Everything Australia Trivia Quiz

Answer: 'Roo Bar

Ford in the US introduced a Roadster Pickup in 1928. The coupe utility or ute was invented in Australia when Ford modified its current model because the wife of a farmer in Victoria, Australia asked for "a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays". Since then, utes have been ubiquitous in working Australia, even popular with young city-dwelling males who wanted to appear "working class". Most Australian produced sedans also had a ute version. Sadly, they are slowly being replaced by SUVs.

In areas outside cities and towns you would not drive after dusk without a "spotter" or a 'roo bar on the front of your vehicle. A spotter is a person in the passenger seat who is specifically looking for kangaroos that cross the road at night. At high speed a collision will cause a great deal of damage to a vehicle so a 'roo bar minimises same if contact is made. In some parts of Australia, they are known as bull bars, but they are for 'roos not cattle.

Answer: Ice cold milk shakes

Milk Bars are an Australian invention. A Greek migrant named Joachim Tavlaridis visited family in Chicago in 1932 and saw they were opening shops called soda fountains. At that time a lot of Greek migrants were moving to Australia as well, so newly arrived Mr Tavlaridis set up a similar store right in the middle of Martin Place in Sydney. Instead of soda, he sold milk shakes. It was called "The Black and White 4d Milk Bar". It was huge. Soon other Greek immigrants followed his lead and within a decade there were thousands around Australia and New Zealand, where they were called dairies.

In the next 20 years, corner stores and milk bars became the same thing. They were snapped up by Greek and Italian migrants who bought the corner stores from the Irish and English immigrants who were the previous generation of immigrants. They then sold their own types of food, from their previous homeland. This is why in South Australia and Western Australia, milk bars are called delis.

Sadly, they are being replaced by convenience stores and "servos" - Service stations that value add to petrol sales by building the corner store into the station itself.

Gone are the days you could save your pocket money, duck down to the local milk bar, get an iced cold milk shake so cold you always got a brain freeze and have enough change out of your 20 cents to buy a three redskins and four milk bottles. Unhappy face.

Answer: Kelpie, herding livestock

The Kelpie is an Australian breed of dog, bred specifically for herding sheep, a job which requires little supervision as it is a natural herder. This intelligent dog was first bred in the 1870s. The breed has a little dingo in its lineage but this cannot have been a dominant trait as dingoes are natural sheep killers (and make poor family pets). The Kelpie generally weighs 14-20 kg (30-44 lb) and is 41-51 cm (16-20 in) at the shoulder. Coat colours include black, tan, red, blue, blue and tan, cream, black, and gold.

The Border Collie, is similarly an an intelligent herding dog but it originally comes from the Scottish border region and was not introduced into Australia until after Federation (1901).

The Australian Cattle Dog is an Australian breed similar in size to the Kelpie. It was bred to drove cattle long distances. It is sometimes known as a Blue Heeler as it will nip cattle in the heel region if they do not cooperate.

Answer: Thongs

This type of basic footwear is worn everywhere in Australia where casual footwear is appropriate (ie nearly everywhere). The photo shown is not typical of the fashion. The pair depicted on the left are not made of rubber so would be considered upmarket. Also all the pairs shown have little wear.

A good pair of thongs is where the foot has moulded its shape into the rubber to customise the fit. Ideally a good thong will also depict a stylised Australian flag as the covering for the upper. If you "blow a thong", this means the stopper that holds the Y-shaped piece in place snaps off rendering, the footwear useless.

In these cases, you should discard the other thong and go barefoot. Few will notice the difference.

Answer: Lamington

Lamingtons were named after Lord Lamington, who served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. When needing to serve guests at short notice, his cook, a Monsieur Galland, cut up sponge baked the day before, dipped it in chocolate and added shredded coconut. Everyday ingredients now, but at the turn of the 20th century, "cocoanut" was not used in European cooking very much at all, but was known to M. Galland whose wife was from Tahiti where coconut was a common foodstuff.

At the Q150 celebrations (Queensland's 150th Anniversary), the lamington was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as an "iconic innovation and invention".

