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Best nature
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Bush tucker Dogs on the Volcano
boom frontline tragedy
Indigenous food The canines defending What really happened
industry scales up our wildlife on NZ’s White Island?
A LETTER
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Growing parks and saving species.
 50 Aboriginal foods

CONTENTS
Australian Geographic
September • October 2020

F E AT U R E S
CONSERVATION
36 CANINE-STYLE
p108
p22
“Man’s best friend” is helping to keep
species from extinction.
NT
QLD
WA
42 LINES OF DEFENCE SA
Keeping Australia’s bees safe
from the deadly varroa mite. NSW
p42
p118 VIC p76
p50 p26
50 CELEBRATING OUR p36 TAS

NATIVE PANTRY
Booming Aboriginal foods industry.

60 NATURE’S FURY CAPTURED

Winning images from this year’s Australian
Geographic Nature Photographer of the
Year competition.

EAST GIPPSLAND GRIT

76 Spirit and resilience drive bushfire recovery
in south-eastern Victoria. 36 Canine
86 White Island volcano conservation

86 WHAT HAPPENED
ON WHITE ISLAND?
JUSTIN MENEGUZZI; DOUG GIMESY; GEORGE NOVAK/BAY OF PLENTY

Last year’s Whakaari volcano disaster.

TIMES, REPRODUCED COURTESY THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: DAVE LASLETT;

98 THE EGG MAN

OF CHANGI
The untold story of a hero of
the WWII Japanese POW camps.

42 Lines of defence 60 Photo competition winners

September . October 7
 CONTENTS Australian Geographic September • October 2020

118 Tumby Bay, SA

G EO B UZ Z A N D R EG U L A R S T R AV E L W I T H U S
11 From the Editor 108 Where the wild things are Your
14 Your Say Gulf Country road trip Society
16 Big Picture Find out where
18 Paradise for wanderers 118 The colours of Tumby Bay your donations
are going in 2020
20 Snapshot: War relief SA’s charming seaside town and get the latest
on the Eyre Peninsula. news. p35

PHOTO CREDITS, FROM TOP: CATHY FINCH; JUSTIN WALKER

22 Return of the Gouldians
23 Tim the Yowie Man
24 Defining moments: Assisted migration
25 Bird Nerd: Big building birds 108 Gulf Country road trip
26 Aussie Towns: Lakes Entrance, VIC
28 Dr Karl: Counting spiders
29 Book Club
30 Evolution of flowering plants graphic
32 Wild Australia
34 Space: Solving a mystery
35 Your Society

COVID-19: Dr Karl explains

Fold-out map of Antarctica
included with this issue

S U B S C R I B E A N D SAV E 75th★ Anniversary

End of W W2

O N T H E COV E R
The very best of Australia’s nature, culture, people and places
The very best of Australia’s nature, culture, people and places

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Best nature
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One of nature’s great
S E E PAG E 4 8 F O R M O R E D E TA I L S Bush tucker
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Dogs on the
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Volcano
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8 Australian Geographic
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From the Editor-in-chief
Resilience required
I
T’S SPRING. And
despite our mild
winters, there’s
always something
invigorating about the
time of year when the
days grow longer and
the temperature rises.
This time around,
however, it’s considerably harder to
invoke the sense of anticipation and
hopefulness that usually comes along
with the season of reawakening. As the
global pandemic rolls on and on, life
shows no sign of returning to normal,
or even of finding that “new normal”
we were all squaring up to about
mid-year. With no end in sight,
we need to find that inner resilience
more than ever before, and to do that
we need hope.
Hope springs from many sources,
and hearing stories of courage in the
face of adversity can help us tap our
own resources. In this issue we share
some sad stories about tragedies that
unfolded in the period immediately
before COVID-19 grabbed the news
cycle and our collective attention and
hasn’t let go. Just before last summer’s
bushfires flared up into a national
emergency, a group of Australians was
among those caught in a tragic event
on White Island in New Zealand when
AG subscriber benefits
IF YOU ARE a subscriber to AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
you are automatically a member and supporter
of the Australian Geographic Society. A portion
of each subscription goes towards supporting
scientific and environmental research,
conservation, community projects and
Australian adventurers.
the volcano they were exploring
suddenly and unexpectedly erupted
(see page 86). The instinctive responses
of tour guides, fellow tourists and a
group of pilots who saw the eruption
from afar and sprang into action
undoubtedly saved lives that day.
Similarly inspiring accounts of
courage under fire came out of the
inferno that engulfed much of East
Gippsland as other parts of Australia
celebrated New Year’s Eve last year.
Conspicuous courage often manifests
itself in such moments of crisis and is
almost a natural human response to
suffering. But courage and resilience
are called for equally in the aftermath
of such events, long after the news
crews have left town and the focus has
shifted, as it has so definitively done in
this extraordinary year. Craig Sheather
and Don Fuchs visited East Gippsland
for us a couple of months after the fires
finally went out (see page 76). It was a
tough assignment and they were met
with a mix of emotions and responses
to their presence among communities
battling the double whammy of fire
damage and COVID-19. Despite that,
they found many examples of commu-
nity spirit and optimism for the future
– that intangible Aussie grit at work.
We will all need to dig deep, not
just for ourselves but for each other
Benefits include:
Substantial savings off the
magazine’s retail price
Invitations to exclusive
AG Society events
and learn to make the best of it. For
the time being, we can’t go adventur-
ing in quite the way we are used to,
but we can explore closer to home.
Our annual photographic competition
is a glorious visual celebration of our
region of the world with its array of
unique creatures and grand landscapes.
The successful photographers whose
work is on display in our feature story
(page 60), and in major exhibitions in
Adelaide and Sydney, have a talent for
focusing their lenses on both the
macro and the local. They provide a
timely reminder that we don’t have to
travel too far to immerse ourselves in
nature’s beauty. Take a leaf out of their
book this year and find joy in the
things you can do, the places you can
get to and the people you can meet.
With grand adventures on hold, we
have postponed our annual celebration
of our heroes of Aussie exploration and
conservation, the Australian Geographic
Society Gala Awards, until next year
and look forward to a bumper awards
ceremony and long-awaited catch-up
at that time.
Discounts on travel and accommodation
through AG partners
25% off selected cruises with
Coral Expeditions
A complimentary Paddy Pallin membership,
entitling you to 10% off their full-priced
items in-store and online
September . October 11
 Notes from the field
Roads less travelled
Photographer Dave Laslett (above)
has converted an ex-military six-
wheel-drive Land Rover Perentie 110
series into a functional self-contained
mobile art space. He travels widely
throughout his home state of South
Australia, the APY Lands and
surrounding communities, as well as
around Port Augusta, creating
respectful portraits primarily focused
on the First Peoples of Australia and
passing on his technical skills to
members of remote Indigenous
communities. On his first assignment
for AG, Celebrating our native pantry
(page 50), Dave travelled to the
Coorong to apply his unique docu-
mentary style of photography to the
Ngarrindjeri kuti fishermen harvesting
pipis on the beach in ways their
forebears did for millennia.
To achieve his dramatic opening shot,
Dave placed his lighting set-up out
beyond the water’s edge, just as the
tide was sweeping in behind him and
threatening to wash it away. Check
out the result on pages 50-51.
Also used to plying his trade on the
open road to chronicle Australian
Features editors: Elizabeth Ginis, Joanna Hartmann
Regular columnists: Linda Brainwood, Bruce Elder, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki AM, John Pickrell,
Fred Watson AM, Kel Richards, Tim the Yowie Man, Peter Rowland
More contributors: Geoff Chapple, Cathy Finch, Amanda Freeman, Hannah James, Geoff Jones,
Dave Laslett, Miranda Luby, Alasdair McGregor, Justin Meneguzzi,
Mick Posen, Justin Walker, Clare Watson
12 Australian Geographic
communities is respected author and
travel writer Craig Sheather.
“Because it was my first assignment
for AG [East Gippsland grit, page 76],
I was excited but nervous given the
sensitive and traumatic nature of the
topic,” Craig says. “We met some
amazing people who were very open
and willing to share their experiences.
“This was the most challenging
but rewarding writing assignment I’ve
ever completed. It was a pleasure to
work with legendary photographer
Don Fuchs, who provided much
needed guidance and experience.
We shared tears, hugs and laughter
with complete strangers. I’ll never
fully understand what happened,
because words can’t describe the
emotion and trauma of living through
such a horrific event. But hopefully
we’ve been able shed light on some of
the positive aspects of the recovery.
I’ve kept in contact with many of the
locals, and for Boris Bryant I organised
for the captain of his favourite AFL
team to wish him happy 18th birthday.
Thanks to everyone involved in this
article – it was truly life-changing!”
MANAGING DIRECTOR Jo Runciman
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Chrissie Goldrick
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mike Ellott
SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT EDITOR Karen McGhee
ASSISTANT EDITOR Jess Teideman
SUB-EDITORS Elizabeth Ginis, Rebecca Cotton
DIRECTOR OF CARTOGRAPHY Will Pringle
PROOFREADER Susan McCreery
SENIOR DESIGNER Harmony Southern
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YOUR SAY
Featured Letter
FAMILY MEMORIES
During these COVID-19 lockdown
days, it was great to receive AG 155
and discover an article that helps
me with my family story writing for
my grandchildren. I was delighted to
see Phil Jarratt’s story about Agnes
Water and The Town of 1770,
contrasting the lives of the early
settlers with today’s holiday
activities. My great-grandparents
were Rachael and Daniel Clowes,
who immigrated with two children
from Ayr, Scotland, in 1862 on the
wooden three-masted Ariadne.
This was the first immigrant ship to
sail directly to Maryborough and is
shown on a commemorative plaque
in the town. What adventurous
tales I can weave for my grand-
children about the trip described
in the Maryborough Chronicle of
9 October 1862. “With the excep-
tion of a little scurvy, the passen-
gers all appear in excellent health.
GHAN QUERY
First, let me congratulate you on a
magnificent magazine.You have a wide
range of excellently researched articles,
and every issue is eagerly awaited and
avidly devoured!
However, in AG 156, you featured
coins celebrating the Ghan. I know the
general thinking and the official
railway brochures say that the name
originates from the Afghan cameleers.
There is, however, some conjecture on
that subject. In his 2014 published
book Australia’s Best Unknown Stories,
Sydney author Jim Haynes has a
different slant. He says the train was
nicknamed after rail Commissioner
George Gahan.
I have no idea which is the correct
story, but it does go to show there are
mysteries everywhere, doesn’t it!
Please keep up the excellent work!
GRAHAM PICTON, EARLWOOD, NSW
14 Australian Geographic
September . October 2020
Of the 260 immigrants
that boarded in
Liverpool, there have
been 6 or 7 deaths and
6 births during the
voyage, which lasted
120 days via the
Cape of Good Hope
and Cape Otway.”
I can show my children
photographer Grahame McConnell’s
lovely photographs of where our
ancestors dug their toes in the
warm sand and fished in the Coral
Sea 100 years after Captain Cook
did the same. Thanks to Tom and
Arthur Jeffery and their wonder-
ful museum, I found a photo of
the old family 1878–91 home-
stead and stock yards (pictured
above). A few years ago my
brother, Dr David Clowes,
arranged with Gladstone Regional
Council to have Rachael and
SIZE DOES MATTER
I found Size matters (AG 156) most
interesting. This is maybe because of my
scientific training (BAppSc Chemistry).
Of special interest was the history of
measurement timeline.
A comment or two on the 1824
entry. The imperial system was already
in place throughout the British Empire.
The Act of 1824 formalised it (but
allowed other systems to coexist) and
made one distinct change. The gallon
was redefined as being the volume of
10lb (pounds) of water, which was an
approximate 17 per cent increase on
the previous gallon. At this time, the
USA wasn’t particularly interested in
the happenings of the British parlia-
ment and kept the earlier gallon.
Now in Queensland schools,
conversions between the imperial
system and metric system are occasion-
ally taught (I don’t know why). To find
MAILBAG
WELCOMES
FEEDBACK
Send letters, including an address
and phone number, to editorial@
ausgeo.com.au or to Australian
Geographic, GPO Box 4088,
Sydney NSW 2001. Letters will be
edited for length and clarity.
The old Clowes
family homestead
at Agnes Water
in QLD.
Daniel Clowes’ gravesite repaired.
It is situated under the fig tree at
the entrance to the Tom Jeffery
Memorial Park.
Graham Clowes, Nanaimo, Canada
WRITE TO US!
Send us a great
letter about AG or a
relevant topic for
the chance to be
our featured letter
and win an AG
T-shirt.
the volume of a gallon, education
department personnel check online.
Of course, this is almost entirely
American. Hence, the conversion
taught is that the gallon contains
3.78 litres rather than the
correct 4.54 litres.
One final comment. On page 95,
right hand column, is “…the imperial
system (feet, pounds and inches)…” I
suspect the brackets should contain
“feet, pounds and gallons”.
KEN COWAN, BILOELA, QLD
PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY GRAHAM CLOWES
POSTSCRIPT
In Big Picture AG 157 we incorrectly
described the Hubble Space
Telescope photo of the Eagle Nebula
as the Carina Nebula. The photo
dates from 1995 and not 2010
as also stated.
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www.jamala.com.au
@jamalawildlifelodge
info@jamalawildlifelodge.com.au
GEOBUZZ
SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2020

