A Tour Down Under Trivia Quiz

Answer: Melville Island

Darwin is the capital city in the Northern Territory of Australia, as well as the most populated city in this territory. The port of Darwin is situated on the Timor Sea.
Melville Island has a quite large area, but is thinly populated. It was named after Robert Dundas (1771-1851), second Viscount of Melville, and not after the author of "Moby Dick" (about a captain obsessed with the hunt for a white whale).
Stewart Island is one of the smaller islands of New Zealand, situated to the far southeast of Darwin.
Java is a quite big island, part of Indonesia, and situated far northwest of Darwin.
Arnhem Land is not an island, but a national park in Australia, east of Darwin.

Answer: Endeavour

The village 1770 is situated on a peninsula, close to the tourist destination Agnes Water. Cook first visited Botany Bay (near Sydney) in April, and then landed north of Agnes Water in May 1770.
Captain James Cook commanded the HMS Endeavour on a scientific mission through the Pacific Ocean.
By the way, the Great Barrier Reef is yet another 400 km (250 miles) to the north of 1770.
The Victory was one of the ships commanded by Lord Nelson at Trafalgar.
The Golden Hind was the flagship of Francis Drake.
HMS Repulse was a name for a dozen ships. The eleventh ship of this name was sunk in 1941 by Japanese aircraft.

Answer: Sunshine Coast

Brisbane is the capital of Queensland, Australia. To the north of Brisbane, we find the district of the Sunshine Coast. The area has an estimated population of over 250,000. Some of the best known tourist attractions Queensland has to offer, can be found a few miles inland. There is for example Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, and the Big Pineapple.
The Gold Coast (a not entirely accurate translation of Costa Dorada) is a shore in Queensland, situated some 84 km (52 miles) south of Brisbane.
White Coast (translation for Costa Blanca) and Brave Coast (translation for Costa Brava) are pure figments of my imagination, not any localities in Australia.

Answer: Coffs Harbour

Coffs Harbour was founded as a timber wharf. The lumberjacks still are important to the local industry. There is also a quite large banana plantation.
The most important tourist attraction (other than the aforesaid national parks) is Big Banana, a theme park featuring a large banana at the entrance.
All of the red herrings are situated somewhere in the inlands of Australia (commonly known as "The Outback").
Uluru - Kata Tjuta is the name of a national park containing the world famous Ayers Rock as well as the Mount Olga.
Broken Hill is a mining city and the origin of the company BHP - Biliton.
Alice Springs is a city near the geographic centre of Australia. Most foreigners know this city thanks to the TV series "The Flying Doctors".

Answer: Parramatta

Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932 and spans from Miller's Point (The Rocks, Central Business District) to Milson's Point (North Shore). It allows motor vehicles to cross Port Jackson in eight lanes (four in each direction). There are also two railroad tracks and a cyclist's pathway over the bridge. Because of the increasing traffic, a double tunnel for motor vehicles only was opened in 1992 near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, going under the harbour.
Sydney Harbour's official name is Port Jackson. It is the endpoint of the rivers Paramatta, Lane Cove, and Duck, together with a dozen small creeks.
Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales. It is also the most populous city not only in this state, but in the whole of Australia.
Neither Panama nor Paraguay nor Palestine are names of rivers in Australia.

Answer: Walter Burley Griffin

The Australian government organised an international competition in 1911 for design and development of a new capital in the valley Canberra. Out of 137 competitors, it was Walter Burley Griffin from Chicago and his wife Marion who were chosen.
Walter (1876-1937) was just married to Marion (1871-1961), who had worked before her marriage in the workshop led by Frank Lloyd Wright. The couple started the design for Canberra while still on honeymoon. Their design was based upon various geometric forms: circles, hexagons, octagons. Due to the First World War, several budget cuts followed, so that Canberra as built today is not quite what the Griffins had in mind.
Haussmann (1809-1891) was the city prefect responsible for rebuilding Paris during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III.
Niemeyer (born 1907) is the Brazilian architect who designed many of the principal buildings in Brasilia.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1887-1959) was a famous American architect of various buildings, mostly in the USA. He designed a hotel in Tokyo, Japan, that was destroyed in a 1968 earthquake.

Answer: Melbourne

All these names are localities in the state of Victoria.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, was established in the first half of the nineteenth century on the banks of the Yarra River. It was given its current name in 1838. Melbourne is especially famed for cultural activities: for instance Moomba (a carnival on the Yarra River) and various international film festivals. Melbourne is also home to the Australian ballet, several Australian television channels and movie studios.
Bendigo was very important in the 1850s when gold was discovered. There are still gold mines available, but the reserves are hard to reach. The city (including its suburbs) still has about 90,000 inhabitants.
Sunbury is a rather small town (about 30,000 inhabitants), some 44 km (21 miles) from Melbourne.
Kyneton is even smaller (about 6,600 inhabitants), about halfway between Melbourne and Bendigo.

As player Alison4 remarked, the ferry Spirit of Tasmania was altered in October 2022. In that month a modern terminal in Geelong was opened, and thus the ferry doesn't reach Melbourne anymore.

Answer: Launceston

Hobart is not only the capital city of Tasmania, but also the most populous one. The total population of Hobart and its suburbs account for almost half of the total population for Tasmania.
Second is Launceston, with a bit more than 20% of all Tasmanians living in this city.
Launceston was established in 1806 and was named after the birth place of Philip Gidley King, the third governor of NSW. New South Wales at that time comprised the eastern half of Australia, from Queensland in the north, down to Tasmania in the south.
Today, Launceston's economy thrives on retail and shopping.
Ballarat is a city in Victoria. Wagga Wagga is a settlement in New South Wales. Rabbit Flat is a rather small community in the Northern Territory.

Answer: Investigator Strait

Kangaroo Island lies about 127 km (82 miles) from South Australia's capital city, Adelaide. A ferry links Penneshaw (on Kangaroo Island) with Cape Jervis (on the mainland), a distance of about 18 km (11 miles).
The water that separates Kangaroo Island from the Australian mainland is Investigator Strait. This strait was named after the ship Matthew Flinders sailed upon, while mapping the shores of Australia.
Since 1849 at least 26 ships perished in these waters. The local tourist office has developed a trail for diving enthusiasts on which they can visit most of these shipwrecks.
To the south of Kangaroo Island, we find the Great Australian Bight. It is part of the Southern Ocean.
The Gulf of Carpentaria is situated north of the Northern Territory, between Darwin to the west and the Cape York peninsula to the East.
Bass Strait is the passage between Victoria and Tasmania.

Answer: Gold mining

Kalgoorlie was founded around 1893, in a quite promising gold mine area. The name derives from a word in the local native language meaning "silky pears".
Gold mining is still the most important industry in and around Kalgoorlie, and about a quarter of the Kalgoorlie population works in the gold mines.
Around the end of the nineteenth and the debut of the twentieth century, Kalgoorlie saw a massive influx of gold prospectors and adventurers - followed by less honourable occupations (prostitutes, thieves...) There was even some talk of creating a new state, but as soon as the disappointed adventurers swarmed out, secession calls diminished.
Mandurah, Western Australia gains a lot from the tourist industry (especially whale spotters).
Albany, Western Australia is a centre of viticulture, thanks to its Mediterranean climate.
The production of aluminium is concentrated near the bauxite mines of Pinjarra, Western Australia.