Innholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2024 i Australian Geographic

THIS IS NOT two separate images, as it seems, but just one, taken as the last rays of light fall over the dunes of Lake Mungo in south-western New South Wales. In the foreground a father emu guides his eight adult-sized juvenile chicks across the bare expanse of open sand that borders the eastern edge of the ancient lake. Rising out of the flat landscape, these bright white dunes command a towering view, with the Mungo Lake bed on one border and mallee scrub – now lush after four seasons of plentiful La Niña rainfall – on the other. As the emus cross to reach water and food on either edge of the lake they must climb the dunes on one side and descend on the other. In many places,…

AT THE COP28 climate conference, held late in 2023 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, the Australian government continued its campaign to host the event in 2026. Among challenges to the bid is one data point that continues to embarrass our nation: at current rates, another Australian species could be extinct by the time we host the conference. Our country’s record on species extinction is appalling. We’re driving the largest decline in biodiversity of any developed nation and oversee the world’s worst modern mammal extinction rate (see Our wildlife extinction crisis, AG 171). There are 19 Australian ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef and alpine forests, showing signs of collapse. Yet successive federal governments have failed to respond with any meaningful action. Ongoing land clearing, underfunded endangered species recovery…

IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY 1906 The Story of the Kelly Gang premieres in Melbourne before screening worldwide. THE WORLD’S FIRST multi-reel, feature-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, opened at the Athenaeum Hall, on Collins Street in Melbourne, on Boxing Day in 1906. Its sympathetic portrayal of the Kelly gang was controversial and the Victorian government tried to censor it. But audiences flocked to screenings around Australia and then internationally. A century on, celebrated Australian film critic Paul Byrnes observed: “It is difficult now, 100 years later, to imagine the impact the film must have had on audiences in 1906.” In Europe and North America in the 1890s, moving films were shown publicly either by travelling exhibitors who set up viewing areas in temporary spaces, or in conjunction with vaudeville programs…

MOST OF THE bathers sprawled during sunny weekends along the seawall at the Fairy Bower ocean pool, in the coastal Sydney suburb of Manly, wouldn’t be aware of the life surviving below their dangling feet…or how it’s impacted by this concrete structure. The wall, built in the early 20th century, is a small example of the mostly cement edifices that have been built along, and out from, the world’s coastlines. Globally, an estimated 32,000sq.km of seawalls, pontoons, pilings and marinas now stretch into the ocean from various locations. In Australia, where 85 per cent of the population famously lives within 50km of the sea and properties with water views are among the highest-priced real estate in the world, the impact is thought to be huge. “More than 50 per cent…

JOHN PAUL YOUNG leans into the microphone to sing, just as he’s done thousands of times before. The Australian music icon, known simply as JPY, is a king of the stage – a position he’s held for half a century. But on this August day, his auditorium is one without walls. He stands in the shade of a solitary gum tree, his shoes beating time in the dust. Behind him, the flat, burnished land stretches on, punctuated by a sprinkling of trees. This time JPY’s audience is small compared with what he’s used to, perhaps fewer than 100. But these people have travelled from far and wide to be here, to sit on the ground or stand quietly in a community reserve on the edge of a town called Goodooga,…

Shining light on Arrernte Country The spectacular Parrtjima light festival returns to central Australia. PARRTJIMA – A FESTIVAL IN LIGHT will illuminate the desert landscape of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) on 12–21 April 2024. This unique light festival combines technology with traditional storytelling in a rich celebration of First Nations culture. The theme this year is “interconnectedness”, with the festival’s spectacular light displays exploring concepts such as intergenerational wisdom, cultural ties between nations, collective responsibility and more. ROCK-ART SITES OFFER WINDOW INTO THE PAST NEW RESEARCH FROM Flinders University has revealed Red Lily Lagoon’s rock-art sites, in Arnhem Land, were ‘chosen’ for their critical vantage points. Scientists used aerial and drone surveys, subsurface imaging, and elevation data to model the lagoon’s environmental conditions 28–15,000 years ago, and discovered the floodplain floor…

IN NOVEMBER 2023, SpaceX launched its second Starship rocket test flight. This was the heaviest, tallest and most powerful rocket ever built and – not unexpectedly – it didn’t work. Both stages exploded – the first at an altitude of 90km, the second at 150km. This was seen by some as proof that Earth is flat, because the rocket supposedly crashed into the “firmament” above our flat Earth, rather than exploded. Typical flat-Earth explanations on TikTok were, “There’s no breaking through the energy dome. You cannot go to space physically. We have never been to the Moon.” Firmament believers are a subset of the wider flat-Earth community and tend to be fundamentalist Christians. They believe God placed a physical barrier – the so-called firmament – exactly 200km above the ground.…

IF ASTRONOMERS EVER needed something to gloat about with scientific colleagues in other fields, their ability to look directly backwards in time is an obvious candidate. Because of the finite speed of light and radiation, the further into space you look, the further back in time you’re seeing. Such is astronomers’ prowess with this cosmic capacity that they are able to see back to an era when the universe was still glowing brilliantly after its birth during the Big Bang. That glow is in the microwave spectrum and covers the whole sky, providing a background against which everything else is seen. It’s the oldest light we can detect and is one of the reasons astronomers are so confident in their estimate of the universe’s age – some 13.8 billion years.…

IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL book, Notes of a Convict of 1838, François Xavier Prieur recalled his harsh experiences on the sailing ship HMS Buffalo en route to Australia in 1839–40. “A wounded man preserves as a memento the bullet or piece of shrapnel that has been extracted from his lacerated flesh,” he wrote in his memoirs, published in 1869. “Well, I, too, would like to possess a little cross made from the wood from which this vessel was constructed, and within whose sides my heart and my body have been lacerated by my unworthy treatment.” It would take more than 183 years for his wish to be fulfilled. As a 24-year-old merchant, Prieur and 57 shipmates were destined for Port Jackson in Sydney, New South Wales. By the time they reached…

FOR FIVE DAYS I’ve been travelling along the straight line of the 1325km-long Anne Beadell Highway. This somewhat grandly named – but deteriorating – bush track stretches from the opal town of Coober Pedy in South Australia to Laverton in the Western Australian Goldfields. Along the way it traverses the Great Victoria Desert (GVD), which straddles the border between SA and WA. With a staggering size of more than 400,000sq.km – about twice the size of Great Britain – the GVD is Australia’s largest desert, covering about 5 per cent of the continent. The term “desert” usually connotes images of dry, barren landscapes, recalling harsh and desolate wastelands. But so far these clichés don’t relate. The heavily corrugated and intermittently washed-out Anne Beadell leads through surprisingly dense vegetation, contradicting the…

WHY TRAVEL WITH US? ACCESS Travelling with Australian Geographic inspires people to care about the planet by providing meaningful opportunities to explore it. Our experiences are rich in nature and adventure, and our travel partners specialise in small-group experiences. EXPERTISE Australian Geographic’s adventurers, scientists, historians and photographers have brought the world to you for almost 40 years. Now you’re invited to join them in the country’s most intriguing places, from the Great Barrier Reef to the red heart. SUSTAINABILITY Australian Geographic is committed to sustaining the environment, culture and heritage of each place we visit, from addressing climate change to promoting awareness of the world’s oldest continuing cultures and revealing the country’s countless treasures. GIVING BACK All the travel experiences offered raise funds for our Society. As our not-for-profit arm,…

Driving impact WE ARE REFRESHING Our public fundraising campaigns from this issue on, in line with our commitment to seek greater impact on nature’s most urgent concerns. We’ve rebranded our fundraisers under the heading “Australia’s Most Endangered” and announce Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) as the beneficiary of a year’s worth of fundraising and storytelling. We’re excited to be partnering with AWC to support its nationwide conservation programs aimed at halting biodiversity loss and saving our most iconic species from extinction. We’re grateful for your ongoing generous support of our fundraisers, and will continue to ensure the money is used to the greatest effect to help our precious wildlife. Because this is our Easter edition, we kick off the new program with the gorgeous greater bilby (see page 28). Our new…

LITTLE MORE THAN A century ago, the glorious heritage-listed Beau Brown Pavilion in Bathurst Showground – arguably Australia’s oldest rural showground – was a rollerskating rink, and the town gave rise in 1909 to world record–breaking skater Mr J. Kaye. Rollerskating is enjoying a revival in Bathurst, but it’s not the only recreational activity to come back into vogue in this historic inland city. Last March, local teenagers were navigating with flair the same space on modern-day penny-farthings, as part of a revival of interest in old arts, crafts and trades, once central to life but now largely lost. Penny-farthing maker John Kitchen has worked with bikes for more than 40 years. He’s built – from scratch, and to order – 20 of these high wheelers during the past decade…

WHEN BARDI JAWI Woman Rosanna Angus looks across the world’s largest tropical tides, here in north-west Western Australia where they teem past 2-billion-year-old rocky islands, she sees things most others don’t. Rosanna is the Dampier Peninsula’s first Indigenous woman owner-operator guide. And as she gazes across millennia, she pictures her forebears clinging to rafts fashioned from mangroves and spears, deftly manoeuvring the churning ocean in King Sound, about 190km north-east of Broome. Until as recently as the early 1900s, those traditional tide drifters were navigating the whirlpools here, riding over giant bubble-pop boils and whooshing past hamster-wheel waves kicked up by submerged rocks. They harnessed those monstrous currents to travel, trade and forage in one of the most remote places on earth. Yet their saltwater story is only just being…

1 What sea is located between the Arnhem Land coastline and Western New Guinea (West Papua)? 2 Who directed the 1997 cult classic film The Castle? 3 What critically endangered plant was found in the Blue Mountains in NSW in 1994? 4 What is the name of Australia’s longest-running comic-strip character? 5 How long is the Kokoda walking track? 6 What is Australia’s largest owl species? 7 What are the names of South Australia’s three largest peninsulas? 8 In what year did Prince (now King) Charles and Princess Diana tour Australia together? 9 What type of animal is a land mullet? 10 What is Western Australia’s longest river? 11 Which Aussie animal has the scientific name Phascolarctos cinereus? 12 Which Australian author wrote and illustrated The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot…

THE HOME OF Ben Chifley, Australia’s 16th prime minister (1945–49), was a remarkably modest two-bedroom, semi-detached house called “Carnwath”. Located at 10 Busby Street in Bathurst, New South Wales, the humble home – built between 1882 and 1891 – was, quite famously, a far cry from the huge rooms and manicured lawns of the official residences, The Lodge (Canberra) and Kirribilli House (Sydney). Instead, it was typical of working-class housing in Bathurst’s Milltown region, which was associated with mill and railway workers. Today, the house, now a museum called the Chifley Home and Education Centre, offers a window into the lives of Chifley and his wife, Lizzie, displaying the couple’s original furniture, kitchenware and personal decor. Despite rapidly rising from railway-engine cleaner to prime minister, Joseph Benedict (Ben) Chifley never…