Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2024 i Australian Geographic

TO WITNESS THIS extraordinary scene in the remote Arctic wilderness and capture it was truly humbling for this Aussie photographer. I was on assignment in eastern Greenland, onboard Le Commandant Charcot, the world’s only cruise ship icebreaker, operated by French expedition company Ponant, when a call came from the watchman on the bridge that a polar bear had been sighted. Then there were dozens of bears - we counted 68 - and we realised they were being attracted by a bowhead whale carcass. Everywhere you looked after the orgy of eating, was a sleeping bear ‘passed out’ in the snow – presumably digesting the blubber they’d just gorged on. During the next 24 hours of quiet observation under the midnight sun, the bears’ behaviour provided endless fascination as our ship…

WHEN I FIRST heard about the relic World War II tank traps hidden away in the forests of south-east New South Wales, I thought someone was pulling my leg. It was only after I discovered my informant was a rural firefighter who’d seen the timber obstacles marked on an old map, that I took the claims seriously. Sure, I’ve explored remnant tank traps elsewhere along our east coast, including concrete tetrahedron (triangular pyramid) traps on Stockton Beach, near Newcastle, that occasionally resurface depending on swells and the sand blow. And many years ago, while traipsing through scrub near Tenterfield, in north-east NSW, I also stumbled across a purpose-built barrier of timber posts. Some claim they once formed part of the Brisbane Line, a defence proposal allegedly formulated during WWII to…

EVERY DAY, CATS kill more than one million birds in Australia. This means that three to four per cent of our birds are killed by cats each year. About 99 per cent of these birds are native. In fact, cats impact 71 of the 117 threatened bird species here in Australia. There are an estimated seven to eight million cats in Australia. About half of these are pets, while the other half are feral. These cats fit into three categories. Firstly, there are about 2–5.5 million feral cats living in natural environments spread across some 7.7 million sq.km of Australia. Their numbers can vary with the season. For example, the number of feral cats living in dry areas increases markedly after a period of high rainfall and drops during droughts.…

IT WAS 1988. The gruelling 3300km outback Great Australian Camel Race was in crisis. For months it had been hampered by unseasonal rains and vehicles, and camels were bogged in the mud. When dysentery spread through the camp, people dropped like flies. Race veterinarian, Dr Alex Tinson, was thrust into the role of race director – a mammoth task on the longest-ever animal endurance race. Less than half the camels and riders crossed the finish line but, in the midst of the chaos, Alex met his destiny. He was downing a beer in an outback pub when in walked legendary NSW Central Coast horse trainer, the late Heath Harris, who’d worked on Aussie movies such as Breaker Morant, Phar Lap and The Man from Snowy River. The United Arab Emirates…

EARLIER THIS YEAR we were excited to launch the Australian Geographic Awards for Nature, our new flagship conservation program. This awards program has replaced the former grants process that delivered funds – capped at $5000 each – to multiple conservation and adventure projects. To increase the conservation impact of the Australian Geographic Society, the Awards for Nature will now provide $100,000 in tiered funding to three selected projects. The funds that drive this program are raised through your subscription to AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC, which automatically makes you a member of the Australian Geographic Society. Thanks to your support, we will be offering continuing, financial and practical assistance to courageous changemakers who are spearheading scientifically informed, local solutions to problems that tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, habitat degradation, feral invasive species and…

THERE’S A QUOTE by fictional character Doc Tydon in the 1971 outback thriller Wake in Fright that says much about life in remote Australia: “Discontent is the luxury of the well-to-do. If you live here, you might as well like it.” The film, which is as much an ode to the Australian outback as it is a tale of small-town parochialism and the urban-rural divide, focuses on ingrained cultures of heavy drinking, gambling and masculinity that are synonymous with depictions of life in the outback. It premiered in 1971 at the 24th Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or – one of the festival’s highest accolades. Now revered as a great piece of Australian cinematic history, it was initially criticised by domestic audiences for its unflattering…

