Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Creation Stories
A mere 120 million years ago, Australia broke away from the vast super-continent known
as Gondwana, followed 40 million years later by another epic geological event - the separ-
ation of Australia from Antarctica. In prehistoric times, far lower sea levels exposed a land
bridge between what is now Tasmania and Victoria. It was not until 10,000 years ago, with
the rising sea levels that accompanied the end of the last Ice Age, that Victoria took on its
current form as the southernmost extent of the Australian mainland.
Victoria's human history begins somewhat later: the earliest records of Australia's Indi-
genous people inhabiting the land date back around 52,000 years. At the time, they hunted
the giant marsupials that once roamed Australia, among them a species of wombat the size
of a rhinoceros and possibly even a giant platypus as long as a metre.
The oral history of Indigenous Australians has its own version of Victoria's prehistory.
For the Wurundjeri people, who lived in the catchment of the Yarra River where Melbourne
is today, the land and the people were created in the Dreaming by the spirit Bunjil - 'the
great one, old head-man, eagle hawk' - who continues to watch over all from Tharangalk-
bek, the home of the spirits in the sky.
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