16 Australian Geographic
 BIG PICTURE
PHOENIX TREES
By Don Fuchs

B USHFIRES ARE A natural consequence of

the Aussie climate, and eucalypts have evolved
superb adaptations to survive, even thrive,
through frequent trials by flame. All but a few species
form a knobbly mass called a lignotuber, most of which
is hidden below ground, safe from fire. Many lignotuber
species also sprout epicormic shoots, which emerge
directly from their trunks. These spring from unique
strands of cells deep within living tissue that lie dormant
under the bark of unburnt trees. When fire sweeps
through a eucalypt forest and destroys the leaf canopy,
shoots emerge from the lignotuber or appear as
epicormic buds to quickly begin photosynthesising,
sustaining the scorched trees until their lush crowns have
a chance to regrow. A few months later, this epicormic
growth thickens and lengthens to give trees a hairy
appearance, which is what can be seen in these silver-leaf
stringybarks in Kanni Flora Reserve in Gippsland,Victoria.
These were photographed by Don Fuchs earlier this year,
just a few weeks after the devastating summer bushfires
went through the area, and also after good rains had finally
fallen across the region. For the full story of East
Gippsland’s response and recovery to this year’s multiple
disasters, including more of Don’s photos, see page 76.

September . October 17
PARADISE FOR
WANDERERS
Victorian landholders are securing
habitat, and hopefully a future,
for one of Australia’s rarest and
most unusual bird species.

STORY BY MIRANDA LUBY

Conservation status: critically

endangered nationally
Total population: fewer than 1000
Scientific name:
Pedionomus torquatus
Habitat: arid grasslands
of south-eastern Australia
Threats: loss of habitat due to
conversion of native grasslands for
crops or pastures; feral foxes and cats
Diet: seeds, leaves, insects
and spiders
Size: 15–19cm long;
wingspan 28–36cm;
males weigh 40–80g and
females slightly larger
at 55–95g

Likely distribution

18 Australian Geographic

O
N THE DWINDLING native arid grasslands of
north central Victoria, the plains-wanderer
is clinging tenuously to survival. This small,
quail-like ground bird is endemic to
Australia and unique – so distinctive that it’s the sole
member of not only its own genus, Pedionomus, but its
own family, Pedionomidae. Its closest living relatives
are shorebirds from South America, meaning its evolu-
tion can be traced back at least 60 million years – when
Australia and South America were both part of the southern
supercontinent Gondwana.
There is, quite simply, nothing else in the world like the
plains-wanderer. “In terms of conservation of the world’s
bird biodiversity, it doesn’t get more important than this,”
says renowned ornithologist Dr David Baker-Gabb, who
chairs the Victorian Plains-wanderer Operations group.
These birds were once widespread throughout eastern
Australia’s grasslands, David says, explaining that due
to habitat loss they are now restricted to a few isolated
remnant patches, mostly in Victoria. With an estimated
250–1000 now left in the wild and less than 5 per cent of
the species’ native grassland habitat remaining in Victoria
– mostly on private property – there are grave concerns
the plains-wanderer is heading rapidly towards extinction.
But the fight for this species is far from over. Pockets
of plains-wanderer habitat are being secured on private
property in the north central region of the state using
covenants prepared through the Victoria-based Trust
for Nature, one of Australia’s oldest conservation organ-
isations. These voluntary, legally binding, agreements
permanently protect native grassland and the animals
living on it. The Trust, in partnership with Victoria’s
North Central Catchment Management Authority, has so
far protected more than 500ha of plains-wanderer habitat
in this way. Recently, Zoos Victoria has also stepped in
to support the covenanting program by providing funds.
PHOTO CREDIT: GEOFF JONES
“Conservation covenants are critical to the survival
of this bird because we still have native grassland being
ploughed and cropped, destroying all its natural value,”
says Trust for Nature’s senior conservation officer Kirsten
Hutchison. “To have a species that’s so globally significant
in our own backyard that’s on the brink of extinction
means we need to do something about it.”
The covenants aren’t, however, proving beneficial only
for this critically endangered bird. “People love being a
part of this journey to help save a species,” Kirsten says.
Cattle grazier George Pearse is one of them. He’s placed
a covenant on his property near Echuca, securing 24ha
of rare, uncultivated native grassland that’s perfect plains-
wanderer habitat. George is one of many to fall for the
GEOBUZZ
birds’ unusual quirks, including its cow-like call and the fact
that, after mating, the female, which is the larger and more
colourful sex, flits off to find a different breeding partner
while the male incubates the eggs and rears their chicks.
“It’s good to be making a difference for this bird,” says
George, who’s affectionately signposted his covenanted
area George’s Grassland. “So much wildlife is disappearing
off the plains. It’s great to have something done about it.”
Landholder Greg Rankin is also taken with the birds’
plight, recently placing a covenant on 119ha of his Patho
Plains property. For him, it’s about leaving a legacy for
the future. “It harks back to remembering what the land
was like when you were a kid,” Greg says. “I want to give
that to the next generation.”
Under these conservation covenants, Trust for Nature
is working with landholders to manage their land, so it
suits the preferred habitat structure for plains-wanderers.
The fawn-coloured birds thrive on relatively bare, treeless
grasslands, keeping to an average home range of 12ha.
Landholders can be wary of covenants locking them
out of their properties. But in this case, selective grazing
complements conservation. “It won’t affect our farming
because we can still graze the land,” George explains. There
THE FIGHT FOR
THIS SPECIES IS
FAR FROM OVER.
can also be financial incentives for landholders, with $1000
per hectare currently on offer from Trust for Nature and
their project partners to protect plains-wanderer habitat.
Not only are George and Greg helping protect wild
plains-wanderers, their properties are also collection sites
for birds transferred to Werribee Open Range Zoo to
take part in a captive breeding program. Zoos Victoria has
successfully bred 23 during the past two years. The prop-
erties of George and Greg may also become suitable release
sites for the captive-bred plains-wanderers.
Dr Baker-Gabb says that although the future is looking
brighter for the bird, there is a long way to go. “We’re still
losing too much native grassland to cultivation and time
is running out,” he says. “Conservation covenants are the
best way to make sure this species survives.” AG
To donate to help save the plains-wanderer, turn to page 35.
September . October 19
 th End
Anniversary

75 of W WII
★
WAR RELIEF
The overwhelming public response across Australia to the announcement of peace in
the Pacific at the end of World War II was unbridled loud and exuberant noise.
PHOTO CREDIT: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL (P10364.005)

Civilians and servicemen jump for joy

over a long rope to celebrate the end
of WWII , on George Street in
Brisbane, QLD, 15 August 1945.

20 Australian Geographic
 SNAPSHOT

B
Y LATE JULY 1945, after almost six years of war,
Australians were eagerly anticipating the formal
surrender of Japan that would mean Victory in
the Pacific (VP) and the end of World War II.
The Allies’ Victory in Europe (VE) Day had been com-
memorated solemnly in May, and the idea of celebrating
peace was tantalising.
The federal cabinet recognised the public mood and
declared plans should be made for VP Day, whenever it
might come, and that people should be encouraged, prime
minister Ben Chifley said, “to give vent to their jubilation”
with “appropriate organised celebrations” when the official
declaration of peace was made.
It could not come too soon. By 10 August, spontaneous
celebrations had begun to erupt across the country. The
Brisbane Truth described “the exhilarating aroma of peace”
that led to huge crowds singing and dancing in the streets.
In Melbourne “hooligans of both sexes” set off fire alarms,
and shattered plate glass windows. Thousands gathered in
Sydney around Martin Place and Kings Cross, lighting fires
and destroying flower stalls.
News of the Japanese capitulation finally came at about
9am on Wednesday 15 August. Children already at school
were allowed to take off the rest of the day, and workers
flooded into the streets of cities and towns. Quiet contempla-
tion and mourning took place privately and at well-attended
church services of thanksgiving. The overwhelming public
response to the announcement of peace, however, was noise.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported “an entire city felt the
burdens of six weary, war-laden years roll from its shoulders,
and plunged headlong and full-throatedly into celebration”,
a sentiment echoed from Melbourne to Muckadilla.
Huge crowds made their way into city centres and coun-
try towns. People shrieked, sang, joined conga lines and
danced. Kettle drums and saucepans banged, bagpipes and
brass bands played, radio broadcasts were amplified. Air raid
and ship sirens sounded, church and fire bells rang, railway
and factory whistles blew. Peddlers sold ‘atomic rattles’,
whistles, flags and paper hats. The Chinese communities in
Sydney and Melbourne released fireworks. Warships fired
rockets and flares. Airforce planes flew in VP formations
at roof height. And artillery salutes were fired by 101 guns
in each of the capital cities.
Parades took place around Australia in the following
week. The largest was in Sydney where 50,000 servicemen,
ex-servicemen and women of the Auxiliary Corps marched
on Thursday 16 August, watched by more than a million
people. The following June, as the rebuilding of normal
life began, Victory Day saw even larger crowds and parades
honour all those who had contributed to the war effort.
LINDA BRAINWOOD

Linda is a picture researcher and the editor of the

Dictionary of Sydney website at the State Library of NSW.

September . October 21
GEOBUZZ
Stunning plumage makes Gouldians
prized worldwide – they sport a
bright green back, yellow belly and
purple breast. The face is usually
black, but in about 25 per cent of
birds it’s red, and in rare cases a
yellow-faced form appears.
RETURN OF
THE GOULDIANS
One of the world’s most beautiful birds has been
recently recorded in flocks of up to 200 in tropical
north Queensland, where previously only a few
individuals had been reported since last century.
“W
E WERE gobsmacked!” says Dr Ray Pierce,
from the Queensland Gouldian Finch
Study (QGFS), of his first encounter with
a large flock of Queensland Gouldians. Ray, a conserva-
tion scientist, and wildlife guide Patrick De Geest lead
the QGFS, whose small band of citizen scientists is study-
ing new-found Gouldian finch populations inland from
Cairns. I felt equally stunned when, while volunteering
with the QGFS, I witnessed a flock of 25. I never thought
I’d see so many together at once because Gouldians had
all but disappeared from Queensland, where the species
is listed as endangered. Expanding pastoralism, altered fire
regimes, trapping for aviculture and air sac mites have
been implicated in the Gouldian finch’s decline across
Australia’s northern savannahs since the 1940s (see AG 79).
Happily, since 2018, QGFS volunteers have located
sizeable flocks, found nests and confirmed successful breed-
ing, none of which had been documented in Queensland
for decades. By understanding why the birds are now
recovering on some properties, QGFS is aiming to
develop Gouldian-friendly land management guidelines.
22 Australian Geographic
The Gouldian finch occurs
naturally mostly in pockets of
tropical northern Australia,
inland from Derby, WA, to
the Gulf of Carpentaria and
in small patches across to
central Cape York Peninsula.
“Good land management is key,” says Dr Don Franklin,
who’s studied Gouldian finches for the Parks and Wildlife
Commission of the Northern Territory, where popu-
lation declines have been less extreme. Now living in
Queensland, Don is well placed to make comparisons.
“The fundamental problem in Queensland is that prop-
erties are smaller, have been grazed more intensively, and
for longer,” he explains. “A bird can have food for 95 per
cent of the time but if there’s no food for 5 per cent of
the time, it can’t survive. They need to be able to chase
rich patches in the landscape.”
Light grazing and relatively infrequent fire are likely
key factors in creating the ideal habitat for Queensland
populations. Most areas with breeding birds haven’t
burnt for seven or eight years according to a 2019 QGFS
report, a comparatively long time for Queensland’s
savannahs. Pondering the Gouldian finch’s future in
PHOTO CREDIT: JAN WEGENER
the state, Don is cautiously optimistic. “They’re strong
fliers and prolific breeders,” he says. “Their ability to
recolonise is strong, if the habitat is right.”
AMANDA FREEMAN

