AFL or Australian Rules Football is a popular sport in Australia. It consists of four quarters and each quarter is 20 minutes long . It has 4 posts and if you kick the ball between the two  middle posts  you get 6 points. If you kick it between the left or right post you get 1 point. These are the rules for AFL. If you have the ball and you run 15 steps or more your opponent gets a free kick. If you tackle an opponent around the neck you get a penalty. It is very popular, particularly in the state of Victoria  in Australia.

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Ian Thorpe was born on the 13 October 1982 in Sydney, Australia.

He is also known as the Thorpedo or Thorpey and is a former Australian swimming champion. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, and in 2001 he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. In total, Thorpe has won eleven World Championship golds, the second-highest number of any swimmer. He was the Australian swimmer of the year from 1999 to 2003. His athletic achievements made him one of Australia’s most popular athletes, with his philanthropy and clean image earning him further recognition as the Young Australian of the Year in 2000.

His wins in the 200 m and 400 m and his bronze in the 100 m freestyle in the Athens Olympics have made him the only person to have won medals in the 100-200-400 combination.

After the Athens Olympics, Thorpe took a year away from swimming, scheduling a return for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. However, he was forced to withdraw due to illness.  He announced his retirement in November 2006, citing waning motivation.

He is currently working for Fox on Action Earth where the Weather Channel and Fox8 unite.

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Sydney Harbour Bridge is located in the city of Sydney in New South Wales.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was built between 1923 and 1932. It took them nine years to build the bridge. The bridge is 1150 metres long. It has eight road traffic lanes, two train tracks, a bicycle path and a walk way for pedestrians.It takes 30,000 litres of paint to cover the Sydney Harbour Bridge with just one coat. The Pylon lookout on the bridge offers a good view of the harbour. It is not easy to climb though, with 200 steps.

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Kangaroo are grass eaters which graze on open grass lands. They are often in great danger of being attacked by animals that hunt. But kangaroos are built for speed. Their powerful hind legs carry them in bounding leaps at speeds up to sixty km per hour and over fences. So they can escape from predators.

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The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world and is listed as a World Heritage Area. The reef is 2300km long. There are over 900 islands many of which are national parks. A few islands are holiday resorts.

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Formerly named Ayers Rock , this massive monolithic sandstone rock covers an area of 3.3 sq m and is 9.4 km around its base. It rises 345 metres above land and is believed to extend several km below the surface.

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Koalas spend the night feeding high in the tops of their favourite gum trees. At dawn they settle into a comfortable tree-fork to sleep. In Australia hundreds of koalas can eat the leaves of only a few trees. Gum leaves are not their only food; they have been seen eating the leaves of some wattles and paperbarks.

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Meat pies are considered an icon in Australian culture and have been described by former N.S.W premier Bob Carr as an Australian national dish.

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TimTams are a chocolate biscuit made by ARNOT’TS BISCUITS,AUSTRALIA. A tim tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate. Tim Tams now come in a variety of different flavours including chewy caramel!

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Cathy Freeman was born in Mackay in Queensland in 1973. She was a great Australian sprinter in the Olympics who started running  at the age of eight. She has won many championships. Her greatest victory was a gold medal in the 400m at 2000 Sydney Olympics.

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