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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. 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 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. Fraser Island on Foot A hundred and sixty-eight years after Captain James and Mrs Eliza Fraser were shipwrecked and landed on Great Sandy Island, there being captured by aborigines and the Captain killed, the island renamed in Eliza's honour is still a great place to have adventures. Twelve years after a dingo stole my towel off the beach and I laughed so much I nearly drowned in the sea (only later did I hear about the sharks), I’m back on Fraser Island. And half an hour after being dropped off at Lake McKenzie, my companion and I are standing among rainforest palms and majestic satinays... Mountain Rescue Retrace - Lamington National Park “Lost Stinson - reward offered.” “Many conflicting reports.” “No trace discovered.” The disappearance of Stinson aircraft VH-UHH between Brisbane and Sydney on 19 February 1937 grabbed the nation’s attention and fuelled huge headlines. Bernard O’Reilly’s trek through the McPherson Ranges, his discovery of the plane, nine days after cyclonic winds brought it down about 600km from where “reliable” sightings had concentrated the search, and his dash for help after finding survivors, was the stuff of legend. It was from O’Reilly’s Guesthouse that Bernard set out on 27 February 1937 to find the Stinson. Seventy years later, eleven of us leave the glow-worm lights of a much-expanded mountain retreat to retrace his journey... My Precious! - Carnarvon Gorge National Park A popular meditation technique is to picture a special place, perhaps somewhere from your childhood, often drawn in softer focus by the time passed since you last saw it. Rather than try to empty your head of thoughts and/or problems, you watch them float by on a stream running through this special place. Carnarvon Gorge in southern Queensland, where Carnarvon Creek has cut 200m down through ancient sandstone, nature has planted prehistoric ferns, and Aborigines have festooned cliffs with stencils, etchings and free-hand art, is my special place... 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. Conflicting Messages - Wilsons Promontory National Park “Beacons of hope” is an evocative collective name for lighthouses but the tower that has kept countless ships off Wilsons Promontory since 1859 sends conflicting messages to approaching hikers. After hours on foot in Victoria’s most popular national park, the lighthouse on the Prom’s South East Point is a welcome sight, however its “driveway” is breathtakingly steep. Powered to the top in boastfully short time by the promise of home comforts, my companions and I find station buildings cloaked in shadow as late sunlight gilds the offshore islands. 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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