WATCH
BIG WEATHER
(AND HOW TO SURVIVE IT)
F
ROM THE frontlines of
Australia’s Black Summer
of 2019–20 comes BIG
WEATHER (and how to survive it),
a new ABC TV three-part series.
Presenter Craig Reucassel charts
the season as oppressive heat-
waves set temperature records
and lead to Australia’s worst fire
season on record. More than
18 million hectares of forest
go up in flames – a fifth of the
continent’s forest and an area
twice the size of Belgium.
Then, in a violent contradiction,
catastrophic fire is followed by
severe storms and flash floods.
Sharing stories from front-
line disaster crews, experts and
communities dealing with the
effects of our escalating climate
emergency, BIG WEATHER seeks
to answer big questions: Why are
these events becoming less
predictable and more intense?
What can we do to prepare,
survive and adapt into the future?
BIG WEATHER is a dynamic
and emotional series showcasing
nature at its most destructive
and spectacular. Fusing tales of
tragedy and triumph with practical
tips and survival scenarios,
PHOTO CREDIT: TOP, GETTY IMAGES; IMAGE CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK
BIG WEATHER brings the lived
experience of a historic summer
into every living room, to help
communities adapt, survive and
thrive in this new era of extremes.
This three-part
series will air
from late
October on
ABC TV and
ABC iView.
TIM THE YOWIE MAN
SAUCER SERIAL HYSTERIA
O
N A FOGGY morning in January
1966, George Pedley, a banana
farmer from Euramo, near Tully
in far north Queensland, was driving his
tractor past a lagoon on his property
when he suddenly heard “a loud
ear-piercing hissing above the noise of
the engine”. Thinking he’d sustained a
puncture, George immediately stopped
to check the tractor’s tyres. But before
he’d had a chance to even step down
from the cabin, “a flying saucer rose at
great speed from near the lagoon”.
“My body was frigid with fright,”
the flustered farmer told reporters
soon after his encounter. After the
so-called saucer vanished “in a puff of
blue vapour”, George cautiously went
to investigate. What he found changed
his life forever. Unlike the vast majority
of UFO reports, where there is little, if
any, tangible evidence, this unidentified
aircraft had, according to George, left a
nest-like mark, 9m in diameter, in the
lagoon’s floating reeds. Furthermore,
many of the reeds were fused together,
presumably by the heat of the engine,
and continued to “swirl for some time
in a clockwise direction”.
Looking for logical explanations,
meteorologists suggested the “saucer
nest” may have been created by a whirl-
wind of sorts, but, when a lack of other
evidence failed to confirm this theory,
Tully made international headlines.
Had aliens left a message for humanity
in a far-flung Queensland lagoon?
The Tully saucer nest heralded the
start of the worldwide phenomenon
of the modern crop circle, with reports
in subsequent years as far afield as
the USA, Japan and, most commonly,
southern England. However, what
began as simple circles in bulrushes
soon morphed into intricate patterns
mysteriously appearing in a wide range
of crops, with many charlatans
continuing to peddle the alien theory.
That was until 1991, when the
pseudoscience of cereology (yes, that’s
the study of crop circles!) was turned
GEOBUZZ
Do flying saucers
create crop circles?
It’s unlikely.
on its head by two artists, Doug Bower
and Dave Chorley, who confessed that,
inspired by the 1966 Tully nests, they
had faked hundreds of crop circles.
Despite this revelation, some
dedicated cereologists continue to
claim a significant percentage of crop
circles are footprints of extraterrestrial
activity. As to why intelligent life would
travel millions of kilometres from a
faraway galaxy, weave odd patterns in
remote fields and disappear without a
trace is anyone’s guess.
So if the Tully circles weren’t the
result of a rare weather event, such as
a mini-tornado, what caused them?
Some have speculated they could have
been due to unusual animal behaviour.
In 2012 crop circles in a Tasmanian
opium field turned out to be the result
of disorientated Bennett’s wallabies
wandering in circles after eating pop-
pies. Whatever the reason, I think we
can be pretty confident they weren’t
the handiwork of little green men.
If you’ve seen a whirlwind, or willy-
willy, flatten part of a crop, I’d love to
hear from you, especially if you have
video or photos.
AS A NATURALIST, author, broadcaster and tour
guide, Tim has dedicated the past 25 years to
documenting Australia’s unusual natural
phenomena. He’s written several books,
including Haunted and Mysterious Australia
(New Holland, 2018). Follow him on Facebook
and Twitter: @TimYowie
September . October 23
 ASSISTED MIGRATION
1832: Aid to encourage
migrants to Australia begins.
T
HE NUMBER OF CONVICTS sent to Australia increased
sharply in the 1820s, lifting the proportion in New
South Wales in 1828 to 46 per cent of the population
– up from 30 per cent two decades earlier. At the same time,
Australia was becoming attractive to Britain’s relatively wealthy.
After the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813, huge land
tracts became available in NSW, the wool industry thrived and
wealthy migrants could hope to join the colonial upper classes.
The 19th century was a period of mass emigration from
Europe. Between 1815 and 1840, 1 million emigrants left
Britain, most of them crossing the Atlantic to the USA
and Canada. The much longer passage to Australia was too
expensive for many poor migrants.
Governments in both Britain and Australia wanted to
increase the number of free migrants arriving here. Britain
experienced much social upheaval and widespread unem-
ployment after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
Authorities were worried that a growing population was
outstripping resources and that the disaffected working
classes might pose a threat to social stability. In Ireland and
Scotland farmers were losing their land and Irish farmers
with small plots were forced to rely solely on potatoes. For
many, emigration to either the Americas or Australia was
the answer to catastrophic crop failures. To the authorities it
was a cost-effective solution to the oversupply of able-bodied
workers. For parishes in Britain who had to levy rates to
support the very poor, migrants would cease to be a burden
and could lead to an overseas market for British goods.
In the 1820s one scheme sought to send the poor to
Canada. In 1832 the Land and Emigration Commission
was set up under the Colonial Office to do the same for
Australia. During the following decades it organised voy-
ages for hundreds of thousands of emigrants. The Australian
colonies were particularly in need of skilled labourers and
single women. There was strong demand for labourers to
work in the interior on land that wealthy settlers had
acquired with large grants that supported grazing rather
than agriculture, while single women could help address a
severe gender imbalance.
Not everyone favoured assisted migration. Opposers
feared the country would become a dumping ground for
the dregs of British society. Notably, presbyterian minister
John Dunmore Lang claimed female migrants had made
Sydney “a sink of prostitution”.
Part of the Defining Moments in Australian History project
24 Australian Geographic
This scene depicts the family quarters in steerage class
aboard a migrant ship sailing from Britain to Australia during
the 1830s.
While there’s no doubt some women did find employ-
ment as sex workers, as NSW governor Richard Bourke
pointed out to the Colonial Office, there was only limited
demand for governesses, ladies’ maids, milliners and dress-
makers. Mostly, the colony needed women who would go
to rural areas and work on farms.
In the early 1830s migrants were given assisted passage
but incurred a debt they had to repay when they found work.
By the late 1830s the colonial governments were providing
debt-free passage to migrants, funded by land-sale schemes.
In 1839 Henry Parkes and his wife, Clarinda, were among
thousands of assisted migrants who arrived in Australia.
Parkes, who had trouble making a living as an ivory turner
in England, later became NSW premier and one of the fathers
of Federation. Like many migrants, they arrived with almost
no money, although Henry eventually found work.
Assisted migrants were allowed to live on board the
ship for 10 days after arrival to give them time to find paid
PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA
work, but then they had to fend for themselves. Although
Parkes had been optimistic while in England about the riches
awaiting migrants in Australia, he later reported that many
were starving in Sydney’s streets.
Assisted migration brought 127,000 people to Australia
between 1832 and 1850 – about 70 per cent of all immigrants
in that period. It continued at an even larger scale after the
discovery of gold in 1851. In the 1850s there were 230,000
assisted migrants, about 50 per cent of total migrants, most
of them from the UK (including Ireland).
To differing degrees in the various colonies, assisted
migration continued and was a significant factor in the
expansion of Australia’s European population.
To find out more: nma.gov.au/definingmoments

EVENTS
PARRTJIMA –
A FESTIVAL IN LIGHT
11–20 September
Alice Springs, NT
This unique Aboriginal light festival
will go ahead in September with
10 days of events around the
theme “Lifting Our Spirits”. It will
feature breathtaking light
installations, live music, workshops
and talks that will proudly
showcase the oldest continuing
culture on Earth. The must-see
event of the festival this year is
undoubtedly the 2km illumination
of the MacDonnell Ranges, called
Ebb and Flow of Sky and Country.
This will be accompanied by a
dynamic soundscape and
narration by traditional owner
Benedict Kngwarraye Stevens and
first nations festival adviser
Rhoda Roberts. Other highlights
include artist Greg Adams’s huge
glowing sphere Grass Seed and
Werte, inspired by a Kumalie
Kngwarraye Riley artwork. This
takes as its central motif Werte
(pronounced Woord-da and
pictured above), the concentric
lineal work that speaks of
meeting places and is so relevant
to the Central Desert art styles.
PHOTO CREDITS, FROM TOP: NT TOURISM; PETER ROWLAND; PETER ROWLAND
Headlining the talks is journalist,
filmmaker, author and Wiradjuri
man Stan Grant who will discuss
race, identity and belonging.
As part of the festival’s
COVID-19 Safety Plan, guests
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Alectura lathami, Leipoa ocellata
must register their attendance.
Registering helps to manage the
number of visitors, reduce queueing
and support physical distancing
guidelines. Tickets are free.
To register: parrtjima.com.au
Border restrictions apply at all
access points into the NT.
These can change at short notice.
For latest advice: coronavirus.nt.
gov.au/travel/quarantine/
hotspots-covid-19
BIRD NERD with Peter Rowland
BIG BUILDING BIRDS
M
EGAPODES are medium-sized
birds with large feet (mega
= large; podos = foot), which
they use to dig burrows or construct
large mounds of rotting vegetation
and soil. The purpose of these
constructions is to incubate
their eggs.
This type of nesting
behaviour is unique
among birds and gave
rise to the other
common names of this
family (Megapodiidae) –
Brush-turkey.
mound-builders and incubator-
birds. The large feet are also used
to forage among ground litter
for food and for roosting
in trees.
Although megapodes
are mostly ground-
dwelling, they are capable
of short, rather clumsy,
bursts of flight. Fossil
evidence suggests they first
roamed the Earth about
25 million years ago. The 22 species
that survive today are distributed within
the Australo-Papuan region (mainly)
and the south-eastern Pacific.
Each of the three Australian
megapodes build mounds. The tem-
perature inside these is generated
primarily from decomposing organic
material and solar radiation, and is
carefully monitored by the male.
He meticulously adds or removes
material on active mounds to achieve a
consistent temperature of about 34°C.
(Warmer mounds produce more male
chicks, cooler ones more females.)
This maintenance is the total extent
of the parental care. After emerging
unassisted from the mound, the chicks
must fend for themselves.
The orange-footed scrubfowl is
easily identified by its bright orange
legs and feet, and brown and dark slate
grey plumage. The head has a small
GEOBUZZ
crest. Although it’s the smallest (up to
1.2kg) of Australia’s megapodes, the
orange-footed scrubfowl builds the
largest incubation mound – up to 3m
high and 7m wide. This species lives in
rainforest and vine thickets in
Australia’s far north and east,
as well as New Guinea
and eastern Indonesia.
Individuals defend a terri-
tory with several mounds.
Australia’s endemic
brush-turkey is the largest
of our megapodes (up to
2.6kg). It inhabits rainforests
and adjacent areas of eastern
Australia from northern
Queensland to the Illawarra
region, in NSW. During
the breeding season,
the male rakes plant
material from a wide
area to construct and
maintain the 1–2m-high
Malleefowl. mound in which the female
lays eggs.
The malleefowl is also endemic and
our only threatened megapode species.
It occurs in Australia’s south, from
central NSW to south-western WA.
Unlike other megapodes, it inhabits
mallee and similarly dry, open forests
on sandy soils. Adults weigh up to
2.2kg and are unmistakable. The head
and neck are grey, becoming more
cream on the belly, and with a dark
blackish stripe between the throat and
breast. The remaining plumage is
mottled and barred with black, grey,
brown and cream. The male builds
largely soil mounds (about 1m high and
5m in diameter) in which the female
lays her eggs. The chicks emerge about
50 days later. The generic name of this
species (Leipoa) means “egg leaver”.
FOLLOW Peter on
Twitter: @_peterrowland
and Instagram: _peterrowland
September . October 25
 AUSSIE TOWNS

LAKES ENTRANCE, VIC

ORIGIN
OF NAME
Lakes Entrance was named
because it was the entrance
by which ocean-going
This seaside resort and fishing port town vessels accessed the
Gippsland Lakes, the largest
lies near an artificial channel linking Victoria’s navigable inland waterway
biggest inland waterway to Bass Strait. in Australia.

