Hans Von Lippa was a Viennese accountant who arrived in Sydney in 1889.
In September 1899 Von Lippa came to Brisbane looking for employment in a clerical position but was forced to take short term positions for six months as a bricklayer, labourer, valet and as a journalist on a German language newspaper, Nord-Australische Zeitung. He travelled the east coast of Australia extensively, working as a station hand in southern Queensland and then at the Bundaberg sugar mill. He returned to Sydney and then moved to Bong Bong, near Moss Vale to work for the next two and a half years as a scientific assistant with the New South Wales Department of Agriculture.
After working on the West Wyalong goldfields, Von Lippa returned to Sydney, married in 1897 and became a manager for a former schoolfriend's Austrian import export business. In 1905 he returned to Austria with his Australian born wife and family. In 1912 he published an account of his adventures, Oben und unten : zwanzig Jahre in Australien.
