What are the most important historic sites in Australia?

Several places across Australia tell the country’s story. Arguably, the most important historic sites in Australia include Mungo National Park, Duyfken Point, Elizabeth Farm and Port Arthur.

Australia and historic don’t often fit together in the same sentence. It is usually thought of as a young country that’s a bit of a blank slate to build upon. But this is woefully inaccurate – and not just because an awful lot happened before the Europeans showed up.

Across the country, there are key sites that have played a significant part in Australia’s long, complex story. Some relate to the indigenous history. Others pertain to early European contact. And others are all about what happened after the First Fleet arrived in 1788.

Australia Travel Questions has picked out a top ten of the most historic sites in Australia. It’s a completely subjective list, of course. But these places have been chosen because they represent a wide sweep of Australia’s story.

Most important historic sites in Australia: Mungo National Park, New South Wales

The starkly beautiful dry lakes and shifting sand dunes of outback NSW’s Willandra Lakes World Heritage Region hide many secrets.

In July 1968, Dr Jim Bowler from the Australian National University the remains of ‘Mungo Lady’. This is the oldest cremated human ever found. She was uncovered at the southern end of Lake Mungo in the Mungo National Park. Carbon dating revealed that the burned, crushed and buried bones were over 26,000 years old.

Six years later, and less than 500 metres away, a full skeleton was exposed by the elements. This one had pink ochre scattered over it, suggesting ritual burial. The age of ‘Mungo Man’ is hotly disputed – most estimates are between 40,000 and 68,000 years old. Further research into fireplaces and stone weapons show that Aboriginal people have lived around Mungo for around 50,000 years.

Before these discoveries were made, it was assumed that Indigenous Australians arrived on the continent around 20,000 years ago. The history books had to be rewritten..

Australia’s top historic sites: Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory

You don’t forget the view from the top of Ubirr once you see it. The floodplain of the East Alligator River stretches out in front. But it’s what’s further down the escarpment that’s important. The rock art galleries here have been painted for approximately 40,000 years. They give vital information about indigenous beliefs in ancestral spirits, the traditional diet and way of life.

The signposting tells only brief fragments of what is passed down orally from generation to generation. There is certain knowledge that can only be given to those that have been initiated.

There are rock art galleries such as the ones at Ubirr across the Northern Territory’s Top End. It’s just that the rock art at Ubirr and nearby Anbangbang are the most easily accessed.

The art in them is painted in layers. Over the years, different artists have ground down the ochres to tell their own stories. Some seem timeless, but the artistic styles can be approximately dated, as – sometimes – can the content. For example, images of a white figure holding a gun can only have been painted since Europeans arrived in Australia.

Kakadu is the largest national park in Australia. Although it forms only a small fraction of the vast Northern Territory’s area.

Australian heritage destinations: Duyfken Point, Queensland

There’s not much at Duyfken Point in far north Queensland. It’s basically a couple of plane wrecks and a cairn with a commemorative plaque hammered into it. But the first documented European sighting of Australia took place at Duyfken Point in 1606.

Willem Janszoon, skipper of the Dutch merchant ship Duyfken, became the ‘discoverer’ of the continent.

Half the fun is getting there. It requires a bumpy 4WD adventure along the beach from Weipa on Queensland’s Cape York.

A good substitute is Dirk Hartog Island in Shark Bay, Western Australia. This was where the first evidence of European landing was left. In 1616, Dutch captain Dirk Hartog left a pewter plate nailed to a post in a crack in the rocks. The site can be found at Inscription Point near the island’s northern tip.

That plate is now in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. A French ship came by later and took the plate, replacing it with one of their own. That replacement is now also gone, with Shark Bay locals occasionally sticking a new one up in its place.

Tours of Dirk Hartog Island are run by the Dirk Hartog Island Eco-Lodge. These tours also stop at a spot near where Dirk Hartog left his plate. This was where Frenchman Louis Aleno de St Alouarn left a bottle containing two coins and a parchment in 1772. He essentially claimed Australia for France, but never made it home. The bottle was only discovered in 1998.

Key Australian historic sites: Houtman-Abrolhos Islands, Western Australia

The oldest known European building in Australia, however, can be found on West Wallabi Island. This is in the underrated Houtman-Abrohlos archipelago west of Western Australian coastal town, Geraldton, Western Australia. It came as a result of the notorious Batavia shipwreck in 1629. Then, a Dutch ship heading for what is now Indonesia crashed into the reef.

Those who survived the wreck found themselves under the control of a frankly deranged would-be mutineer. The madman started killing off any dissenters and those he deemed a drain on the limited rations. Women were taken as sex slaves. Soldiers seen as a threat were banished to West Wallabi island to die. It was thought there was no water source there.

However, the soldiers, led by Wiebbe Hayes, found water and managed to hold out until rescuers arrived from Indonesia. They built a fort in the meantime for their protection, and it still stands today. Geraldton Air Charter runs scenic flights over it from Geraldton, a 415km drive from Perth. It’s the oldest building in Australia (ignore the claims of the Roundhouse in Fremantle to being Western Australia’s oldest building…).