ON CHRISTMAS EVE 1974, nine-year-old Rodney Gregg and his identical twin brother were spending a lazy afternoon riding around Nakara, one of Darwin’s northern suburbs, on bicycles they’d received from Santa Claus the previous year. With the only proviso being to return home before dark, the boys were making the most of the freedom their treadlies gave them, and they happily anticipated what the jolly man might bring them overnight this time. The afternoon was overcast and the dense monsoonal clouds that hung low over the Top End’s capital were dumping their contents, on and off. But the intermittent soakings brought little respite from the heat and the wet season’s searing humidity left the boys feeling like they were pedalling through thick, warm soup. Earlier that day, at 12.30pm, the…

ON THE NIGHT of 19 November 1863, three bushrangers – Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John O’Meally – approached Goimbla Homestead, near Eugowra in central western New South Wales. Moving swiftly under the cover of darkness, the armed bushrangers had one objective: to exact revenge on David Campbell, the outspoken landowner who wanted them brought to justice. The ensuing shoot-out would make Campbell and his wife, Amelia, local heroes for courageously defending their property from the colony’s most infamous criminals. Hall and Gilbert likely met through bushranger Frank Gardiner. On 15 June 1862, Gardiner and his gang – Hall and Gilbert among them – bailed up a gold coach at Escort Rock near Eugowra and fled with 2719oz of gold and £3700 in cash. It was the biggest gold heist…

WHEN IT CAME to assigning a writer to cover the final Broken Heel festival, JACK MARX (above, second from left) seemed the perfect choice. The colourful Walkley Award-winning journalist and author has spent more than a decade living in Broken Hill, trading city life for the outback mining town more than a decade ago. “I’m from Sydney, my playground for all my adult life. I loved the metropolis, stalking its streets and lanes and gutters like a gentrified hooligan, a cosmopolitan girl on my arm, the lights of the city like flames to the moth,” Jack says. “In 2012, I came to Broken Hill to write an important story. I was only meant to be here for a few months. I never left. It’s a typical tale – nobody comes…

Engineering plastics for the future CSIRO has partnered with Murdoch University to launch the Bioplastics Innovation Hub (BIH), to help fast-track the development of biologically derived, compostable plastics. Based at Murdoch University’s Perth campus, BIH will bring together experts from several fields – including microbiology, biochemical engineering, molecular genetics, synthetic biology and more – to develop a new generation of compostable plastics and assist industry partners commercialise its production. “Our primary focus is the development of 100 per cent compostable, bio-derived packaging for use as sprays, films, bottles, caps and wrappers, which are engineered to fully break down in compost, land and in aquatic environments,” said Professor Andy Whiteley, CSIRO Research Program Director. BIH’s first focus will be a co-investment with the WA-based company Ecopha Biotech Pty Ltd to develop…

I’VE TRAVELLED THE world and had some spectacular wildlife encounters. But having a kangaroo leap over me tops the lot. It happened during a multi-day hike in western Victoria. I’d been walking along a steep trail on a rocky escarpment when evening fell and I quickly pitched my pup tent on the only flat spot I could find, which was surrounded by impenetrable scrub. I’d stepped outside for a moment, on the downhill side of the tent, when I noticed a huge male eastern grey kangaroo hopping soundlessly towards me along the rocky track on the uphill side of the tent. Like all kangaroos in difficult terrain, his head was down, watching where he placed his feet in the fading light, so he was caught off guard by our tent…

CAPTAIN HENRY WATERHOUSE and Lieutenant William Kent brought 26 merino sheep in 1797 from the Cape of Good Hope, in present-day South Africa, to Port Jackson, in the colony of New South Wales. Little more than two centuries later, Australia is a dominant wool producer and exporter, with merino wool regarded as the proverbial ‘cream of the crop’. Those first merinos brought to NSW descended from a flock originally gifted by King Carlos III of Spain to the Netherlands’ Prince William of Orange, who relocated the sheep to South Africa in 1789 to breed. Two years later, those sheep returned to the Netherlands, but their offspring remained in South Africa, where Waterhouse and Kent purchased them for £4 a head. Merino is a breed of fine-wool sheep that originated in…