3
1

VIC
T
HE PICTURESQUE WATERFRONT town of Lakes Lakes Entrance is
Entrance is both an important fishing port and a pop- located 318km east
ular holiday destination. It’s located at the entrance to of Melbourne via the
Gippsland Lakes, a vast inland waterway in eastern Victoria, Melbourne
Princes Highway.
and at the north-eastern end of Ninety Mile Beach, a pristine Lakes
strip of sand fronting Bass Strait. The lakes were formed when Entrance
deposits from the Tasman Sea created long, narrow sand spits
and low-lying sand islands and dunes, which eventually became VISITOR INFORMATION
Lakes Entrance Visitor Information Centre,
Ninety Mile Beach. The beach now separates Bass Strait from the
2 Marine Parade; open daily 9am–5pm in
lakes, which cover 42,000ha. The region, known as Lakes Coast, summer and 10am–4pm in winter.
is characterised by a minimal annual variation in temperature, Call 03 5155 1966 or 1800 637 060.
meaning it’s relatively warm in winter and cool in summer. It is Visit: lakesentrance.com
particularly popular during the summer school holidays as a place
for family escapes that feature cruising on the lakes, sand crabbing,
fishing, beachcombing and walks on the dramatic beachfront.

26 Australian Geographic

Places of interest
Jemmys Point and Kalimna lookouts
Aasdadadsadasdada
1 JEMMYS POINT AND
KALIMNA LOOKOUTS
At Jemmys Point, 2km west of the town
on the Princes Highway, several impres-
sive lookouts offer excellent views of the
lakes, Bullock Island and the entrance
to Bass Strait. It’s certainly the best
place to get a panoramic overview of the
entrance to the Gippsland Lakes.
2 GRIFFITHS SEA
SHELL MUSEUM
This attraction at 125 Esplanade has
operated since 1962. Among its impres-
sive exhibits are nearly 90,000 shells,
the head of the largest marlin ever caught
(almost 616kg), some unusual corals,
sponges and an aquarium containing sea
snakes, blue-ringed octopuses and many
unusual marine creatures, mostly from
Bass Strait. Ph: 03 5155 1538 or check
facebook.com/GriffithsSeaShellMuseum
3 WOODEN SCULPTURES
A series of impressive wooden sculptures
along the Esplanade were crafted to
“honour the memory of the First World
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BRUCE ELDER; BRUCE ELDER; WIKI; BRUCE ELDER
War dead and injured”. Famous
WWI images include Simpson
and his donkey, and a
nursing sister caring for
wounded soldiers.
The sculptures were
created by chainsaw
artist John Brady in
Wooden sculptures.
1998 from 26 Monterey
PHOTO CREDITS, OPPOSITE PAGE: DON FUCHS
cypress trees planted in
1924 to honour the 26 men
from the district who died in
WWI. When limbs began falling off the
trees their trunks were made into statues.
4 THE ENTRANCE WALK
This is an easy short section of
Ninety Mile Beach – a 5km return walk
on soft sand, running from Cunninghame
The Entrance Walk.
Arm Footbridge south-west along
Cunninghame Arm to The Entrance
and back along Ninety Mile Beach.
A boardwalk at the mouth of Lakes
Entrance offers an excellent opportunity
to see how the long, narrow strip of
dunes, which runs along the coast here,
has been created.
5NYERIMILANG
HERITAGE PARK
Historic Nyerimilang Homestead and the
associated Nyerimilang Heritage Park
are located 10km from Lakes Entrance
via the Princes Highway and
Kalimna West Road. The park is open
from 8.30am until sunset and the home-
stead is open 9.30am–4pm weekdays
and 10.30am–3pm on weekends.
Nyerimilang Homestead, with its attrac-
tive semi-formal gardens featuring both
native and exotic species, has pleasant
views of Reeves Channel and the lakes.
It’s noted for excellent birdwatching,
being the home of bellbirds, honeyeaters
and waterbirds. It also makes a fine spot
for a picnic, with a number of picnic
tables located around the home.
There is a pleasant walk
along the circular path that
follows the cliff’s edge
and returns inland. The
park was closed during
the 2019–20 bushfires
and there may be
restrictions due to
COVID. Check at: ffm.vic.
gov.au/media-releases/park-
and-forest-closures
Since 1988 Bruce Elder has travelled to every town in Australia. He has written more
than 10 travel books including the Globetrotter Guides to Australia, Sydney and
Queensland; 1015 Things to See and Do in Australia; Explore Queensland; and Explore
NSW. He worked as a full-time travel writer with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
from 1996 to 2012. aussietowns.com.au
AUSSIE TOWNS
LAKES
ENTRANCE
TIMELINE
Before the arrival of Europeans
the area was home to the
Gurnaikurnai people.
Scottish explorer
Angus McMillan
(right) was the
first European to
reach Lake
Victoria, in 1840.
John Reeves
explored the lakes in
1843. Colonisers arrived
and cattle runs were established
soon after.
In 1858 the schooner Georgina
Smith became the first large vessel
to enter the lakes from the ocean.
From the 1860s Lakes Entrance
was important as a port for the
trade of East Gippsland.
By 1864 vessels were regularly
using the inlet, and a pilot boat, 
The Lady of the Lake, was used
to help schooners and steamers
through the narrow inlet.
Work began on a more stable and
permanent artificial entrance to
the lakes in 1869.
Fishing on a commercial basis
began in 1878.
In the 1960s the first large
fishmeal plant in Australia opened
in the town.
During the 1970s and 1980s
the town’s deep-sea fishing fleet
became one of the most important
in Australia.
In 2010 the Victorian govern-
ment recognised the Gurnaikurnai
Aboriginal people as the traditional
owners of much of the land around
Lakes Entrance.
September . October 27
 GEOBUZZ
NEED TO KNOW
with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
COUNTING
SPIDERS
J
UMPING SPIDERS in the genus
Portia can remember, plan and
count. And they attack other
spiders up to twice their size!
In a revealing series of lab exper-
iments, scientists put one of these
Portia spiders on a tower on a tiny
island in a tiny ‘lake’ (a puddle, really),
surrounded by dry land. The distance
between the tower and land was too
great to bound across in a single leap.
And Portia spiders hate getting wet.
So the researchers put two floating
pathways across the lake. Then,
outside the lake, on dry land, they put
a meal of another spider on another
tower. When the Portia went down
its tower, it lost sight of its potential
dinner. So as a series of experiments
revealed, it had to use memory.
First experiment: memory
One floating pathway led to dinner,
while the other didn’t. Portia could
see both pathways from its tower,
By Kel Richards
PUBLIC
SERVANT
28 Australian Geographic
and, after it climbed down, it remem-
bered the correct pathway that led
to dinner.
Second experiment: memory
and planning
Both floating pathways led to dinner,
but one was shorter. Portia chose
the shorter pathway, so it could get
dinner quicker.
Third experiment: counting
For background, you need to realise
something well known to psycholo-
gists: a sudden pause in a creature’s
activity indicates it might be ‘con-
fused’ or ‘surprised’. Knowing this,
you can design an experiment to
work out, for example, what a human
baby might be thinking.
Up on its tower, Portia saw a
few spiders on the other tower so
it climbed down, crossed the water
and arrived at dinner. But something
was very different. While Portia was
W
HAT PICTURE DOES the title
“public servant” paint for
you? Is it of a pen-pusher
inside the Canberra bubble living off
taxpayer dollars? Well, the next time
you’re caught in a web of red tape, and
feel like cursing all public servants,
it might give you some comfort to know
that in Australia the term public servant
originally meant a convict! In her book
Convict Words, Amanda Laugesen
explains that a public servant was
Northern Australia’s
fringed jumping spider
belongs to a genus of
arachnids known to modify
their hunting based
on what they learn.
in transit, the cunning experimenters
changed the number of spiders being
offered as prey.
But get this – the Portia spider
suddenly paused! That indicated it
was surprised. It expected a certain
number, but didn’t find them.
Portia seems to know just
three ‘numbers’ – one, two and
many, which is more than two.
Still, it is counting.
Of course, once the confusion/
surprise was over, and it accepted
the mathematical paradox, it just
started attacking and eating. Why
PHOTO CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK/ LEE HUA MING
let a little theoretical mathematics
get in the way of a good feed?
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Portia fimbriata
DR KARL is a prolific broadcaster, author
and Julius Sumner Miller fellow in the School of
Physics at the University of Sydney. His latest
book, Dr Karl’s Random Road Trip Through
Science, comes with pop-up holograms and is
published by HarperCollins Publishers
Australia. Follow him on Twitter at @DoctorKarl
“a convict assigned to public labour
or work for the government”. When
“public servant” was first coined in
1797 it was a euphemism for convict.
Even in those early years, everyone
hated to be called a convict, so all kinds
of other expressions were coined to
soften this harsh word, such as
“government man”, “prisoner”, or
“assigned servant”. And at the top of
the list of ways to not call a convict a
convict was “public servant”.
 OM M
EC GEOBUZZ

EN
DE D
THE AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC BOOK CLUB

RE
A
DI
NG

THE LAST peoples fight not for sover-

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Anthony
Ham’s A REPURPOSED LIFE
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Haunted by the idea that they
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The airline launched in the aftermath of World War I their surprising story of how she
and the Spanish Flu, and now in its centenary year, relationship to discovered her
has come to the rescue of Australians stranded humankind. voice and
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Ronni Kahn at offering inspira-
A fascinating read for not only aviation buffs but heartbreaking
the OzHarvest tion for the reader
anyone interested in Australian history. and astonishing
CEO Cookoff. in their own search
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EXPLORE AUSTRALIA exploration of the larger in Australia and starting a
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us a world in which human
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free camping, station stays colourful photos make this able now to purchase from our online Australian
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September . October 29
GEOBUZZ
A ‘TIME-TREE’ OF EARTH’S
FLOWERING PLANTS
A new study by Australian and Mexican scientists is transforming
our understanding of the evolution of flowering plants.
WORDS BY KAREN MCGHEE

IMAGE AND PHOTO MONTAGE CREDITS: SANTIAGO RAMIREZ-BARAHONA

There are now more than 400 families

of flowering plants on Earth, encom-
passing at least 13,000 genera and
300,000 species. These form the basis
of most land-based food webs, which
support most of Earth’s terrestrial
animals, including, of course, humans.

