Australia stands apart from the rest of the world in many ways.
It is the only country that is also a continent. Plus, it’s the smallest continent. Although it has a few mountain ranges, Australia is the world’s flattest continent. It has tropical rain forests but overall is one of the driest places on the planet. Only the frozen Antarctic gets less rain or snow.
With some of the weirdest rock formations and strangest animals, Australia is an entirely unique place. The platypus looks like an animal put together with spare parts from other beasts. The continent’s wallabies are native nowhere else on Earth. The same is true for wombats and kangaroos. Fifty-foot-high Wave Rock would be a surfer’s perfect wave. Except it’s solid granite.
The vast center of the country is known as the Outback, There, you can drive for hundreds of miles without seeing another person or car. On the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Australia, schools of hot-pink fish swim through the Great Barrier Reef. This is the world’s largest system of coral reefs.