Best heritage destinations in Australia: Cook’s landing site, Kurnell, New South Wales

In 1770, Lt (he wasn’t a captain at the time) Cook’s Endeavour came along. It was the first European ship to sight Australia’s East Coast. Cook then charted said east coast and paved the way for colonisation 18 years later. Given this feat, the memorial at the initial landing spot is surprisingly circumspect. It can be found near Silver Beach in Kurnell, as part of the Botany Bay National Park.  A few interpretative signs go into the initial European and Aboriginal interactions, but there’s surprisingly little there.

Top places for Australian history: Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta, New South Wales

Sydney was where the first convicts settled, but Parramatta was where farmers proved the fledgling colony was viable. Elizabeth Farm was built (although it was later remodelled) in 1793. Now, it serves as a beautifully peaceful museum. The idea is that you can wander through at will, nosying at documents and furniture belonging to the former owner.

While the sprawling gardens are rather lovely, it’s the backstory of that owner that makes it worth the visit. John Macarthur was a pioneering farmer who arrived on the Second Fleet. More importantly, he was a troublesome, conniving pain in the backside who kept getting Governors overthrown. The displays go into a series of tremendous tales that perk up the history of the early colonial era. Macarthur had to go back to Britain to be court-martialled for duelling. He then used his time in Britain to effectively set up the Australian wool industry.

Top ten historic sites in Australia: Port Arthur, Tasmania

Many convicts that came out in the early days had a pretty grim life. But those who reoffended had it even tougher. Port Arthur in Tasmania was where the worst of the recalcitrant convicts were kept. This was partly because its geographical isolation made Port Arthur so hard to escape. The tours around the (staggeringly beautiful) site tell bleak stories of gruesomely hard work and failed escape attempts. They also succeed in giving an idea of how harsh the early years of the convict era were.

Of all the convict World Heritage sites in Australia, Port Arthur is the largest and best preserved.

Historic Australian tourist destinations: Eureka, Victoria

Wool sustained the Australian colonies in their early years – a story best told at the Port of Echuca in Victoria. But gold brought proper riches. It still does today if the giant Superpit gold mine in Kalgoorlie is anything to go by.

Gold also brought conflict, and the Eureka Stockade in the Ballarat goldfields marked a coming of age. The armed uprising in 1854 that left 22 miners dead was a turning point in labour rights. It also became the spark for universal (male) suffrage.

The slaughter started as a rebellion again harsh licence fees for the right to mine a small ‘claim’. These had to be paid irrespective of whether any gold was found there. Rich pastoralists paid far less for much more land, which was a bone of contention.

The police – mainly ex-convicts of iffy reputation – were given half of the fine any miner found not carrying his licence. This incentivised them to go on regular “licence hunts”.

The miners got fed up with these corrupt hunts, and their lack of say and representation in everything. Things snowballed, confrontations got worse and eventually the massacre took place.

It was a turning point, though. It sparked changes that would lead to proper representation, and eventually a properly democratic system. The Eureka Centre in Ballarat tells the story of the Stockade, as does the evening show at Sovereign Hill.

Important Australian heritage sites: The Stuart Highway

For a long time, it was thought that there was a giant inland sea in the middle of Australia. John McDouall finally disproved that after successfully managing to cross the continent from south to north. He managed it on his sixth attempt in 1861/62. His route was used as the path of the Overland Telegraph Line, which connected Australia to the world. The gargantuan Stuart Highway from South Australian town Port Augusta to Darwin in the Northern Territory broadly follows it. Meanwhile, one of the telegraph stations can be visited in the Central Australia’s biggest town, Alice Springs.

Best places to visit for Australian history: King George Sound

Whale-watching paradise Albany was the first European settlement in Western Australia. But in 1914 Albany played a huge role in the newly-federated country’s coming of age. In King George Sound, the convoys of ships taking Australian soldiers to Europe in the First World War gathered. Thousands of those men would never return, dying at Gallipoli or in the Flanders Fields. The National Anzac Centre now looks down on the sound. Inside, it tells the stories of young, often naïve Australians sent to the other side of the world to fight.

It is smartly done in that it not only tells the overarching story, but hones in on individual narratives. At the ticket desk, everyone gets a card bearing a name and photograph. Each is of a different man who departed from King George Sound. On the way through the exhibits, light boxes show fragments of their tale. These build a picture of what happened to them throughout and after the war. Understandably, some stories end more abruptly than others.

One third of the 41,265 men who left from Albany died in World War I. Their names are recorded on a conveyor belt-like screen, that moves with a rippling effect towards the Southern Ocean.

Other historic sites in Australia

There are, of course, plenty more historic sites in Australia, including several with World War II links. The Bonegilla migrant camp in Albury-Wodonga is a fantastic place to begin learning about Australia’s post-war immigration, too.

Alternatively, in Victoria’s High Country, the legend of bushranger Ned Kelly is told at Stringybark Creek, Beechworth and Glenrowan.

In Western Australia, the stromatolites at Shark Bay are an example of the oldest living things on earth. Nearer Perth, tunnel tours are available at the Fremantle Prison World Heritage site.