From the initial decision to found a settlement in Australia, people have been faced with the problem of distance. The distance from England and other nations to Australia was immense and not easily traversed. However the distance to the outside world was not the only type of hardship or form of distance to cope with for those who lived in Australia, for the distance from one colony or port of call to the next was also a major factor. Geoffrey Blainey's "The Tyranny of Distance" and J. H. Bradley's "Distance within Australia: Was It a Tyrant" discuss this problem of distance. As the distance surrounding the settling of Australia was considered to be a problem and often cursed, does this make it a tyranny or something that shaped Australians into the type of people we are today?.
Distance was not really the tyrant represented in the works by Blainey and Bradley; instead it could be seen as being more of a benevolent dictator. Distance and the problems associated with it were one of the major components that forged the backbone of the early settlers. The settlers were forced to become self sufficient as quickly as possible, because they could not rely on regular delivery of supplies occurring frequently enough. Not only the delivery of supplies to the colonies but also to the small settlements that relied upon the larger towns. The time taken by ships to reach the colonies could vary from between six weeks to six months depending upon their departure point, weather conditions, and the route taken to reach their port of call. .
The early settlers worked hard in establishing themselves and the country that had become their new home. The lack of readily available supplies and trade as well as qualified tradesmen made people work harder and take more care and pride in their work. It also created over a period of time skilled tradesmen and the natural evolution of new skills and trades given the limitations the settlers had to work within.