Aussie Icons

Bus stop, Newtown

January is always a busy month for Aussies, especially Sydneysiders.

Obviously one starts with New Year and the famous Sydney fireworks' display around the Sydney foreshores.

Then on with the three week Sydney Festival [10-31 January], "a rich program of around 80 events involving upwards of 500 artists from Australia and abroad covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts, cross media and forums."

While this is going on, there's Australia Day, traditionally celebrated on 26 January as a National Day for most Australians. This is a very recent national holiday celebrated nationally but for the Aborigines - the traditional people of this island continent; find the date offensive. For them, the date symbolizes the start of first European settlement of their homeland.

On or about this is the Australian Tennis Open [19 January - 1 February], unfortunately for the home crowd there's no Australians in the quarter finals for both the men and women divisions.

Almost forgot the ever present, Chinese New Year!

In this series, I will try to provide and show some Aussie icons which make up the national psyche in honour of this busy and important month.