggy, imposing Mount Kosciuszko and the round-topped, easily accessible to climbers Mount Townsend, and every Australian schoolchild learned to spell that awkward Polish name of Australia's highest point.

As measuring techniques became more sophisticated, though, someone discovered the inconvenient truth that Mount Townsend was actually 63 feet higher than its more famous neighbor. This discovery would mean re-educating the public and re-printing all of those school textbooks, but then some bright spark came up with a much better idea -- why not just switch the names of the two peaks. And that is exactly what was done: Mount Kosciuszko overnight became the 7,310-foot round-topped peak that many people had climbed, whilst the 7,247-foot high 'proper mountain' next door became Mount Townsend, and Australians continued to sleep peacefully in their beds, knowing that the mountain with the funny name was still their highest point.

Since the name swap, climbers braving the challenger of the much more difficult climb up Mount Townsend have been asked to pick up a rock at the bottom. The idea is that every climber deposits his rock at the top of Mount Townsend until, eventually, it grows the 68 feet needed to make it higher than its neighbor. A truly potty idea? Not at all, this is Australia after all, and no one believed the tales of early explorers who came back with tales about kangaroos and the duck-billed platypus either.

For the record, Mount Kosciuszko remains the highest point in continental Australia, but not in the Oceanic continent. Called Julianatop or Juliana Peak but renamed Puncak Mandala in 1963 dwarfs the Australian peak. Standing 15,617 feet above sea level in Papua province, Indonesia, Puncak Mandala enjoys the unusual distinction of being the highest point in a whole continent but not in its own country, where it ranks second to Puncak Jaya, which is almost 400 feet higher but in the Asian part of Indonesia.

Answer: Melbourne

The first Australian Grand Prix, in 1928, was staged at Phillip Island, off the Victorian coast some 90 miles southeast of Melbourne. For its first decade as part of the Formula One Circuit, from 1985 until 1995, the race was the last in the F1 year and held at the Adelaide Street Circuit, a temporary track set up each year in East Parklands, right in the centre of the city.

In 1996, the race not only became the annual season opener for the F1 calendar but also moved to Albert Park in Melbourne. Located just two miles south of the city's central business district, the suburb of Albert Park is notable for its heritage buildings, terraced houses, and wide streets bordered by stands of mature, exotic trees. Originally an area of swamps and lagoons (as part of the Yarra River delta), the 560-acre main park after which the suburb is named was created in the middle of the 19th century. It was named in 1864 in memory of Queen Victoria's consort who had died three years earlier. The park is home to numerous native creatures including possums, water rats, various bat species and the amphibious marbled gecko.

The racetrack itself is a 3.3-mile, 16-turn circuit circumnavigating the 120-acre Albert Park Lake. The course incorporates numerous sections of road that are the domain of commuting Melbournians during the rest of the year.

The inaugural Australian Grand Prix, in 1928, was won by Adelaide-born Gallipoli veteran Arthur Waite. In 1938, England's Peter Whitehead became the first non-Australian winner of the race. Stirling Moss (in 1956), Graham Hill (1966), Jackie-Stewart (1967) and Scotsman Jim Clark (1968) were the only interruptions in an Australian winning streak that culminated with Alan Jones' victory in 1980.

Brazilian Roberto Moreno ended the Australian/British domination of the race in 1981. Finland's Keke Rosberg won in Adelaide in 1985, the first time it was part of the F1 circuit, and the last two Adelaide races were won by Brits, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill. That trend continued when the race moved to Melbourne, with Hill and David Coulthard winning the first two races there. The early 2000s belonged to Michael Schumacher, who won four times in five years, whilst the decade ended with the British again dominating: victories for Lewis Hamilton in 2008, and for Jenson Button in 2009, 2010 and 2012. The 2015 race again saw an English winner, Hamilton and also marked 35 years since the last Australian victory in the event.