At the start of the hellish, fiery Australian summer of 2019/20, Walkley Award-winning journalist and suburban dad Anthony Sharwood set off on a journey. Abandoning his post on a busy news website to clear his mind, he solo-trekked the Australian Alps Walking Track, Australia's most gruelling and breathtakingly beautiful mainland hiking trail, which traverses the entirety of the legendary High Country from Gippsland in Victoria to the outskirts of Canberra. The journey started in a blizzard and ended in a blaze. Along the way, this lifelong lover of the mountains came to realise that nothing would ever be the same - either for him or for the imperilled Australian Alps, a landscape as fragile and sensitive to the changing climate as the Great Barrier Reef.
The first full length history of bush walking in Australia. Offers some marvellous pen portraits of the extraordinary characters that pioneered bushwalking in this country.
Describes the 660 km walking track from Walhalla near Melbourne to the outskirts of Canberra. An all colour book, it includes 51 colour topographic maps, gradient profiles and many sidetrips and alternative tracks.
David Robbins published his first short story at 19 and his first book 25 years later. In 1986, for The 29thParallel, he was awarded South Africa’s prestigious CNA Literary Award, after having been shortlisted with Christopher Hope and J M Coetzee. Since then he has published extensively on southern African themes, becoming established as a writer of extraordinary perception in the literary travel and short fiction genres. In 1995 he published the first of two travel books covering 22 countries on the African continent, which enjoyed international success; and in 2010 he received a Lifetime Achievement Literary Award from the South African Ministry of Arts and Culture. A year before receiving this acknowledgement of his contribution to local literature, he had already embarked on the major project currently under discussion. Several visits to Australia had ignited his interest in the ‘Out-of-Africa’ hypothesis of modern humanity’s peopling of the world. Walking to Australia has been the result of extensive travel in the countries occupying the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, and of seven years of intermittent researching and writing. The book describes a 21st century journey following the direction taken by anatomically modern humans who left the African nursery around 80000 years ago and reached Australia 20000 years later. Along the way, they laid the genetic foundations for humanity’s oldest civilizations – and ultimately inhabited every corner of the globe. The result of these travels is not a scientific treatise. Although the science is not ignored, the centre lies elsewhere. The author undertakes this west-to-east endeavor in the imagined company of his autistic grandson, who serves both as confidant and as a human archetype. This allows the book to verge upon a unique blend of factual travel writing and an almost magical internalised interpretation. What the two travellers find together is a tangle of new experiences and responses, from which the linkages between primeval past and complex present gradually emerge. Here is a work of literary travel writing that describes an enchanted journey through some of the ancient places of the world and into the currently deeply troubled heart of the human adventure. The evidence encountered on the journey suggests that a fundamental universality of humanity’s place in the cosmos lies beneath all regional differences and is characterised as much by humility and co-operation as it is by the imperative to survive and/or the will to power. The book does not set out to prove a point, however, but to celebrate the complexity of human responses. It is more a creative work than it is a dissertation with an unambiguous conclusion. Nevertheless, the bibliography gives an indication of some of the sources used, which includes the work of historians, archaeologists, political scientists, biographers and psychologists, as well as authors writing on the various religions of the world.
A guidebook to the Overland Track between Ronny Creek in Cradle Valley and Cynthia Bay on Lake St Clair. Covering 80km (50 miles), this long-distance trek through Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park is suitable for most hikers with average fitness and can be walked in 5–9 days. The route is described in 7 stages, each between 8 and 17km (5–11 miles) in length. Optional sidetrips to the area's many accessible peaks including Mt Ossa are also described. 1:50,000 maps included for each stage Detailed information on Overland huts and facilities along the route Advice on trekking permits, planning and preparation Highlights include Mt Oakleigh and D’Alton
For the first time in a single volume, this book brings together more than 150 of the best walks, tracks or trails in Victoria, which can be walked, cycled or driven by the moderately fit individual. They are located in national and state parks, state forests, conservation reserves, historic parks and local government and public easements. Other routes follow state highways, old railways and gold routes, or pass bushranger haunts and back roads linking towns, historical and geological or geographical features. Most of the routes chosen do not require specialist navigation or bushcraft skills, and vary from a short 45 minutes on a boardwalk to four-day long-distance walking and camping. Walks, Tracks and Trails of Victoria covers the best the state has to offer, from deserts to coastal and mountain environments. It highlights the features of each location and encourages you to enjoy the experience at an informed level. Easy-to-interpret maps are included to help you navigate, and the book’s size makes it convenient to bring with you on your adventures.
"In May 2006, armed only with a small rucksack and a staff, Tony Kevin, an overweight, sedentary, 63-year-old former diplomat, set off on an eight-week trek across Spain. But this was not just a very long walk it was a pilgrimage."--Provided by publisher.
The inspiring story of one man's survival after a life-changing accident, and how to find possibility in life's darkest moments. In a split second, Mark Berridge's life came crashing down. His bicycle understeered through a corner, the impact wrenching him over the handlebars and catapulting him headfirst into a stormwater drain. A large piece of dislodged vertebrae compressed his spinal cord, causing devastating nerve damage. The accident fractured Mark's body and his identity. Fortunately, his helmet – though deeply crushed – protected his ability to think and retain valuable memories, allowing him to pursue every possible avenue in his physical recovery and beyond. Mark spent more than six weeks in hospital and nine months in intensive rehabilitation. His sustained effort to regain mobility became an integral part of his new identity. A Fraction Stronger is Mark's story, focused on the insight and inspiration that will guide you through life's impossible moments. Mark shares how small actions, combined with determination to seek out possibility in the darkness, can light your way forwards.
This title is part of Lonely Planet's comprehensive hiking series for lovers of the great outdoors and offers a range of hikes, from easy to daytime strolls to long challenging treks, plus reliable, detailed maps and essential travel information.
In 2010, Sarah Marquis embarked on a perilous journey: alone and on foot, she walked ten thousand miles across the Gobi Desert, from Siberia, through Thailand, to the Australian outback. Relying on hunting and her own wits, she traversed fever-haunted jungles and scorching deserts, braved harassment from drug dealers, the Mafia, and camp raids from thieves on horseback. Surviving dehydration, dengue fever delirium and crippling infection, Sarah experienced a raw and spiritual communion after three years of walking at the base of a tree in the plains of Australia. Through an inspirational journey, Wild by Nature explores what it is to adventure as a woman in the most dangerous of circumstances, and what it is to be truly alone in the wild.
