Room 111 Adventures

Since the beginning of the semester my travel mates and I have been attending class once a week to present on different subjects about Australia. We did this so we can get a background on the country and not look such tourists while we are touring the country.

First off we learned about the geography of Australia and to have an idea where we will be in the country. Australia is made up of six states and 2 territories, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. Canberra is the capital of all of Australia. Sydney is the largest city, and we will be there for a day. We covered information on the government where learned the current prime minister is Julia Gillard. Australia is still under the government of Great Britain.

We had a presentation on the economy and what money is worth over there. This tends to be important.  Another class we covered rainforests we will see and the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world and it can be seen from outer space.

Beef and Sheep are their top two species they raise for slaughter. The beef herd is 27.9 million head. They are the second largest beef exporter in the world, where a lot of their beef goes into the Asian Market. Queensland produces the most beef inside Australia.

Sheep is dominant in Australia where the herd population exceeds 70 million. People in Australia consume 40 pounds of lamb a year. Sheep farming accounts for 25% of all agriculture production in Australia. 8% of the worlds sheep supply comes from Australia.

Besides all that we also learned about the Cargill plant we will visit Livestock sales where they are pretty similar to our marketing here. Then we covered Angus, Simmental, Shorthorn cattle. We covered several other sheep breeds such as Suffolks and Merinos, and even emus.  This was a quick look back at our semester and now we only have 20 days until this guy flies for the first time. That is one thing I am looking forward to the most, but besides that I am really interested in how the run their beef operations and I have to admit I am excited to see the Great Barrier even though I have never fully understood the concept and procedure of swimming. I added a link below to the Webb Black Simmentals webiste, which is one of the ranches we will get to visit.

http://www.webbblacksimmentals.com.au/