Snowy Mountains
| Snowy Mountains | ||
|---|---|---|
 View of the Talbingo Reservoir , Snowy Mountains Scheme |
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| Highest peak | Mount Kosciuszko ( 2228 m ) | |
| location | New South Wales | |
| part of | Great dividing range | |
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| Coordinates | 36 ° 27 ′ S , 148 ° 16 ′ E | |
| rock | mostly granite | |
| Age of the rock | Silurian | |
| surface | 2,500 km² | |
The Snowy Mountains ("Snowies") form the highest mountains in Australia , but not the Australian continental block , and their highest mountains Mount Kosciuszko ( 2228 m ) and Mount Townsend ( 2209 m ) in Kosciuszko National Park are the highest mountains in the country.
location
The Snowy Mountains are located in southeast Australia in the state of New South Wales , southwest of Canberra . The Snowy Mountains are part of the Australian Alps , which in turn are part of the Great Dividing Range , the coastal mountains that stretch from north Queensland along the east coast to Victoria. The highest peaks protrude beyond the tree line. Several lakes testify to the mighty glaciers that covered the mountains during the ice ages. The Snowy River and Murrumbidgee River have their source in the Snowy Mountains and are home to some of the oldest known organisms.
Aboriginal
In the area of southeastern Australia, Aborigines have lived with their own identity and language for more than 20,000 years. The native Aborigines of the Snowy Mountains spoke Ngarigo . The territory of the Ngarigo extended 200 km north and south beyond the Snowy Mountains and 120 km further east of Mount Kosciusczko. The related language group, the Wolgal and the Walgalu, were around the Murrumbidgee and Tumut Rivers, around Kiandra , south of Tintaldra and northeast of Queanbeyan .
During the first voyage of discovery by Europeans in search of the Aborigines, in 1823 at Cooma by the Europeans Currie and Ovens and an Aboriginal who helped to communicate, they met a peaceful encounter when they met a group of Aborigines stayed in the Snowy Mountains.
Before the time of European colonization, when the Bogong butterflies gathered here to spend the summer, more than a thousand Aborigines came to the Snowy Mountains from the approximately 25,000 Aborigines then living in New South Wales. Those who did not speak Ngarigo came from the Monaro area, Ngunnawal- speaking tribes from the southern highlands, and Yuin- speaking Aborigines from the southeast coast of Australia, as well as other groups from the south of the Snowy Mountains. The moths were an important source of food for the Aborigines and were roasted in sand or ashes and then eaten in one piece or ground into a paste and dried into a long-life cake.
The Aborigines were displaced from the Snowy Mountains and the surrounding highlands by European colonization. The initial European settlement was accelerated by the gold discovery in Kiandra in 1859. Encounters between Aborigines and settlers were rare. In 1877 Aborigines were seen by a government official in the Kiandra gold fields who were addicted to opium . The last Aborigine died in the Tumut area in 1877, in the Canberra area in 1897 and the "last Aboriginal of the Snowy Mountains" died in the Cooma area in 1916 at the age of 62 .
Development
The exploration began in 1835. The Snowies became known through a dam project, the Snowy Mountains System . This is a dam project on the Snowy River , which should guarantee both drinking water and electricity for Canberra . The project began in 1949 and employed 100,000 people, two thirds of whom came from 30 other countries. Socially, this epoch marked the emergence of a “melting pot” for Australia, which on the one hand changed Australia's character and on the other it promoted its opening to other cultures.
In 1974 145 km of tunnels and 80 km of aqueducts were built, which connected 16 dams, 7 power plants (2 of which were underground) and a pumping station. The largest dam in the facility is the Talbingo dam at 162 meters . In 1967 the American Society of Engineers classified the Snowy Scheme as one of seven engineering wonders of the modern world. Although the principles of hydropower generation are simple, this project marked a milestone in Australia's industrial and cultural development in the 20th century.
tourism
Snow covers the peaks 140 days a year. Today the Snowies are the center of Australia's winter tourism . Well-known winter sports locations are Thredbo , Falls Creek and Mount Hotham . The winter sports season lasts from June to October.
literature
- Andrew Barton Paterson: "The Man From Snowy River" , new edition Indypublish 2003, ISBN 1-4043-5749-1 , (film adaptation 1982)
Web links
- Official website of the Snowy Mountains
- The Man from Snowy River in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Londsay Smith: Indigenous History. The Original Inhabitants of Kiandra on kiandrahistory.net , accessed May 2, 2010