Head for South Australia for today’s Geo Quiz. Travelers to Australia often flock to Queensland’s sunny beaches, or to Sydney Harbor to see the sights.

Some venture down the coast to New South Wales to sample the shiraz. But we want you to name Australia’s newest tourist attraction … a golf course!

It’s in South Australia… way off the beaten tourist path.

“If you really want to enjoy the sights and get away from the coasts, and the east coast the Sydney Harbor bridge, and the opera house and come and have a look at the real Australia.”

The “real Australia” is the setting for this new golf course. Its eighteen holes stretch across miles and miles of Australian outback. Its named after an arid stretch of plains that spans South and Western Australia.

We’ll give you a few seconds to come up with the name…

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OK time’s up. The world’s longest golf course opened today in Australia. It’s called Nullarbor Links, the answer to our Geo Quiz. It’s a long walk for a golfer. The course is 840 miles long and spans two time zones. So golfers have to get in their cars and drive from hole to hole. The World’s David Leveille has more:

Nullarbor Links is Australia’s newest tourist attraction. It takes its name from the Nullarbor Plain …a dry, flat mostly treeless stretch of South Australia’s outback. It lies just north of the part of the Indian Ocean that curves under the Australian continent called the Great Australian Bight.

Nullarbor is like no other golf course. Its laid over 840 miles and 18 towns. You have to travel as much as 50 miles to get to the next fairway.

“People are looking for an experience and an adventure. This is the real Australia. it really is.”

That’s Alf Caputo. He’s the manager of Nullarbor Links. He says the idea to lure tourists to what he calls the “real Australia” came up 5 years ago in a conversation with a business partner:

“He told me about this vision that he had to stop people from driving at a million miles an hour and trying to get across now we’re gonna stop and have a few beers and also have a meal and buy a can of coke and play a round of golf so from that it developed and today we’ve opened the world’s longest course and its an amazing course. It’s an amazing course.”

It IS an amazing course. The first hole is in Ceduna. it’s 530 yard par 5. My swing needs a little work so I’d be lucky to reach it in 10. But nevermind that.

Hole Four known as Wombat Hole is in the town of Belladonia. Its home to the world’s largest population of southern hairy-nosed wombats. Caputo has dreams of the game’s top players teeing off here one day.

“Can you imagine thousands of people arriving at Beladonia to watch Tiger Woods play..it be awesome.”

Hole 5 – is called Dingo’s Den. A dingo as in a wild dog, but on this fairway — there’s a good chance a wild crow could really throw your game off.

“and when you hit the ball at Dingo’s Den its an amazement mate, you hit the ball and you might hit it 280 meters down the fairway and along comes the crow and steals the ball and its amazing how many balls this crow’s stolen.”

So if you get past the crow — you may get as far as the 12th hole named Skylab. It’s near the site where the NASA’s Skylab fell in 1979. One golfer, a Melbourne truck driver named Simon Chalk, says getting on the green at Skylab is tricky:

“Very challenging extremely daunting club destroying, but fabulous fun.”
Hole 13 called Sheepsback is near the Fraser mountains is home to Australia’s largest eucalyptus hardwood forest. You might wonder how they can create manicured greens in the middle of the harsh Australian outback. Water IS scarce here so, the green’s are basically astro turf pads no irrigation required.

But you will need a vehicle and considerable gas. To reach Hole 18, you have to cross the state border to Kalgoorli, Western Australia. Its actually a time zone away from the tee back in Ceduna. That puts Nullarbor Links in the records books as the world’s longest golf course.

As for the world’s longest drive that was recorded in 1971. Astronaut Alan Shepard was the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon. He used a makeshift 6-iron that he’d smuggled inside his space suit.

He hit two golf balls, and drove them, as he said, “miles and miles and miles.”

For the World, I’m David Leveille.