Trust Me: Aussie Places You Won't Find on a Map Quiz

Answer: It refers to any rural setting where population is sparse

The word "bush" is iconic in Australian culture. It is any sparsely populated area of Australia regardless of population. It could be heavily forested areas just inland from the eastern or south-western seaboards or it could be the semi-arid places further inland. It can even mean any area outside the major metropolitan areas. In Queensland and Western Australia, it is not unusual to refer to the bush where there are sizeable towns of 10 000 or more. It can include agricultural and mining areas. It is the really the rural landscapes that exist out of the major cities and is so different to the lush green landscapes the European forefathers were used to.
Given that over 65% of Australians live in the few capital cities, the Bush is essentially considered to be the areas outside the cities. A good synonym would be "non-urban".
A good deal of early settler culture is entrenched in the Bush. Settlers moved there in droves in the nineteenth centuries, our first poets were bush poets who could describe the sweeping beauty of our landscapes. Identifying with the Bush was one of the first ways white Australia differentiated itself from European ancestors.

Answer: More remote inland parts of Australia

The Outback is the large remote interior of Australia that covers almost three quarters of the continent. (Western Queensland, the north-west corner of NSW; the top two thirds of South Australia, all of Western Australia except the south west corner and the entire Northern Territory). "The Outback" is generally differentiated from "the Bush" by being comparatively more remote.

A misnomer is that the outback includes all arid regions. It also includes a number of climatic zones including tropical/monsoonal climates in northern Australia, and semi-arid and temperate climates in southern Australia.

The outback is unified by a number of factors:
1. Low human population density
2. An effectively intact, natural environment
3. Low-intensity land uses such as livestock grazing with particular emphasis on production relying on the natural environment.

The outback covers nearly three-quarters of the continent, but supports less than 800,000 residents, less than five percent of the Australian population. The population density is less than 0.1 person per km^2 outside of the few outback towns. Aboriginal people make up about one-quarter of the outback's population.

Answer: Roughly the top third of the Northern Territory

The Top End is the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, of around 400,000 km2. With the Cape York Peninsula these two areas are the northernmost parts of Australia.

The Top End contains the Northern Territory's only two cities: Darwin and Palmerston as well as the towns of Nhulunbuy and Katherine. The Territory only contains two other towns - Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. The Kakadu National Park is in the north eastern part of the Top End.

The Top End is differentiated from the rest of the Northern Territory not so much geographically but climatically: The Top End has a heavy monsoonal season in the hotter months where the more arid south has little rain with no wet season.

The photo shows sunset over Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory.

Answer: Iron oxides in the soil

Australia is said to be the oldest continent and this part of Australia is very old. The soil has large percentages of Haematite - an iron oxide-containing mineral which gives the soil the characteristic red colour. Alice Springs is the only sizeable town but Uluru, perhaps the most famous monolith in the world, is within the region. So is the neighbouring Kata Tjuta which is a collection of 36 variously-sized rock domes which are thought to have been the remnants of an even bigger monolith than Uluru.
The Red Centre is a term used mainly to promote tourism in the region.

Answer: An early Australian literary work

The term "Never Never" has both positive and negative connotations: The saying can be traced back to 1869 but the earliest reference in print is in A. J. Boyd's "Old Colonials" (1882)

"My soliloquy ends with the inquiry, 'What on earth is to be done in this wretched Never-never country?'"

Henry Lawson published a poem "The Never-Never Country" (1906).

In 1908, the phrase gained traction with the publication of the autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn "We of the Never Never". In the text Gunn presents an alternative view to Boyd as to how the place was named:

"Called the Never-Never, the Maluka loved to say, because they, who have lived in it and loved it Never-Never voluntarily leave it."

This context was used by other authors to use the term is now usually applied when someone is dreaming about Utopian possibilities, probably unrealistically.

The Hire-Purchase scheme (where you never, never pay the purchased item off) and the J.M. Barrie contexts are unrelated to the Australian concept.

Answer: South of the Border

Australia only has six states, all of which were 'independent' colonies before federation in 1901. Australians identify with their states. Queensland has a large influx of immigrants from other states particularly from the south. Because the southern Queensland boundary is the most northern state border in the country, all immigrants by definition come from "south of the border".

Hence the term "Mexicans" . It is a friendly term - there is no desire to build a wall across the border.

Answer: Yes

Woop Woop is a mythical place a long way from where you are. Unlike the bush or the outback there is nothing of interest in Woop-Woop. It is a mildly derogatory term and is a relative term. When I moved from Cairns, a city of 30 000 at the time in far north Queensland, to Brisbane, my new classmates thought I was from Woop-Woop. I thought Woop-Woop was a town of ten people on the Cape York Peninsula and the terminus of the rail line.

The picture depicts the rail shed at Charleville Railway Station. Charleville is the end of the line for the "Westlander", a once a week train that makes the 800km journey from the "Big Smoke" in Brisbane.

Answer: The side of the road

The outback has sparse vegetation and little rainfall. So much so that cattle stations are huge to ensure there is enough vegetation for the cattle to eat. (Some are as big as small countries - Anna Creek station in South Australia is 24000 square kilometres, or slightly larger than Israel) Cattle have to be moved long distances to get enough grass for feed. When vegetation/feed runs out in drought conditions, cattle are taken on travelling stock routes which means the sides of the roads. (If there has been any rain, the runoff will have watered the side of the road and the vegetation will be more abundant there). Travelling Stock Routes have fences set back further from the road than non-stock routes, there are periodic watering troughs and there are occasional pens to store cattle at night. By law, cattle on the Long Paddock must travel at least six miles per day. They actually travel for long distances often hundreds of kilometres.

The picture depicts the Long Paddock just outside Blackall in western Queensland.

Answer: New Zealand and South Africa

In New Zealand the word "Bush" has a similar meaning to the word in Australia meaning areas outside of urban areas, though the word in NZ probably comes from the word "bosch" a dutch word used in South Africa.

In South Africa, the term has specific meaning indicating rural areas which are not open veldt. These areas, predominantly found in the north would be called savanna elsewhere.

"Bush" has some usage in Alaska and Canada where it means any "community not on the road system".

Answer: False

The bush and outback are general concepts in which every Australian can articulate where they are but no-one can define precisely where they start and finish. The best we can say is that the bush is everywhere not covered by urban areas and the outback is more remote than the bush and usually inland.

Some synonyms for "Bush" and the "Outback" as are "Back o' Bourke" and "Beyond the black stump".

Bourke is an outback town in far northern New South Wales. Anywhere that is the back of Bourke is a very long way from anywhere but still undefined. A slight difference is there are a few places that claim to be where the black stump is located. None of these claims have veracity, though there may be a (fake) monument to try to attempt the justify the claim. The problem is when farming land in Australia was cleared for agricultural purposes, black stumps were everywhere where cleared trees had their stumps burnt to facilitate clearing. If you are "this side of the black stump", you are not that far away. (e.g. Arbitrarily within a day's drive).

If you are beyond the black stump, you will need a good radio transmitter, a four wheel drive with a bull bar to stop the roos that jump across the road from damaging your vehicle. (Pictured)