FROM ABOVE WATER, Fish Rock is a very ordinary-looking seascape, but this has got to be one of the clearest examples of ‘looks can be deceptive’. Located 2km off the coast from the picturesque seaside hamlet of South West Rocks, about five hours’ drive north of Sydney, Fish Rock appears to be little more than a tiny, vegetation-free islet of volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean. Just below the water here, however, is a vibrant and remarkable ecosystem believed to be unique in the Southern Hemisphere. Physically, the most defining feature about this place is a 125m-long submarine cave – a pitch-black tunnel-like ocean cavern, 12-to-24m deep, where the temperature is usually a degree cooler than the surrounding ocean water. Shine a light down here and you’ll see that the…

BY THE WINTER of 1950, Justice Forrest had reached the end of his tether with William Stanley Boothby, a 35-year-old electrician who couldn’t seem to stop dressing as a woman. Facing Broken Hill court for the third time in 12 months, Boothby was at a loss to explain why he liked to wander the deserted streets of the New South Wales outback mining town in the dead of night, wearing slips and stockings, high-heeled shoes, lashes and lipstick. Justice Forrest fined the man £5, told him his next court appearance would result in a jail sentence, and accepted Boothby’s promise that he’d give the clothing back to his fiancée. Seventy-four years later, on a fine spring Saturday afternoon in Argent Street, Broken Hill’s main drag, one can feel the ghost…

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE often formed in a gaze. With a sweep of the eye you see it, you feel it and cannot turn away. I have spent more than 30 years working as a conservation scientist here in Tasmania. I have walked this island’s coasts and listened to the land, but rarely have I seen a landscape so compelling as the Takayna/Tarkine wilderness area on the island’s north-west coast. Covering nearly 5000sq.km, this epic landscape of mighty rivers and ancient forests is rich with species found nowhere else. To know this place, I must walk the land, touch the earth and listen. For Takayna will not be defined by any one thing but the sum of the whole and this is the journey that will take me there. Dancing on…

1 Which vaccine was introduced to Australia in 1956? 2 Which of the following bird species is NOT a honeyeater: crimson chat; gibberbird; pied currawong; bell miner? 3 What is the southernmost point of the main island of Tasmania? 4 Which two Aussie animals have “devil” in their common name? 5 The Telstra Tower is located in which Australian capital city? 6 How many species of land-dwelling tortoise are native to Australia? 7 What is the name of the 320km mountain range that spans the Western Australia–Northern Territory border? 8 Which prime minister succeeded John Gorton? 9 In what year did Papua New Guinea gain independence from Australia? 10 Cyril Percy Callister was a chemist and food technologist best known for creating which Australian food? 11What is the name of…

Don’t bank on it FEATURED LETTER $50 WINNER While biobanks have an important role and I admire the work done by their researchers (A place of last resort, AG 181) I am concerned that they project a misleading image of security about declining biodiversity. Many species are at risk of extinction because of degradation to and loss of habitats (often, but not exclusively, through land clearing). A gene bank is only a small part of the solution. Preservation of existing habitat and re-establishment or augmentation of functional ecosystems are essential to arresting declining biodiversity in a sustainable fashion. Genes (and their carriers) need quality natural habitats to survive in space and time. Dr Bob Newby, Rockhampton, QLD IMAGE POWER Regarding Capturing despair (Snapshot, AG 181): this iconic image (below) is…

WHEN COMMONWEALTH RAILWAYS Completed the Trans-Australian Railway in 1917, it established settlements along the line so employees could service and maintain the 1693km track. The workers and their families led isolated lives in the heart of the Nullarbor, receiving provisions just once a week on the Tea and Sugar Train. And from 1957 onwards, a special passenger boarded that train each December – Father Christmas. THe festive visit was arranged by the Commonwealth Railways Welfare Officer, who was responsible for catering to the social and recreational needs of these remote communities. From 1928, the Welfare Officer began distributing Christmas gifts such as sweets and cakes to employees’ children living on the Trans-Australian (and Central Australian) railway lines. In 1957, the officer arranged for W. J. Crowe, a railway employee, to…