30 Australian Geographic

T
HE APPEARANCE of flowering plants, the
angiosperms, on Earth was a monumental
ecological event. So much of the life we
see on land today is underpinned by plants
that reproduce through flowers.
Now, new research by Australian and Mexican
scientists is shifting our understanding of how the
early evolution of angiosperms progressed to trans-
form the planet. By investigating all of the world’s
angiosperm families on a scale that’s never been done
before – using both the DNA in living plants and
fossil evidence – they’re retelling what we know of
flowering plant evolution.
First, what’s not changed is our understanding that
angiosperms first appeared at least 140 million years
ago (mya), at the beginning of the Cretaceous (possi-
bly even earlier), and that this ultimately led to what’s
known as the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution – an
explosion of not just plant but animal life on land,
from insects and other arthropods to amphibians,
reptiles, birds and mammals. But what this new study
tells us is that it took much longer than previously
thought for that process to get underway.
“Everyone believed that very soon after flowering
plants originated in the Cretaceous they took over the
planet,” explains Dr Hervé Sauquet, an evolutionary
biologist and botanist from the Australian Institute
of Botanical Science based at the Royal Botanic
Garden Sydney, who coordinated the study’s dataset
of 238 angiosperm fossil calibrations, the largest ever
RETELLING
FLOWERING PLANT
EVOLUTION
assembled. “But what we’ve found is that there were
two phases of that evolution.”
There was, he explains, a lengthy delay of some
75 million years after angiosperms first appeared,
during which they kind of ticked along in the back-
ground for much of the Cretaceous. The great diver-
sification of flowering plants that led to what we
see today didn’t really get underway until the end
of the time of the dinosaurs about 66mya. “So yes,
things were happening, but it took a while until it
all actually exploded,” Hervé says.
What has the study revealed about Australia’s flora,
which is among the richest in the world? It shows
that while we certainly have unique representatives
of many of the world’s most ancient flowering plant
families here, the actual richness, the huge biodiver-
sity of our flora, has, on a geological time scale, only
come about relatively recently. AG
FURTHER READING “The delayed and geographically
heterogeneous diversification of flowering plant families”,
in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
September . October 31
 WILD AUSTRALIA
PROTECTING EARTH’S ECOLOGY
MAKES FINANCIAL SENSE
Turning a third of the world into protected areas by 2030
could boost the global economy by US$250 billion annually.
E
ARLIER THIS YEAR I highlighted
the push, championed by renowned
American biologist E.O. Wilson, to
reserve half Earth’s surface for nature to
curtail a sixth mass extinction of species
(see AG 154).
Now a major new report reveals
that including 30 per cent of the planet
in protected areas not only makes ecological sense, it
could also have significant economic benefits – leading to
an average annual boost of US$250 billion to the world
economy. Authored by 100 scientists and economists led by
Dr Anthony Waldron, an expert on conservation finance
at the University of Cambridge in the UK, and includ-
ing National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence
Enric Sala, the report, entitled Protecting 30% of the planet
for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications, was published
in July by the US-based Campaign for Nature.
A pledge to preserve 30 per cent of the planet’s land
and oceans by 2030, to slow the collapse of ecosystems, is
exactly what’s planned as part of a new global treaty. This
is expected to be signed by 196 nations at a meeting of the
UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity scheduled for
mid-2021 at Kunming, China.
To see how achieving this might stack up financially,
Waldron, Sala and their colleagues carried out the most
detailed global assessment of the economic impacts of pro-
tected areas ever attempted.
Perhaps surprisingly, they found that the benefits of
protecting the planet outweighed the costs by a ratio
of 5 to 1, and that the parts of the global economy linked
to nature conservation, such as recreation and tourism,
are likely to boom during the next decade. Although
it might seem counterintuitive, economic models
also suggest financial gains from agriculture, fisheries and
forestry will increase if protected areas expand and we tran-
sition to a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources.
32 Australian Geographic
The intrinsic services provided by ecosystems in the
30 per cent of the planet covered by protected areas would
annually be worth hundreds of billions more to the global
economy, the authors argue. These services include benefits
such as the provision of clean drinking water, protection
against floods and the prevention of climate change.
All of this wouldn’t come without an initial outlay. Cur-
rently about 15 per cent of land and 7 per cent of oceans are
protected globally, with an associated cost of US$24 billion
annually. To make the 30 per cent target by 2030, the world’s
nations would have to beef up that annual investment to
about US$140 billion. This sounds like a lot, but it’s less than
a third of what governments currently spend to subsidise
activities that destroy nature, such as mining, fisheries and
fossil fuels. The money would also go towards efforts to
mitigate climate change. Plus, there would be a significant
return on the investment post-2030.
The report further makes the point that, in a post-
COVID-19 world, expanding protected areas will reduce
the risk of wildlife-borne diseases becoming future pan-
demics, because it will limit the degree to which we are
encroaching upon the habitats of wild creatures, such as bats.
As co-author Dr Stephen Woodley, of the UN’s Interna-
tional Union for the Conservation of Nature, argued when
the report was launched: “We must give space for nature…
Protecting nature halts biodiversity loss, helps fight climate
change and lessens the chance of future pandemics. This is
sound public policy, economically, ecologically and morally.”
Australia’s National Reserve System currently covers about
17 per cent of the continent, but some governments, such as
that of Canada, have already pledged to protect 30 per cent
IMAGE CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK
of their land and seas by 2030. Surely, it’s time Australia
followed suit?
JOHN PICKRELL is a former editor of AUSTRALIAN
GEOGRAPHIC. Follow him on Twitter: @john_pickrell
 GEOBUZZ

Talking Australia
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DIARY ENTRIES
Ian Morris years figuring out. Today,
Go bushwalking in the 16 year old is in a

NSW
This zoologist, educator,
conservationist and league of her own and
the Blue Mountains author has worked keen to represent
with traditional own- Australia at the
The Greater Blue Mountains World
ers in Arnhem Land, Tokyo Olympics.
Heritage Area, west of Sydney, was
NT, for decades and
badly hit by last summer’s bushfires.
speaks local langua- Joe Bonington
But with flushes of new foliage and
ges Djambarrpuyŋu, (pictured) A master
flowers in abundance, environments are
Warramirri and adventure fitness trainer
bouncing back. Spring is a great time to
Gupapuyŋu. Today, he and son of legendary
support local businesses and explore
works as an environmental British mountaineer Sir Chris
trails, such as the Cliff Top walking
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track in Blue Mountains National Park.
Aboriginal science and knowledge. people achieve amazing goals for
For more info: Call Blue Mountains
almost 20 years. His gift is in helping
Heritage Centre on 02 4787 8877
Bradley Moggridge ordinary people unlock their full
or visit visitnsw.com/destinations/
A Murri man from the Kamilaroi Nation potential to achieve things they never
blue-mountains/bushwalking
(in NSW) and water scientist, Bradley thought possible. 
has dedicated his life to finding ways,
imbued with Aboriginal knowledge, Tyson Yunkaporta
Dugong calving season,
QLD Moreton Bay
to better manage Australia’s water in
the age of climate change.
Tyson, of the Apalech Clan from Cape
York, Queensland, is a senior lecturer
in Indigenous knowledge, published
Moreton Bay Marine Park is home to Angie Scarth-Johnson poet and exhibited artist. He’s also
up to 600 dugongs. Calves are born At age seven, Australian rock-climbing the author of the award-winning book
about September–October each year, sensation Angie was already climbing Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking
although adult sea cows can be spotted grades that other rock climbers spent Can Save The World.
year-round. The banks of Moreton
Island, 35km from Brisbane, is one
place to spy dugongs munching on sea-
Other inspiring podcast guests include Valerie Taylor,
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4444 or visit dolphinwild.com.au

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Wildflowers in bloom,
TAS kunanyi/Mt Wellington 1. If you are using an
iPhone, open the
pre-installed “Podcasts”
3. Tap on the cover
4. Tap on the purple
“subscribe” button
Spring is the time to enjoy a profu-
app (Android users can 5. Enjoy the podcast and
sion of uniquely Tasmanian pineapple
install one of the free please leave us a rating
candle heath flowers. From Hobart,
podcast apps, such as and review!
head to Wellington Park and take the “Pocket Casts”)
Organ Pipes Track, which begins at The 2. Search for: OR simply scan the
Springs car park. The 21km drive to the Talking Australia QR code at left
summit of Mt Wellington will also take
you through rainforest
and subalpine flora
DIARY 2021
PHOTO CREDITS: LEFT, TOP AND BOTTOM; SHUTTERSTOCK

in bloom.

ENTER Competition
Nature
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SCIENTIFIC NAME: Richea dracophylla

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September . October 33
GEOBUZZ
Located in a designated radio-quiet
zone near Boolardy station, WA,
Australia’s ASKAP radio telescopes
are perfectly poised to pinpoint
distant radio signals.
★ SPACE
ONE SPACE MYSTERY
SOLVES ANOTHER
O
NE OF THE biggest puzzles
for astronomers during the
past decade or so has been
the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs)
– intense pulses of radio waves from
space that last only thousandths of a
second. Compounding the mystery,
they can occur anywhere in the sky,
and are mostly one-offs, with a dozen
or so known to repeat sporadically.
Only two repeat in a predictable way.
Key to understanding these is the
ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre
Array Pathfinder) – 36 x 12m radio
telescopes at the Murchison
Radio-astronomy Observatory in
Western Australia. This site’s extraor-
dinary radio-silence has already
featured in these pages (AG 147),
but another of ASKAP’s key attributes
is its ability to pinpoint radio signals
with high positional accuracy,
allowing FRBs to be followed up
using visible-light telescopes.
Some of the world’s largest
telescopes have been involved in this
quest, including the 8.2m giants of
the European Southern Observatory,
with which Australia has a strategic
partnership. Most of the FRBs
followed up so far have been found to
originate in the outskirts of normal
galaxies at distances of between a
hundred million and several billion
light-years from our own.
The current best guess for the
source of FRBs is flares on the
intensely magnetised remnants of
exploded stars. But it was the distance
34 Australian Geographic
measurements that attracted the
attention of an international team of
astronomers who were bent on
solving another puzzle. They noted
that pulses of radio waves interact
with a sparse population of subatomic
particles between galaxies, slowing the
lower frequencies and allowing the
particle content along the line of sight
to be measured.
Then, knowing the distance to
each FRB, they could estimate the
total particle content of the Universe.
Why is that important? For decades,
astronomers have wondered about a
component of the normal matter of
the Universe that was predicted by
theory but could not be accounted
for by observations. These FRB
studies have dramatically revealed that
rarefied gas between galaxies exactly
matches this ‘missing matter’. They
provide welcome confirmation that
our understanding of the overall
makeup of the Universe is correct.
This article is dedicated to the memory of
Associate Professor Jean-Pierre Macquart
of Curtin University, lead author of
the research paper reported here,
who tragically lost his life a few days
after its publication.
FRED WATSON
Fred Watson is Australia’s
Astronomer-at-Large. Find
him on the weekly Space
Nuts podcast or on Twitter
@StargazerFred.
LOOKING
UP
with Glenn Dawes
x1
Naked eye
The evening sky is
a delight for bird lovers!
Low in the north you’ll find the
constellations Aquila the Eagle
being chased by Cygnus the
Swan (looking like an inverted
crucifix). In the south the
brightest ‘bird’ is Grus the
Crane, with fainter Phoenix the
Phoenix, Tucana the Toucan
and Pavo the Peacock.
x10
Binoculars
Bright, wide, double
stars are very attractive
targets for binoculars. Check
out the double Delta Gruis, one
of the ‘neck’ stars in Grus the
Crane. Although visible to the
naked eye, binoculars make
the two stars stand out and
allow you to see their colours
– one yellow, the other red.
x100
Small telescope
In October, Mars is at
opposition, seemingly located
opposite the Sun. Being closest
to Earth at this time, it looks
larger, which makes the dark
and light shadings of moun-
tains, volcanoes, valleys and
plains easier to see. Dust
storms can unpredictably
change how these appear.
PHOTO CREDIT: CSIRO
Glenn Dawes is a co-
author of the yearbook
Astronomy 2020 Australia
(Quasar Publishing).
quasarastronomy.com.au
 September . October 2020

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Y
OUR AUSTRALIAN
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organisations. We aim to scale
up the effectiveness of our
fundraising through strategic
AG SOCIETY FUNDRAISER
SAVE THE PLAINS-WANDERER
partnerships with key
organisations, and we will
harness the reach of our many
channels of communication to
help them achieve their
ambitious goals. Among the
organisations making great
headway in achieving
measurable outcomes is
Aussie Ark (AA). Spearheaded
by the energetic and
passionate Tim Faulkner, AA
has pioneered captive-breed-
ing and habitat-rehabilitation
programs at its remote facility
in the Barrington Tops of New
South Wales. In addition to
seven keystone species, such
as Tassie devils and eastern
quolls, there are a further
50 species of mammal,
278 species of bird,
42 species of reptile and
18 species of frog now
protected through AA
sanctuaries. Having already
succeeded in the species
recovery component of its
conservation model, AA will
move forward with habitat
recovery, using key activities
of fire management, feral pest
exclusion, herbivore control,
weed eradication, field science,
and rewilding, which will
restore the Barrington wildlife
sanctuaries and surrounds to
what they once were.

$100,000 to worthy projects.

Act now to help stop the extinction of the habitat is at risk of being
Funding support critically endangered plains-wanderer cleared, and the Trust’s
Applications are now (see page 18 for full story). Habitat loss work, in collaboration with
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Dasyurus viverrinus; Pedionomus torquatus

open for round two of our
sponsorship grants.
Australian scientists,
community organisations and
individuals developing
suitable projects in Australia
or overseas are welcome to
apply. Applications close
30 November. For more
information and full criteria
go to the Society page at the
AG website:
australiangeographic.com.
au/society
and land cultivation have led to there
being fewer than 1000 plains-wanderers
left in the wild. Help the AG Society to
help Trust for Nature partner with local
landholders to protect precious grass-
lands, and give this unique bird a place to
live forever. The species’ particular
MAKE A DIFFERENCE. PLEASE DONATE TODAY
Funds raised will help save this very special and critically endangered native bird species.
Visit australiangeographic.com.au/fundraising
many other organisations,
helps farmers protect and manage
it. Conservation covenants are the only
way to guarantee that nothing happens
to plains-wanderer habitat in the future
and to ensure the species doesn’t
become extinct.