A pikelet is a small thick sweet pancake served with butter and jam
An Iced VoVo is a biscuit with pink fondant either side of a raspberry jam strip covered in coconut.
A Tim Tam is a chocolate biscuit that is far superior to any Oreo cookie.

Answer: Cassowary

Cassowaries are large flightless birds indigenous to Papua New Guinea and north eastern Australia, mainly Queensland. Of the three species, only one, the Southern Cassowary, is distributed in Australia. They are ratites (flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bone) and are the third largest bird behind the ostrich and the emu. They can reach between 1.5 and 1.8 m (5-6 feet) though some females can reach 2 metres. They have a brighter plumage than their cousins, the emu, but the main distinguishing feature is a casque which is a horny ridge found on the upper mandible of a bird's bill.

The sign is warning you of their presence for two reasons - they scare easily and will damage your car badly if hit. They are also becoming endangered and one of the main reasons is vehicular strikes.

Cassowaries tend to be shy but can cause painful injuries on humans and dogs as they have a long (120 mm / 5 inch) dagger like claw on their middle toe.

The Cassowary Coast in far North Queensland is one of the most beautiful beach areas in the world.

Answer: Holden Commodore

Holdens especially have been seen as a symbol of Australia. Part of the General Motors global brand, the first Holden appeared in 1948 though a coach building business had been already established in the 1920s beforehand. Until the turn of the century the Holden was the most popular Australian car. Depicted at first by a two digit designation, the most loved of these models were the FJ (1954), the EH (1964), the HQ, and the Monaro (two door coupe version of the equivalent sedan). The Holden Commodore was introduced in 1978 as a smaller model to the standard sedan. However it became so popular it replaced the standard sedan. It grew slightly bigger with each generation until it achieved "full size" in 1989. Sadly the Australian car industry could not compete with Japanese and Korean models so in 2017, the local Holden Commodore was no longer produced.

Ford Falcon was another iconic Australian model. It was Australia's second most popular model for most of its lifespan (1960-2017), sometimes even pipping Holden for first place.

Answer: Work

Hard yakka means hard work and is derived from yakka, from the Jagera or Yagara indigenous language once spoken in the Moreton Bay region around Brisbane. Hard yakka is actually a tautology, but if someone describes a task as "Hard Yakka", you know they have a tough job.

Hard Yakka is an Australian clothing company founded in 1935 as D. K. Laidlaw & Sons Pty Ltd. In 1938 the company adopted the name "Yakka".
Whilst the company is known for its industrial wear, it was outfitter of the 2006 Melbourne and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games athletes.

Answer: Greg Norman

The Akubra company can trace its origins back to Tasmania in 1870s: Benjamin Dunkerley and from 1904, under the tutelage of the Keir family, started making bush hats from from rabbit fur. Mr Dunkerley had found a way to make felt from the underfur of rabbits which was finer than the coarse outer fur.

The Australian requirement for slouch hats in WWI and II ensured demand was high, and the popularity of most designs, is due in part to the resemblance to the Digger Slouch Hat. Business boomed prompting a factory shift to Sydney where 140 000 hats were sold annually.

However when Greg Norman (The Great White Shark - another Australian icon) started wearing one around the golf course, sales exceeded supply for a while. Today the term Akubra is synonymous with men's hat even though the company makes many different styles. Overseas buyers tend to favour Akubras made from barramundi skin or crocodile (famed) skin.

Answer: Oval

Australian Rules Football was designed in the 1850s to keep cricketers fit in the off season (autumn to spring). As such, the games were played on cricket grounds themselves, called ovals, a huge expanse compared to football pitches in other football codes (normally around 100 metres x 60 metres) Aussie Rules ovals have no fixed dimensions but are typically between 135 and 185 metres long and 110 and 155 metres wide. As such a footy team has 18 players, more than any other football code.

There is a national competition, the Australian Football League with a large national fervent following, and tremendous team loyalty to fans. As the matches are generally high scoring with some spectacular individual contents for the ball, Australian Rules football is exciting to watch.