 On the tip of the east coast is Victoria, Australia’s second smallest state, which covers some 227,600 square kilometres (about the size of the British Isles). Victoria offers everything from national parks to wineries and lakes and mountains. Every kind of interest is covered here, from skiing to mountain climbing and sightseeing to bird watching. As Victoria is one of the smallest states it has the advantage that many of its places of interest are easily accessible by day trips from Melbourne.
Victoria can simply be divided into two separate geographical areas, west and east. The east has a cooler climate than the west and is well known for its wine growing regions and mountain terrain. Lakes, forests and a rugged coastline are all synonymous with this part of the state. The west has very unusual terrain including the Grampions and the Twelve Apostles. The gold rush also left a legacy of gold rush towns with many beautiful 19th century buildings still surviving.
History
An important part of Victoria's history is the Aboriginal culture that has helped develop the State’s identity. Aboriginal people have lived on the land, that is now the state of Victoria, for thousands of years, and even today still live and work there as a proud and living society. The Aboriginal community in Victoria consists of a number of different communities spread across the State. Most of these have developed separately because of language, cultural groups, location and extended family. Most regional communities are based on traditional links with the land that were in existence long before the Europeans colonised Victoria.
Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851, and news of the find travelled across the globe at a tremendous rate. As the news circulated throughout the world, large numbers of workers travelled to Australia keen to make their fortune. Before this time it had not been easy to attract new immigrants to Victoria, The price for single men was raised by one pound to try to attract men with wives and children to come to Australia. As 1851 drew to a close over 30 000 immigrants had arrived in Victoria from all parts of the world including Britain, Europe, America and China.
Victoria grew from a new colony of 76,000 people to the largest and most prosperous with 540,000 people in just a decade from 1851 to 1861 which, at that time, amounted to 45 per cent of the population of the continent. By the end of the decade eight percent of the population where of Chinese decent and formed over 20 percent of the goldfields populace.
The state of Victoria provided the momentum for the progression of Australia and the fundamental institutions of the nation. The rural wealth of Victoria, which was then the gold fields and the commercial businesses that grew up around them, created a society of remarkable capability. Rapid advances in democracy became a new blueprint for modern societies.
VICTORIA-CLIMATE
Most of the State of Victoria is in the warm, temperate area of the south-east corner of Australia, which is characterised by warm, dry summers and mild but cool, wet winters.
Summer temperatures can vary from 14 to 23 C near the coast , inland 16 to 31 C and 11 to 20 C nearer to the mountains. During the winter, temperatures can be between 7 C to 14 C in coastal areas, 5 C to 16 C inland and 0 C to 5 C in the mountains. From June to September on the Australian Alps in the north-east of Victoria snow can settle.
The heaviest rainfall is in the eastern highlands, in Gippsland in the east and in the Otway Ranges in western Victoria. Some areas can have annual rainfalls of more than 1000 mm. Lowest falls are in the Mallee region, where the average is 327 mm. Melbourne’s average rainfall is about 660 mm a year.
There are different climate zones within the state of Victoria from the hot, dry, Mallee area of the northwest, to the alpine mountain regions in the northeast.
Average yearly rainfall ranges from less than 250 mm in parts of the Mallee to above 1800 mm over some of the mountain regions.
The mountains of the Great Divide in Victoria reach a height of 1986 meters at Mount Bogong near the town of Mount Beauty.
There are a few peaks which are in excess of 1500 meters in northeast Victoria.
The Great Divide extends westwards just about to the South Australian border, with most peaks below 600 meters except in the Grampians or Gariwerd, which are near Stawell, where Mount William's peak reaches 1167 meters.
To the north and west of the Great Divide the land is flatter where it joins the dry inland plains.
During the summer the hottest temperatures in Victoria occur in the Mallee region were the annual average rainfall can go below 250mm.
It is in the Mallee where the hottest temperatures in the State most commonly occur during summer, and where the annual median rainfall drops below 250 mm.
The coastal areas, to the south of the ranges, is usually wetter apart from the far east where the Strzelecki Ranges provide protection for the East Gippsland region from the damp westerly winds.
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