September . October 35
36 Australian Geographic
Conservation
canine-style
“Man’s best friend” is helping to
keep embattled native Australian
species from extinction.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN MENEGUZZI

Dr La Toya Jamieson trains Moss, using

a long lead to explore the woodlands of
Coranderrk Bushland Reserve, south
of Healesville, VIC. Studies have shown
handlers and dogs can find targets
more than 20 times faster than
humans working alone.

September . October 37
I
N 2004, THERE WAS no way David Williams, then an
environmental science student at Deakin University,
in Victoria, could have predicted the chain reaction
a last-minute assignment submission would create.
A paper he’d written outlined an environmental man-
agement plan that suggested using trained Maremma sheepdogs
to protect little penguins from fox predation on Middle Island,
off the coast of Warrnambool, in south-western Victoria.
It proved to be a watershed moment in Australian conser-
vation history.
Now known as the Warrnambool Method, the plan not only
proved effective at protecting the penguins, it also kickstarted
David’s career and inspired the 2015 film Oddball, starring
Shane Jacobson. In hindsight, David admits modestly that he
did a mediocre job on his assignment but says the idea of using
dogs for conservation in a new way turned the right heads.
“There are many similar examples of dogs being used across
parts of Africa, Europe and New Zealand,” he says. “But all of
these involved protecting livestock or guarding against human
poachers. Using dogs in scientific research saving endangered
animals was virtually unheard of.”
The Middle Island Maremma Project saw Maremma sheep-
dogs trained and placed on the island as guardians to protect
the birds from predation during their annual breeding season.
38 Australian Geographic
During the past five years, David Williams has
been working behind the scenes to train Albus, Fatima
and Terzo to guard nocturnal marsupials from feral
predators such as foxes and cats.
Between 2005 and 2017, penguin numbers on the island
increased from fewer than 10 to more than 170, with no evidence
of fox attacks.
The project’s success caught the attention of conservationists
at Zoos Victoria, who saw the potential for using canines in
their species protection programs. In 2015 they invited David
to work with them on a new project to save Victoria’s embattled
eastern barred bandicoot. It later developed into the Guardian
Dog Program.
This species was once common across Tasmania and Victoria
but is now thought to be extinct in the wild on mainland
Australia. However, the success of breeding programs and feral-
proof fencing initiatives has seen a fragile population slowly
reintroduced to fox-free islands along the Victorian coast.
To ensure the species’ survival, for the past five years David
has been quietly training a team of seven Maremma sheep-
dogs to guard the tiny nocturnal marsupials from introduced
 Fatima rests while watching her flock. Working as a team, she
and fellow sheepdog Terzo will remain with these sheep overnight,
protecting them as well as eastern barred bandicoots from predators.
The dogs deter predators with their scent and also
keep watch throughout the night.
predators, including foxes and cats. The Maremmas are first
bonded to flocks of sheep that are then introduced to the agri-
cultural grasslands the bandicoots call home. By guarding the
sheep, the dogs protect the bandicoots by proxy. The ultimate
goal is to see eastern barred bandicoots forming self-sustain-
ing populations on the mainland without being enclosed by
feral-proof fences.
“Maremmas are perfectly suited for this kind of work,” David
says, adding that they’ve been selectively bred in Europe for some
3000 years to keep wolves, bears and other predators away from
sheep and goats. “When there’s a territory occupied by these
dogs, they kind of act like lion prides marking their land.
“Predators know when they’re going into someone else’s
territory. They won’t hunt in there, and if they need to cross,
they’ll quickly whip through and won’t stop. The presence
of the dogs changes the way they behave, pausing or at least
reducing levels of predation.”
The dogs deter predators with their scent and also keep watch
throughout the night, using their elevated senses of smell and
hearing to detect and ward off any threats to their flock.
David acknowledges trusting a shaggy-haired, 40kg sheepdog
to watch over threatened wildlife overnight, without human
supervision, inevitably raises sceptical eyebrows among environ-
mentalists concerned about the safety of the threatened species.
“We’re at the real pointy end of conservation,” he says. “We
are the first people doing it, and it’s still emerging as an applied
methodology, so there’s a lot of work that goes into convincing
people to give it a go. Because we’re working with such precious
critters, we don’t take any chances in what we do.”
For David and his team this means the project has developed
slowly, particularly because dogs are trained methodically over
the course of years. To begin with, puppies are conditioned
incrementally to their future roles as guardians.
Naomi Hodgens trains Moss, originally from a rescue shelter, using
scent pots lightly touched with birch oil. When Moss identifies the smell,
he’s rewarded for sitting and pointing at the source with his nose.
This includes being exposed to bandicoots in controlled
settings so they learn to be comfortable around the animals
without interacting with them. Unlike domestic dogs, they
aren’t taught to follow commands such as “sit” or “stay” but
are instead encouraged to think independently.
“Giant breed dogs take a while to mature and you really only
get reliable behaviours at three or four years of age, but then
these dogs work till they’re at least 10,” David says. “Once you’ve
successfully trained one set of dogs, you can start introducing
succession planning, with a new group of pups learning from
the ones that came before.”
In addition to training canines, David and his team gather
data at field sites using scat detection, GPS tracking and motion-
triggered cameras. Their aim is to determine the impacts other
preventative measures (such as fencing) have on predator
behaviours and to prove that the presence of dogs substantially
deters predators.
Next year – after almost a decade of ethics applications, data
collection, field tests and analyses – David hopes to bring dogs,
sheep and bandicoots together at a 50ha property just outside
Dunkeld, in south-western Victoria. This parcel of agricultural
land was provided to Zoos Victoria by its project partners: the
Dunkeld Pastoral Company and the Royal Mail Hotel.
If conservation efforts are successful, the eastern barred bandi-
coot could be the next vertebrate to come off the threatened
species list in Victoria. After that, David says, there is potential for
guardian dogs to be used to protect almost any animal predated by
foxes and feral cats, opening up a wide field of future applications.
T
UCKED BEHIND HEALESVILLE SANCTUARY, in the
verdant surrounds of the Coranderrk Bushland Reserve,
about 55km north-east of Melbourne, 18-month-old
Moss is rolling around in the dirt, and he’s loving it. The
September . October 39

The canine potential
to fight extinction
With dogs being confirmed as valuable conservation allies,
here are some creative ways they show promise in helping
to recover populations of threatened species in Australia.
Tasmanian devils
Sarcophilus harrisii
A facial tumour disease may have
reduced the devil population by as
much as 80 per cent, although the
exact number surviving in the wild is
unknown. Healesville Sanctuary aims
to breed and manage an insurance
population of up to 50 individuals.
For this to be successful, it’s neces-
sary to know when female devils are
receptive to males, pregnant or lac-
tating. This is currently only able to
be identified through time-consum-
ing hormone analyses or catching
devils and checking their pouches.
“We know male Tasmanian devils
can smell these hormonal changes
in scat,” says Marissa Parrott,
a reproductive biologist for Zoos
Victoria. “We want to see if
[detection dog] Moss can
detect hormone markers
from the scat of female
Tasmanian devils.
If so, he will be able to
help us decide where
to best focus our
efforts to improve
devil reproduction.”
Plains-wanderer.
40 Australian Geographic
Plains-wanderers
Pedionomus torquatus
Detection dogs have the poten-
tial to monitor populations of
plains-wanderers but also discover
new ones.
“Plains-wanderers [see page
18] are particularly difficult to find
because they are extremely well
camouflaged,” says Zoos Victoria
threatened species officer Chris
Hartnett. “During the day, you’re
as likely to tread on one as see one.
Currently, monitoring is by nocturnal
spotlighting from vehicles, which
relies on human eyesight, is labour-
intensive, and can only be done in
terrain suitable for cars.”
The Western Grassland Reserves,
west of Melbourne, have been iden-
tified as potential habitat, but lack
of car access has impeded
surveying them. Teams of
detection dogs and han-
dlers on foot are more
suited for this type of
research, which may
help scientists better
understand the bird’s
distribution.
Captive breeding is now seen as
crucial to sustaining Tasmanian
devil populations. Scientists
hope detection dogs can help by
identifying female devils that are in
heat, pregnant or lactating.
Baw Baw frog.
Baw Baw frogs
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: IAN CONNELLAN/AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC; MICHAEL SWAN; BLICKWINKEL/ALAMY
Philoria frosti
Found only in dense subalpine for-
ests on Baw Baw Plateau in eastern
Victoria, these amphibians are notor-
iously elusive. They are currently
found by listening for calling males
during the September–December
breeding season.
The short window of opportunity
to locate frogs, and the limitations
of human hearing, mean dogs are
ideally suited to help find frog pop-
ulations. A dog’s ability to detect
by using scent rather than hearing
means they can also find females
and juvenile frogs, which don’t call,
expanding opportunities to find new
populations. The dogs will also be
able to help measure survival rates
for reintroduced frogs. Without the
use of dogs, researchers would need
to wait at least four years for
male frogs to reach maturity and
begin calling.
 Dog among the chooks
Maremmas have been used to
guard livestock in the breed’s
native Italy for millennia.
Aussie farmers have also reaped
the benefit of using specially
trained dogs such as Maremmas to
protect Aussie chooks and sheep
from wild dog and fox predation.
These free-ranging chooks are
former battery hens that have
been rescued and are now living
out their days on a farm in western
Victoria. They still produce eggs
and appear to be very relaxed and
comfortable around the dogs, as
though they trust them implicitly.

It’s this superpower that La Toya and Naomi want to harness.

The success of a detection
dog is inextricably tied to its
bond with its handler.
Labrador retriever is the first of five recruits planned for Zoos
Victoria’s Detection Dog Program, the sister initiative to the
Guardian Dog Program.
Moss’s handlers, Dr La Toya Jamieson and Naomi Hodgens,
watch on with broad smiles, in a moment that captures both
the joy and challenges of training working dogs.
“He’s only a puppy,” Naomi explains. “His brain is develop-
ing and you just need to let him have fun. We want all our
dogs to enjoy what they do and to feel safe in whatever they’re
doing. Our expectation of him is not to be an adult working
dog at this point.”
PHOTO CREDIT: JASON EDWARDS
They’re optimistic that Moss will be able to help scientists
detect a range of different animals in the wild, from Baw Baw
frogs to plains-wanderers and other small threatened species.
Moss will be trained to use scent samples hidden inside small
pots before working his way up to field practice.
Unlike guardian dogs, which can be left in a field with sheep
overnight, the success of a detection dog is inextricably tied
to its bond with its handler. “They’re not just machines,” says
La Toya, who has researched how dogs perform with familiar
and unfamiliar handlers. “We found that the dogs [showed]
significantly more stress-related behaviours, such as lip-licking
and yawning, with unfamiliar handlers and their detection
results just plummeted. It showed you can’t just train a dog
and then pass it to someone else.”
This means for Moss to perform at his best, La Toya and
Naomi will need to be out there with him, climbing over boul-
ders and wading through thickets. But for now, the handlers
are focused on playing games and building their relationship
with Moss to prepare him for the future.

At the tip of his nose, Moss is building an olfactory pow-
erhouse of nearly 300 million scent receptors that allow him
to ‘smell in stereo’.
As for all dogs, he can smell with each nostril separately,
which allows him to detect which direction a scent is coming
from. Once his sense of smell is fully developed, it will be
more than 10,000 times stronger than that of a human.
When Moss and his team are ready, Zoos Victoria plans to
join both their detection and guardian dog programs to create
a combined Fighting Extinction Dog Squad – a world-leading
team of in-house canines that can partner with scientists to
expand their ranges of research beyond human limitations. It
could just be the turning point needed to save Australia’s many
threatened species. AG

September . October 41
Barely visible to the naked eye, a tiny,
reddish-brown parasitic varroa mite
hitches a ride on a honeybee. Australia
is the only country still relatively varroa-
free, and now scientists, beekeepers and
industry are joining forces to help keep
it that way.

SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Apis mellifera; Varroa destructor

PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

42 Australian Geographic
 Lines of defence
Australia is one of the few countries still free of a
deadly bee parasite. An all-Aussie team has built a
high-tech device to keep our bees safe – and it’s
inspired by the bees themselves.
STORY BY HANNAH JAMES
“I 
HAD MY LITTLE GRANDSON out in
the garden with me the other day,”
says Ian Cane, a beekeeper whose
family has been in the industry for
more than 100 years. “I’d planted
some carrots, and I was showing him how the
bees go from one carrot flower to the next to
pollinate them. They don’t go over to the apple
tree and mix up the pollen, and that’s why we
don’t get something that’s half an apple and half a
carrot. And he said to me, ‘That’s almost magic,
isn’t it, Pa?’”
Magic, maybe, but a particularly practical
kind of magic. “About one-third of the food
we consume every day is reliant upon pollination
from bees,” says Adam McNamara, executive
general manager of Bega Foods. The humble
honeybee, it turns out, is an economic power-
house: Australia’s agricultural and horticultural
industries rely on bee pollination to the tune
of about $6 billion every year. So any threat to
our bee population is one that not only conser-
vationists, but also food producers, are bound
to take very seriously. And a tiny parasite aptly
named Varroa destructor is a particularly deadly
threat that’s spreading fast.
“If you look at the rest of the world, this mite
has gradually invaded various continents and
countries,” Ian explains. “It was in Europe around
the late 1960s, and then Brazil and South America
during the ’70s. It arrived in the USA and Canada
in the late ’80s and New Zealand towards 2000.
It has a devastating impact on honey production
and all the crops that are dependent on honey
bee pollination.”
The mite invariably kills untreated colonies
within one or two years, and is equally dangerous
to feral bee populations. When it reached the
September . October 43
 Once the mite has reached a
country, it has so far proven
impossible to eradicate it.

USA, it rapidly wiped out almost all feral bees across the entire
country. Current containment methods include pesticides and
selectively breeding bees for a ‘clean gene’ that means they attack
the mite. However, once the mite has reached a country, it has
so far proven impossible to eradicate it or stop its spread.
Australia is the only inhabited continent to escape the mite’s
invasion, largely due to our rigorous biosecurity measures.
“We’ve got a very good surveillance system run by Plant Health
Australia, particularly on board ships before they enter ports,”
Ian says. “It has managed to track [and halt] a couple of incur-
sions, one in Townsville and one dead swarm in Melbourne. But
with a seaboard as big as ours, there’s an element of luck as well.”
Luck, however, isn’t something multibillion-dollar industries
like to rely on. Enter the Purple Hive Project. Created by Bega
Cheese Limited, and funded by its newly launched product,
B honey, the project is a groundbreaking collaboration between
Apiarist Ian Cane and Joel Kuperholz install one of the new
one of Australia’s biggest food companies, two start-up tech solar-powered Purple Hive units, capable of detecting varroa
companies, “and one old beekeeper”, says Ian with a smile. mites, into a beehive.
It’s hoped it will save Australia’s bees from the varroa mite.

T
HE PURPLE HIVE PROJECT doesn’t actually make purple
beehives: instead, the bee-saving element in question is fit on Internet of Things [internet-connected] devices. And our
a unit that attaches to the entrance of the beehive and breakthrough is exactly that. It’s the world’s smallest and most
looks a little like a letterbox. Essentially, it takes photos of the efficient computer vision.”
bees and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to check them for mites. The company was particularly well qualified: its co-founder and
“It has cameras top and bottom that cover 360 degrees chief technology officer Shivy Yohanandan is a neuroscientist and
of the bees as they enter and exit the hive over bioengineer who has a PhD in AI and worked on
a glass platform,” explains Joel Kuperholz, CEO Australia’s first bionic eye.
Bega Cheese
and co-founder of Vimana Tech, the company Limited, producer of
Lars explains: “The challenge of Purple Hive
that created the unit. “From here, an image is captured B honey, is the driving is to be able to see the bees and the mites as they
to the onboard processor – that’s a mini-computer force behind the Purple come in and out of the hive. And to do that we
that has more power than the first spaceship that Hive project . needed an artificial intelligence that’s trained on
went to the moon.” specifically that problem. That didn’t exist any-
While Vimana Tech created the body of the where in the world.”
ALL OTHER PHOTOS COURTESY BEGA CHEESE LIMITED
PHOTO CREDITS: HONEYBEE INSETS: GETTY IMAGES;

unit, Xailient, another Australian tech start-up,
created its brains. Its software homes in to identify
a bee, and then looks for the mite. If there is one,
it sends an alert over 4G wireless communications
to the relevant authorities.
While the human eye fi nds it very difficult
to identify the tiny mites, which are only about
1mm long, AI never gets tired or bored, works
24/7, and is constantly improving its detection.
Xailient’s CEO and co-founder Lars Oleson says,
“Bega needed very small artificial intelligence to
Not only did the Xailient team create the AI
from scratch, it also devised a unit that uses as little
energy as possible so it can operate on a solar-
powered 12-volt car battery, the most reliable
and efficient power source in the remote areas
where bees are often kept. The unit also has to work
with limited internet access, so that if it does detect
a mite, it can send urgent alerts to beekeepers in real
time (speed is vital in tackling a mite infestation).
“If you’ve ever tried streaming Netflix on your
phone in the middle of the outback, you know

44 Australian Geographic
 “So much of the food we eat today is dependent on those
little honeybees pollinating...so early detection is just critical,”
says Ian Cane about the implications of the varroa threat.
that’s just not gonna work,” Lars says. So he and Shivy
worked to keep the unit’s use of data as low as possi-
ble. “All of these things combined meant that no artificial
intelligence anywhere in the world would fit the purpose yet
for what Bega needed,” Lars says. “We’re really running AI
vision on the extreme, tiny edge here,” Shivy chimes in.
Earlier this year, Xailient and Vimana Tech (along with
designers Honest Fox and consultants Thinkerbell) set to
work to build the Purple Hive from the ground up. “We
couldn’t even get cameras that were specific enough,” says
Joel. “We had to strip them back and 3D-print our own
custom parts.”
The project was already complicated enough, and then
COVID-19 happened. Like so many other businesses around
the world, the teams were forced to work remotely, with all the
lag times and inefficiencies that that can entail. When it came
time to test the unit’s powers of detection on real mites, lock-
down meant the Vimana Tech team had to scrap their original
plan of flying to New Zealand (the closest country infected with
the mite) with their prototype unit and working on it in
situ. Instead, they built a second unit and sent it over
the ditch. “Vig had to do some pretty funky coding so
that we could operate it remotely in New Zealand,” says
Joel of Vignesh Murugan, Vimana Tech’s co-founder
and chief technology officer. “That threw a plethora
of challenges up. We had to build in contingency after
contingency so we could remotely diagnose if there were
any problems, as well as actually iterate [create new
and improved versions]. We had to be able to make
changes here in Australia that had practical impact
over in New Zealand on the test device.”
Perhaps the most significant element of the
whole project is that it borrows from nature in order
to help save nature.
“One of my PhD supervisors was a bee vision expert
and we discussed bee vision efficiencies at length,” says Shivy.
“So to make this extreme level of computer vision possible, we
drew inspiration from nature to build AI that is now helping
the bees. There’s a really nice poetic justice there.”
The Vimana Tech team also drew inspiration from the bees
themselves. “It’s all designed around them, including the purple
colour,” says Joel. “It’s purple because the bees are naturally
attracted to that colour.”
September . October 45
 Enemy number one in the beehive
D EAF AND BLIND,
the varroa mite smells
and feels its way through
the beehive. Its goal is
the brood cell, where it
can reproduce and infect
the next generation of
bees with diseases, thus
weakening the entire
colony. Beekeepers have
very few options for
keeping this parasite
under control. Experts
at Bayer in Germany
are therefore not only
working on new control
mechanisms for the mite
but are also investigating
how existing substances
can be used with
maximum efficiency,
leaving the bees and
the brood unharmed.

this technology may even support a yet-to-be-invented method

“I believe that this will become of eradicating the mites completely. But that’s a way off.
For now, the Purple Hive Project team is justly proud of what
one of the premier detection they’ve created. “Australian farmers are really celebrated globally
as being quite adaptive to technology, which is a testament to
methods. It’s a game-changer.” them,” says Joel. “And the Australian technology scene as well
is really growing and emerging, and able to build things locally
using Australian local businesses, manufacturers, designers and
technologists. We don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to see the
Despite all its technical and practical challenges, the collab- latest and greatest technology – we can do it here.”

oration has created a fully functioning Purple Hive, and the
development phase of the project has officially been declared a
success according to Bega’s Adam McNamara. “We are currently
discussing the future home of our first Purple Hive – we’re going
to be targeting the high-risk entry points into Australia, which
typically are our ports,” Adam says. And the project won’t stop
there. “Our long-term vision is to create a mesh network of
hives across Australia, starting with those high-risk locations and
looking to expand beyond that, not only to support the honey
industry but also to support honeybee pollination-dependent
industries as well.”
Adam’s vision of an interconnected, country-wide network
of hives constantly on the alert for the invasion of mites is
exciting to both conservationists and food producers alike.
But according to beekeeper Ian, “to assume that the mite
will never get here, I think, would be naive – and the industry
accepts that”.
If and when the mites do eventually invade, however, the
Purple Hives can serve not only as an early-warning system, but
also as a monitoring system to track their spread. In the future,
ILLUSTRATION SOURCE: RESEARCH – THE BAYER SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINE, USED WITH PERMISSION.
From Ian’s perspective as a veteran beekeeper, the project is a
vital piece in the bee-protection puzzle. “As always with preven-
tion strategies, we need a multitude of tools in our kit,” he says.
“I believe that this will become one of the premier detection
methods. It’s a game-changer.” But he has a warning, too. “We’ve
made mistakes in the past around public land management
issues. We need to be really mindful that healthy ecosystems
for our bees are also so important for our food crops – and if we
did get varroa, those ecosystems would be even more important,
because it will be so difficult to keep healthy bees.”
And it’s not just the survival of ecosystems that concerns
Ian. He’s also mindful of the vital role bees play in ensuring
the survival of human beings.
“In the past 50 or 60 years we have underestimated how
important food security is to a nation and the world,” Ian says.
“Perhaps we have just seen a tiny snippet of that with COVID-19
and how quickly shelves can be cleared out at supermarkets.
That’s why this whole program is so important. It is a great
step for humanity in providing food security for our future
AG
generations.”

46 Australian Geographic
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 Celebrating
our native pantry
STORY BY CLARE WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVE LASLETT

50 Australian Geographic
 Appetites for Australian native food ingredients are
growing globally, creating a burgeoning industry based on
ancient Aboriginal knowledge .

Ngarrindjeri man Arthur Walker

(far left) leads a team for the
Indigenous-owned Kuti Co to
commercially harvest pipis in SA’s
Lakes and Coorong fishery. These
small clams, known locally as kuti,
are destined for supermarkets and
high-end restaurants.

September . October 51
I N WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S Gibson
Desert grows a plant that’s helped
sustain the Pintupi people of the
Kiwirrkurra community for generations.
Warrilyu seed, from thick-leaved mallee, is magnesium-rich 1
and has long been ground into a delicious nutty paste. But its
exceptional nutritional value was only recognised by modern
ethnobotanists last year after Pintupi elders shared their knowl-
edge of harvesting and processing warrilyu seeds and other bush
foods with University of Queensland researcher Boyd Wright,
hoping to help preserve their ancient know-how.
Meanwhile, plant scientists across the country have been busy
collating information on the many indigenous foods that grow
in Australia. Warrilyu seed is one of more than 6000 endemic
ingredients. While the Australian landscape is often perceived
as harsh and desolate, it’s sustained Earth’s oldest continuous
living culture with a bounty of yams, tubers, grains, plums,
berries and tomatoes for millennia.
There is now much enthusiasm for the incredible potential to
bring edible plant products to the world table as the global appe-
tite for this unique produce grows. But many Aboriginal people 2
are concerned their communities will be left behind as the
market marches forward. It’s a critical time for the burgeoning
native bush foods industry, which in the past has been accused
of ignoring cultural practices and Indigenous knowledge. And
if the industry gets it right, there’s a great opportunity for an
ethical new food future to be created in Australia.

