Winter Sports in Australia encompasses a great variety of activities across the continent of Australia, including winter sports played in snow and ice such as ice hockey. Climate varies considerably from the tropical North to temperate South in Australia, and sporting practices vary accordingly. Ice and snow sports like Skiing in Australia are conducted in the high country of the Australian Alps and Tasmanian Wilderness. Australia has relatively low mountain ranges, but a long history of participation in recreational skiing (since the 1860s) and the Winter Olympic Games (since 1936). Australians have won olympic gold in ice skating, skiing and snow-boarding events. Australia's generally flat geography and usually mild winter climate otherwise provide ideal conditions for international non-snow/ice winter sports and team games like Rugby Union Football, Rugby league Football and Association Football (Soccer), which are all popular sports during the Australian winter and in which Australia has enjoyed considerable international success. Australian rules football is a home-grown winter football code with a wide following throughout Australia. Many other sports are also played or watched in Australia through the winter season. Sports played in winter Australia's mild winters mean that in most parts of Australia, regular outdoor sports can be played all year, and indeed more vigorous sports are more comfortably played in winter. Australian rules football, rugby union, and rugby league, the three most popular spectator sports in Australia, are played primarily in winter. See Sport in Australia Ice sports in Australia began with the opening of the first ice skating rink in Australia, the Adelaide Glaciarium, designed by a refrigeration technician by the name of Henry Newman Reid. On Wednesday 1 June 1904, the prospectus for the acquisition of the Cyclorama building on 89 Hindley Street, Adelaide was issued. The remodeled Cyclorama building opened as the Glaciarium on the evening of Tuesday 6 September 1904. Skating and ice sports were played in the venue. An ice polo league called the Warehouseman's League was formed, a sport in which was often refererred to as 'hockey on the ice' but was not actually ice hockey. It wasn't until Reid built his second rink in Melbourne, Victoria named the Melbourne Glaciarium, that ice hockey began. The Melbourne Glaciarium opened on the afternoon of 9 June 1906, at 16 City Road, South Melbourne Victoria. Turf sports Rugby Union Reports of rugby union being played in Australia date back to the 1820s, with