WWHAT WILL LANDSCAPES supporting native vegetation look like in 50 years? The honest answer is that nobody knows. We do know, however, that many landscapes will look vastly different. Rapid climate change combined with other human impacts are creating environments that are no longer suitable for the plant communities living there. Change is already upon us. For example, eucalypt trees were long thought to be drought resistant. But they are now dying back in many parts of Australia because of droughts linked to climate change: a trend that will be discussed in a symposium at this year’s conference of the Ecological Society of Australia, from 9–13 December at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The traditional conservation approach of protecting species and habitats by establishing static protected areas is no…

ONE OF THE Most enduring mysteries of astronomy and space science is something that’s come to be universally known as the ‘Wow!’ signal. Back in the 1970s, a concentrated effort in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) was well underway at the Big Ear radio telescope in Delaware, USA. More formally known as the Ohio State University Radio Observatory, this unusual telescope looked more like a sports arena than a conventional steerable dish. Nevertheless, between 1965 and 1971, it produced the most complete map of the radio sky yet attempted. In the aftermath of that success, the telescope was devoted to SETI observations, which it carried out from 1973 until it was decommissioned in 1995. Just once during that period, on 15 August 1977, it detected a signal that might…

AS WE GO To press, we’re putting on the finishing touches to our first Australian Geographic Awards for Nature presentation event. A crowd of nearly 200 Australian Geographic supporters, awardees and friends will gather at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for a night celebrating community and individual effort to help repair our natural world. Find out all about the winners on pages 36–40. We will also open up the 2025 awards expressions of interest stage on Monday 6 January 2025, which will close on 21 February. This is when eligible organisations can submit a short application for funding that may lead to an invitation to apply in full. Also coming up soon is the announcement of the Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year Awards in December. Look out…

Less than 1 per cent of Australia’s population lives on the small islands dotted around our continent. This number is growing as more people head across the water after the onset of COVID, rejecting costly city living and office-based work. But is ‘island paradise’ a myth, fuelled by a desperate search for escape? Or have these far-flung residents truly found the key to happiness? This is the fifth and final instalment in a series exploring the realities of island life. REAL PEARLS APPEAR to glow from within. Their lustrous appearance comes from light waves reflected off their inner surface layers. Ranging in colour from white with a touch of blush, as in Japan’s Akoya pearls, to the onyx of Tahitian black pearls, these ocean gems obtain their distinctive colours from…

AS THE FIRST streaks of sunlight brush their fingers across Western Australia, native flowerheads – still tightly closed from the night before – create a technicolour mosaic; a sea of golden yellows, vibrant pinks and warm oranges, dappled with purple and subtle white. Rarely, anywhere in the world, can an entire landscape be transformed by an event so surreal and beautiful as WA’s wildflower season. Each year between June and November, a spectacular display emerges from the sunburnt soils as wildflowers bloom to cover thousands of kilometres from the Pilbara to the south-west. But it’s more than just a spectacle. The wildflowers of WA are ingrained in a cycle of renewal that’s been occurring for millions of years, steeped in the land’s ecology and the culture of the people who…

DAYLESFORD IS A charming resort town with beautiful forest scenery, natural mineral springs, historic buildings, boutique shops, art galleries and a vibrant food scene. In 2024, accommodation website Booking.com listed it as one of the 10 Most Welcoming Cities on Earth: “The area’s landscape, made up of serene lakes and lush forests, makes it the perfect destination for those seeking rest and relaxation.” Pastoralists first settled in the Daylesford area in 1838. In 1851, the discovery of gold in a local creek sparked a population boom. Among the migrants were Swiss Italians whose European influence is still observed in the region’s gardens, architecture and placenames. Daylesford emerged as a popular spa town in the late 19th century because of its abundance of natural mineral springs. Waters trapped in volcanic basins…