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Welcome to the Australia page. Here are excerpts from a selection of available articles, all of which can be tailored to your requirements. Email for more information about these and other destinations/story angles or forthcoming adventures. WESTERN AUSTRALIA The Cape Crusader - Margaret River As I set out on a multi-day walk in southwest Australia, covering the first of the 135km between Cape Leeuwin and Cape Naturaliste at an enthusiastic clip, I tend towards Mae West's contrary take on a common saying: that "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." The Margaret River region's most famous "good thing" comes in red and white varieties and is poured from bottles into stemmed glasses. But between the vineyards and the Indian Ocean is a coastline that surfers would probably prefer was not publicised, and strung through the rough-hewn headlands, crescent bays and remote beaches is the Cape to Cape (walking) Track (C2C). Piece of Paradise - Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, Kimberley The splash as we slide into the water echoes off the cliffs that crown way overhed, book-ending a sky daubed with 3D turfts of cloud. Our laughter bounces back as us too, the only human sounds in a wolrd fashioned in fastatsic textures and rich hues. The sky is a vivid, almost enamel blue. Olive rock-shelf shallows darken to bottle green depths carved by millennia of wet seasons. And the precipitous red-rock walls that contain the summer floods, and reflect sun and sound in winter, are samples of extraordinary natural stonemasonry, revealing every step in their tortuous creation. Perfect Purnululu - Kimberley As the sun nears its zenith, light creeps down the walls that enfold us, revealing orange sandstone embroidered here and there with sprigs of greenerty rooted in pinches of soil. This is as far up Echidna Chasm as you can go and we have made the 1km walk to see the "striking colour variations" promised in the Purnululu National Park pamphlet. Just how striking only becomes clear, though, when we turn around and start back. NEW SOUTH WALES Harbour Heaven on Foot - Manly Scenic Walkway “There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,” Ratty tells Mole in “The Wind in the Willows.” And water lovers could similarly comment about Sydney’s favourite playground if not for a walking track on the famous harbour’s curlicue shore. For there is nothing half so much worth doing in the NSW capital as the Manly Scenic Walkway, especially on one of those Sydney days - summer, winter, autumn or spring - when sun dances on the water. NORTHERN TERRITORY Camel Safari - Alice Springs, Australia Ugly. Stubborn. Foul breathed. Flea ridden. No other domesticated animal has a worse reputation than the camel. But is it deserved? Surely the beast of burden whose footfalls sound softly through history, mythology and cinematic classics, starring in the story of Christ’s birth and upstaging the late Bob Hope along the way, has some redeeming characteristics. Six backside-numbing hours into a three-day camel safari, I’ve begun a list... Walking Through Time - MacDonnell Ranges, Australia Two days past full, the rising moon is still a huge orb that outshines the stars strewn across the sky and white-washes the river red gums. Moon shadows of our 4WD and unrolled swags stripe the pale river sand. Night lightens into day around six next morning, when our guide’s dingo howl rouses us from canvas-covered sleeping bags for muesli and toast. We’ve already discarded second layers of clothing when Adrien leads us into dry Jay Creek, leaving Liam, his support, to move camp along the Larapinta Trail... QUEENSLAND My Precious! - Carnarvon Gorge National Park Weary after our first pack-carrying day, and wondering how the second will treat me, I need a cuppa to fully appreciate my surroundings. Slivers of blue sky show through the canopy of river she-oaks and Rastafarian cabbage palms. The towering sandstone cliff below which we are camped echoes our voices. And Carnarvon Creek burbles as it refines the near-perfect gorge carved through Australia’s Great Dividing Range. Great Explorations “Never work with animals or children,” warned the great W.C. Fields, but Australia’s explorers would have accomplished little without animals. Camels, in particular, were vital to expeditions and to major works, including constructing the Overland Telegraph and the Ghan railway, named after the Afghan cameleers. So there is a double shot of history with me as I set off on a trek through outback Queensland in Edmund Kennedy’s footsteps with leader Tim Daniel, Kennedy’s great, greatt nephew, Richard Boyle, and six pack donkeys. Bronson, Charlie, Fat Albert, Sonny, Jack and Pumpjack, named after the mechanism that converts a windmill sail’s rotary action into a water pump’s up-and-down, will carry our provisions for the next three weeks. Mountain Rescue Retrace - Lamington National Park With a few square centimetres of shoe rubber on a "good foothold," I reach wide with safety-seeking fingers and lay my chest and cheek on the rock ledge, putting as much body as possible in contact with the cliff as my pulse races and legs tremble - "Elvis Legs" some rock climbers call it. "You okay?" Tim asks from metres above at the end of my safety line. "Fine," I answer, although "edgy" better describes both my feels and my situation. But I am resolute too, so after several deep breaths, I stretch a bit further, work my foot a bit higher, and continue climbing, focusing on the rock in front of me rather than thinking about what I am doing and what my mother would say if she knew. TASMANIA Heaven on Earth - Walls of Jerusalem National Park The Walls of Jerusalem are as near to heaven as I am likely to get. But not the centuries-old walls that encircle the troubled Biblical city or the afterworld common to the faiths that uneasily share it. On stepping through Herod’s Gate into Walls of Jerusalem National Park I approach a sensory nirvana of mountains that dwarf walkers, of alpine herb-perfumed air, and of silence so profound it makes my eardrums hum. Easier Times on a Prison Island - Maria Island There were worse places to be a convict. Granted, those sent to Maria Island, off eastern Tasmania, would not have dined on whole Atlantic salmon, or spent their nights in elevated tents and lace-trimmed hardtop luxury, and more would have been demanded of them than treading several kilometres of forest trail and beach each day. Yet discipline was lax and escapes common. And then there was the scenery... On second thoughts, perhaps there was nowhere worse to be a convict, because they could not appreciate Maria Island’s beauty, as I do on a four-day accommodated walk... VICTORIA Feet First Through Flowers - High Country Papery petals spread wide in the warm sun, everlastings carpet the hill, their massed golden heads accentuating the more delicate mauve-and-white daisies blooming among them. A rich blue sky overlooks this floral flamboyance. Snow gums at the hill’s foot wear stripes of grey and pink. Surrounding grasses and herbaceous plants create a mosaic of greens. And with no-one else walking from Falls Creek to Hotham it feels as if this is a private showing for me and my companion. History Meets Comedy on Horseback - High Country Horse Trek Monty Python has a lot to answer for, because rather than evoking images of the Man from Snowy River sending flint stones flying, our horses’ hooves clattering on the fire trail fill my head with visions of King Arthur trotting over a hill, his human “steed” following behind knocking two coconut halves together! And the drizzle beading our oilskins exaggerates the sense that we have slipped through time to Medieval England. Fortunately, the challenges ahead are unlikely to include killer rabbits, and the “Holy Grail” is not what we seek. One of ten riders strung out along the track on chestnuts, bays, skewbalds and Appaloosas, I am sitting astride the tirelessly tolerant gelding Omeo to experience the High Country of Australian history and ballad. Go To Top of Page |
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