A new journey, new places to pin. To Oz. The Land Dununder. Aussie. Straya. The Great Southern Land. The Land of ‘Roo. The Gold Coast. Australia.

Australia is a country that exists on a vast scale. It is the world’s sixth largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It has a land area larger than Europe but a population density lower than most lands. Since it is below the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere, it is summertime now. Summer is from December to February, no white Christmas here.

It is the driest, flattest, hottest and infertile of all the inhabited continents and yet it teems with life – a large proportion of it quite deadly. Wild animals include kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, kookaburras, Tasmanian tigers, emus, platypus, spiders, scorpions and octopus. There are more kangaroos than humans in Australia.

More than 85% of residents live along the coast. Everybody in Australia speaks English, albeit with accents. The diversity of land includes deserts, mountains, beaches, rain forests, along hip modern cities that are constantly ranked as most livable in the world. Our trip begins in Perth on the west coast and ends in Sydney on the east coast.

Australia is one of the most remote countries in the world and, ironically, one of the most popular places to visit. But it is, oh so far away from Baltimore. We left on Monday and arrived on Wednesday, although we did not travel for 48 hours, but we did cross the International Date Line. I did a little research to understand the IDL.

The line divides the Earth’s eastern and western hemispheres just as the equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres.

The Prime Meridian is the line of longitude (north to south) that passes through Greenwich, England. On the opposite side of the planet, at 180° longitude, lies an imaginary line known as the International Date Line. It is not a straight line but actually zigzags its way through a bunch of small islands, territories and nations. There is no one who regulates who falls behind and ahead of the IDL. However, more often than not, the decision seems to be pretty much economic based, more than anything else.

At any one moment there are actually two days on the Earth at the same time. A new day begins at midnight on the International Date Line. It travels around Earth until 48 hours later it ends back at the IDL. When you cross the line from east to west, you lose a day. And from west to east, you gain a day. The line actually lies in the middle of a time zone. So the hour on the clock does not change as you cross over, just the date. It is possible to fly to Los Angeles before you technically depart from China. On our way home from Australia, we arrive in Dallas three hours after we depart Sydney.

Enough of online research, time to pick up my camera and start exploring Oz.