Australia.

We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;

We are a beautiful and diverse country, no doubt about that.  And we have some of the world’s most magnificent engineering wonders to match that. Here are six of them.

 

Sydney Opera HouseSydney Opera House

When people think of Australia, chances are they are envisioning the Sydney Opera House. With its unique shell-like roof structure, it is one of the 20th century’s most famous and distinctive buildings.  The facility features a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete “shells”, each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres (246 ft 8.6 in) radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares of land and is 183 m  long and 120 m wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m below sea level.

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of Australia’s most well known and photographed landmarks. It is the world’s largest (but not the longest) steel arch bridge with the top of the bridge standing 134 metres above the harbour. It is fondly known by the locals as the ‘Coathanger’ because of its arch-based design.

 

Snowy Mountains Scheme

Snowy Mountains Scheme

The Snowy Mountains Scheme is the largest public works engineering scheme ever undertaken in Australia. The scheme is nationally significant for its engineering success and as a symbol of Australian achievement. The Snowy Mountains Scheme was placed on the National Heritage List on 14 October 2016.

 

Kalgoorlie Super Pit

Kalgoorlie Superpit

The Super Pit, was Australia’s largest open cut gold mine until 2016 when it was surpassed by the Newmont Boddington gold mine also in Western Australia. The Super Pit is located off the Goldfields Highway on the south-east edge of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The pit is oblong in shape and is approximately 3.5 kilometres long, 1.5 kilometres wide and 570 metres deep. At these dimensions, it is large enough to be seen from space.

Adelaide to Darwin Railway

Adelaide to Darwin Railway

The Adelaide–Darwin railway is a south-north transcontinental railway between the cities of Adelaide, South Australia and Darwin, Northern Territory. Between 2000-2004 the line was extended from Alice Springs to Darwin as a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer back (BOOT) project by the AustralAsia Rail Corporation. This replaced the former narrow gauge line from Darwin to Larrimah and the narrow gauge/standard gauge Central Australia Railway from Port Augusta to Alice Springs which used a different route up to 200 km to the east. The railway has withstood many uniquely territorian disasters – floods and cyclones washing trains off the tracks, fast-growing tropical vegetation blocking the line and numerous accidents with road trains.
But despite all those setbacks the line has endured through the decade.

Collins-class Submarine

Collins class submarine

The Collins class takes its name from Australian Vice Admiral John Augustine Collins; all six submarines are named after significant Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel who distinguished themselves in action during World War II.  The Collins Class project was established in 1982 to provide six new Australian built submarines for the RAN. The Collins Class submarines are the second largest non-nuclear powered submarines in the world. Regarded as the best large conventional diesel-powered submarine in the world, the Collins Class are packed with high level technological and performance capability.