memories from our past, living in the present,
looking to the future,
the treasures to be found,
the places to experience
Welcome to AusEmade — From the beginning, AusEmade was a special project for us, wanting to enjoy and share places, interests and discoveries we found in our travels around Australia. The site had an added bonus, right from the start, in that it encapsulated memories and passions, as we wrote about the places that we had visited, things that we had enjoyed and people we had met.
From those early years, when images were best kept to a certain size and webpages kept small, to avoid the dreaded slow download of the page, the internet world has changed considerably. Now we are blessed with larger bandwidth, faster internet speed and are able to see online the beautiful imagery of the world around us.
AusEmade in its new and current incarnation, has blossomed into a website with unexpected treasures (hence our Western Bowerbird mascot) that reflect the many interests and passion of ourselves, other travellers and fans of our website.
History
AusEmade started in Sydney, as a passion project, among friends, who loved everything about Australia, especially travel… and thanks to Wayback Machine we have a snapshot of the page when AusEmade became live on the world wide web… making our birth the 21st May, 2001.
Back then, AusEmade was a very different place (created as it was in our spare time) and when we could travel to different destinations in Australia. The focus then was mainly on places to see and listings contact information of tourism related business in Australia, and internationally – in an easy to find listing format.
Changes happened around 2005, when friends departed the business, leaving just two of us to continue AusEmade. It was towards the end of 2005, when the couple behind AusEmade decided to leave Sydney and hit the road to travel around Australia (but that is another story).
Life tends to create its own path, and in early 2006 AusEmade came to Alice Springs in Central Australia. What a revelation… a spectacular location, magnificent landscape, indigenous culture, being wowed by art in all its forms, surrounded by the flora and fauna of the region (check out our Wildflowers of Central Australia), and becoming part of the local community of Alice Springs.
Over the next few years the website had around 10,000 pages of content. But a few years later there was a hiccup with the online website, when the company who provided the software that the business operated on ended its support of the product in 2009, and then ended the extended support in late 2014. Whilst the site struggle on for some years, the lack of support, meant work on the site ceased and effectively meant the website was put on hold. During this hiatus, the couple behind AusEmade worked in various tourism related businesses, becoming involved in festivals and events, gaining personal experience in Australian tourism.
Then around mid 2020, discussions and plans were made with family and friends about resurrecting the AusEmade website, with plans of a new direction and format.
Team AusEmade have now refocussed the website on Australia, dropping most of the mass listings and links to other tourism website (from around the world), which had created massive workload to keep it updated.
Our focus is now on Australia and what we like about this magnificent continent… landscapes, flora and fauna, selected destinations, exhibitions, festivals and events, and a creative writers outlet through our blogs.
For those into the wildlife around, and with some wonderful contributors, we have started creating fauna and flora sections within some of the destinations. You can check out some of the flora in the Stirling Range National Park including the native orchids, the stunning photos of a selection of islands in the South Coast of New South Wales, the fauna in the Southern Downs of Queensland, and the Belair National Park in South Australia, just a sample of the eco-tourism that is what many travellers now seek.
As we are based in Alice Springs, our website main focus is on Central Australia in the Northern Territory. From the many Alice Springs Attractions and Central Australia Attractions — such as the magnificent MacDonnell Ranges, to the Alice Springs flora and Alice Springs fauna — check out our Wildflowers of Central Australia.
In the beginning in Alice Springs, we worked with selected festivals and events, and through a friend, became involved with the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, helping out with the event and promoting it online. Now we are keen online promoters of other festival and events in Central Australia including the Alice Springs Beanie Festival, who we have also become and continue to be, one of their sponsors.
Check out the blog Touring the Red Centre Way with Puppy Love…
Whilst we are based in the heart of Australia, we will and still continue to add content about the rest of Australia, as you can see with our trips to the east coast… check out Sydney and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales; Lamington National Park, Southern Downs in Queensland.
Starting from scratch, meant we had a target of 1,000 pages of content in the first 12 plus months. Once we achieved that, we then set a new target of 2,000 pages of content. We have been flat out, getting out and about, researching, writing, as well as working through some great content from our former site to include in our revamp website. Now, at the time of writing (July 2023), we saw that in the previous 12 months we had exceeded our target with 2,108 pages of content (so that was exciting for us).
What is even more exciting for us at AusEmade are the many Contributors and the growing number of Guest Authors, who also share their passions and have sent us and given us, permission to use their images and stories.
We hope you continue to enjoy the journey with us as we Showcase Australia… and please feel free to share the url pages from within our site to your social media page. You can also Like our Facebook page, as we share new content and other Australian tourism related sites and information.
the journey is just beginning…
Team AusEmade