A
SK ANY CHEF why they cook what they do and you’re sure
to hear a story. When Scottish-born Jock Zonfrillo, one
of Australia’s latest celebrity chefs, landed on our shores
some 20 years ago, he was keen to learn about indigenous foods
and Aboriginal cooking traditions. But he was surprised how 1. Native bower spinach
few native ingredients were available. One afternoon he sat and Tetragona implexicoma
chatted for hours about food with an Aboriginal man at Sydney’s a green leafy succulent with a
fresh, floral spinach-like taste and
Circular Quay. Ever since, Jock has been charging forward with a crunch; also produces edible fruit
native Australian ingredients, fiercely believing the best way to
recognise Indigenous culture is through food.
“Food is the thing that connects everyone,” Jock says. In
2013 he created Restaurant Orana, a fine-dining venue in
2. Desert raisin
Solanum centrale
Adelaide, to share his view that Australia’s native ingredients
grows in sandy arid areas;
are world-class. Five years later, Orana was named Australian bears fruit that tastes like
Restaurant of the Year by Gourmet Traveller. Last year it received smoky sundried tomatoes
the same accolade from the Good Food Guide.
World-renowned chefs such as Jock have created a buzz around 4. Native
3. Quandong pepperberry
DSFDSFSDFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

native Australian foods by serving up luscious menus featuring

indigenous ingredients. It’s put native products in demand but Santalum accuminatum Tasmannia lanceolata
producers have repeatedly fallen short, unable to grow or source native to semi-arid southern a Tasmanian native, also known
the quantities required by restaurants, let alone sustain a fully Australia; fruit can be very tart, as mountain pepper, it’s a
fledged native foods industry in Australia. although sometimes called a pungent spice; leaves also
Jock’s The Orana Foundation has created an indigenous food native peach have a spicy flavour
database that connects food manufacturers with suppliers,

52 Australian Geographic
 5. Quandong nuts
hard-shelled kernels of quandongs,
which can be cracked open and
eaten raw or ground into paste for
medicinal purposes
3 4
6. Desert limes
Citrus glauca
fruit can be eaten straight from the
tree but more often used in sauces,
marinades, pickles and chutneys
7. Finger limes
Citrus australasica
grows on a thorny subtropical rain-
forest shrub; fruit known as citrus
caviar because of the appearance
of its flesh
September . October 53

Kakadu plum
is harvested for its potent
nutritional and medicinal
properties by northern
Aboriginal communities,
who know it as gubinge.
Even the seed of this fruit
has been identified as a
protein source.
Wild-harvested foods, especially
the Kakadu plum, have become
a premium product, much like
French champagne.
and aims to accelerate Indigenous benefit in the fast-growing
native foods industry.
The foundation has profiled more than 1500 native ingredients,
documenting their flavours and nutritional benefits, and detailing
how to grow, process and prepare them. This is the first time this
information has been brought together in one place, making it
the most comprehensive catalogue of its type to date.
But it’s not the first time native foods have been in the spotlight.
Research goes back decades to when scientists began inspecting
the extraordinary properties of fruits such as the now-famed
Kakadu plum, and other food plants growing in arid and forested
parts of Australia. The most palatable foods and easiest plants to
cultivate sprung forth – crops such as lemon myrtle that grew
fast. But Aboriginal knowledge has long been undervalued: a
recent survey of the native foods industry reported last year that
Indigenous representation stands at just 1 per cent.
“If we’re going to do this, I’ve got to try and teach whitefellas
to slow down and take that first crucial step, and that’s building
a solid relationship first and foremost,” says Suzanne Thompson,
a Kunngeri and Iningai woman from central Queensland. She
recently stepped up to chair Australian Native Food and Botanicals
(ANFAB), the peak national body that guides sustain-
able development of the sector. Suzanne says there are strict
rules concerning who holds different kinds of knowledge in
Aboriginal culture, but ultimately the lore of native food plants
is part of the land. It is woven into the landscape through song-
lines; people, country and culture are intertwined. Still, she
sees all Australians as custodians of this ancient knowledge that,
together, we need to protect. “This is our last opportunity to
ensure that Aboriginal people and our culture are going to be
here for many generations to come,” she says.
Demand is sky-high and global markets move fast. Already,
commercial production of native species has been lost to overseas
producers because Australians didn’t recognise their value. The
macadamia nut is so far the only native Australian crop that
has been domesticated – and it was first farmed in Hawaii after
seeds were imported from Australia in the 1880s. With the nut
PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: FRANCES ANDRIJCH
made famous by the Americans, Australia now has to muscle
up against other major exporters. Our native citrus is headed
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Terminalia ferdinandia
the same way: a delicacy in demand in Asia, finger limes are
being grown in Central America and Europe. “We’re losing
product,” Suzanne says. “We need to pull this back and say,
‘This is uniquely Australian.’”
The game is changing as more and more people want to
know where their food comes from. Consumers are hungry
for ethically sourced foods that can be traced back to their
origins. With this global awakening to provenance comes an
 Something Wild buys
native produce direct from
Aboriginal communities
and supplies more than 60
restaurants nationwide with
gourmet ingredients. It also
sells produce from its
Adelaide retail shop, where
salty succulents such as
karkalla (below) are
extremely popular.

increasing demand for what

Aboriginal people have to offer: an
Daniel Motlop
intimate knowledge of their coun-
try and its food. Wild-harvested   runs native food
distribution company
Something Wild, out of
foods, especially the Kakadu plum,
Adelaide, sourcing produce
have become a premium product, countrywide. He has
demand. The Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum
much like French champagne. developed speciality Alliance (NAAKPA ) is now Australia’s largest Indigenous-
For Indigenous business owners products such as green ant controlled native food supply network. Last year, it collectively
such as Daniel Motlop, who is the gin, Kakadu plum yoghurt harvested nearly 21 tonnes of fruit to the tune of $600,000, with
general manager and part-owner of and karkalla pickles. more than 400 people, mostly women, involved in the harvest.
native food distribution company “There’s enough demand out there, but there’s not enough
Something Wild, it’s an exciting product with where this [industry] is going,” Daniel says, eyeing
time. “It’s a chance for Aboriginal people to join in the move- customers walking slowly past the Something Wild shop, which
ment and create sustainable jobs in our communities, and for is wedged between other artisan producers and delicatessens
Aboriginal people to tell that story behind that product,” he says. in Adelaide’s busy central market. He says there are conflicts
“This is a way of moving forward.” between the demand for and sustainable supply of Indigenous
produce “all the time” because wild harvests are so up and down.

T
HE KAKADU PLUM IS an unassuming pale-green fruit that
grows across northern Australia, from the Kimberley,
in WA, to Cape York, in Queensland. Like most native
Australian food plants, adapting to the harsh conditions has
given the fruit some exceptional qualities. It has the highest
vitamin C content of any fruit on the planet, plus a host of
other powerful antioxidants. Snap-frozen almost as soon as it
is plucked from the tree to preserve its superior properties, the
plum can be ground into a dried powder or made into a purée
then used as a food additive or natural preservative.
But the season to harvest this superfood runs for only a few
short months and people are always wanting more. Recently,
nine Aboriginal community-led enterprises forged an alliance
to pool together the fruit they harvest so they can better meet
Daniel stands in the middle. He is a Larrakia man from
Darwin and one of many emerging Indigenous leaders in the
native foods industry. After steppping into an ownership role
with Something Wild in 2017, Daniel expanded the business to
supply a smorgasbord of native herbs, fruits, greens and game.
He buys direct from Aboriginal communities, paying upfront
for the food they harvest and passing on part of the profits under
benefit-sharing agreements. Despite the loss if he cannot on-sell
the produce, Daniel says: “That’s the only way. For too long, in
the past, people have just really let communities down.”
The law is moving to strengthen protection of Indigenous
cultural knowledge associated with native plants and their uses
in research, medicines, and the food business. The Nagoya
Protocol, signed by the Australian government in 2012

September . October 55
 Conventional patent laws
and plant breeders’ rights are
at odds with how traditional
knowledge is held by
Aboriginal people.

(but not yet ratified), goes further than the international The company has also created its
Convention on Biological Diversity and some state bioprospect-
Mike and Gayle own green ant gin, which has a
ing laws in recognising Indigenous rights of genetic resources Quarmby unique, sharp, citrus flavour bal-
and traditional knowledge of native plants, but it doesn’t strictly anced by native botanicals.
protect raw resources. It does provide a legal framework to are now retired, after a Something Wild was the first
ensure commercial and research enterprises have agreements long run in the native food commercial firm to sell magpie
distribution business,
in place for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits with the goose, a native bird that Daniel
but continue to cultivate
rightful Aboriginal communities before they proceed. But for small plots of rare and
grew up hunting with his family.
now, there is no national legal agenda in Australia and laws endangered native food “We only take what we eat,”
vary state by state. plants in their Adelaide Daniel says of the strict systems
Conventional patent laws and plant breeders’ rights, where Hills garden. in Aboriginal culture that dictate
individuals can claim exclusive rights to a natural resource, are who can harvest certain foods
at odds with how traditional knowledge is held by Aboriginal and which species they must
people. Daniel believes his duty as a food distributor is to share protect. He says there have been seasons where the Kakadu
the history and stories of Aboriginal communities through the plum just didn’t flourish and Wadeye women said they needed
food they supply without exposing their traditional knowledge to “give the trees a rest”. After plants, animals and the land,
or taking advantage of it. “We try to protect that,” he says. people come fourth.
Contracts in place, the challenge then becomes sourcing Every day Daniel tempers the expectations of customers, chefs
enough produce to make it commercially viable. Developing a and companies. He’s working with the NT government to limit
selection of mainstream products that include native ingredi- the number of magpie geese harvested each year, which, like
ents has been Something Wild’s strategy to help communities other wild harvests, is permitted on native title lands under the
sell more product – and it has been successful, too. Its Kakadu NT’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act. At the same time, he wants
plum yoghurt with fruit from Wadeye, one of the NAAKPA to support Aboriginal people to excel in business and hopes to
communities, is now sold in Japan. “To be able to put that into see native ingredients on the shelves of every supermarket in
a commercial product, it creates sustainable jobs,” Daniel says. Australia one day.

56 Australian Geographic
Mike Quarmby
has revived rare
food plants from
just a few seeds
collected with the
permission of
traditional owners.
W
HEN MIKE AND GAYLE Quarmby set out for Alice
Springs from their home south of Adelaide to return
to the community where Gayle grew up among the
Western Arrernte people, there was no established native foods
industry and no road map to follow. It was 2001 and these trail-
blazers had an idea to build a business that sold native foods to
create employment opportunities for young Indigenous people
in remote communities.
Under the brand Outback Pride, the couple supplied fresh
produce to high-end restaurants, creating more than 50 gourmet
food products made exclusively from native ingredients, “most
of which the Australian public or the world had never heard of,
seen or tasted”, Mike says. Bush tomatoes became a staple of
Outback Pride. Gayle remembered eating the tomatoes, called
kutjera, by the handful as a kid. But Mike, with decades of
experience in horticulture, knew the wild species would not
be suitable for commercial production. “If the conditions are
right, you only get one good crop every five years,” he explains.
“You simply cannot build your market that way.” There’s also
huge genetic diversity within a single species. “That’s how they
survived. Every plant out there is different.”
The couple began propagating native food plants from seeds
and cuttings collected with the permission of local elders. To
maintain steady commercial production, and provide stable
wages, they had to grow big. Seedlings were cultivated at their
To cultivate
commercial varieties,
plants with desirable
flavours and good
yields are selected
then propagated
from seeds
and cuttings.
Rows of native
basil seedlings are
lined up in the the
Quarmbys’ backyard
greenhouse.
nursery in Reedy Creek, SA, then returned to the rightful
communities, who were paid for any food they later produced.
In the nursery, plants were selected for desirable characteristics,
such as being first to sprout, produce fruit early or have good
flavour. “It’s just simple selection,” Mike explains, but the re-
sults on country were astounding. In the case of bush tomatoes,
yields of some varieties increased by 400 per cent. The plants
prospered, and the gardens turned the desert green.
Central to the whole operation, second only to restoring
culture on country, was that the couple oversaw every part of
the process in an effort to protect the interests of Aboriginal
people as the business grew. Today, the industry tends to be
fragmented and moves hastily, with suppliers spruiking products
for a quick sale. “If you’ve got production with no sense of the
market, it doesn’t work,” Gayle says. “And if you’ve got someone
out there marketing with no sense of production, there’s going
to be a problem. You have to own that whole chain.”
R
UMOURS CIRCULATE OF KAKADU plum plantations in
Brazil and Indonesia. Fake Kakadu plum powder is said
to already be on the market in China. And even if the
product is genuine, the name can be used with no recognition of
its source. But Aboriginal enterprises are catching up, enlisting
the help of scientists and legal experts to reclaim some of the
ground that has been lost.
September . October 57
 Pipi-harvesting on the Coorong
A new Indigenous-owned commercial pipi-harvesting outfit gives Ngarrindjeri
people a stake in the seafood industry in the waters their ancestors once fished.
D
IG YOUR FEET into the sand
along the wild, windy Coorong
coast, south of Adelaide, and
you’ll step into history. “For us there
is no better feeling than getting back
on country in the fishery that our
ancestors have fished for thousands
of years,” says Arthur Walker, a young
Ngarrindjeri man who leads the latest
commercial pipi-harvesting team on
the beach. He is part of the new
Indigenous-owned outfit Kuti Co that,
with the support of the Indigenous
Land and Sea Corporation, has bought
a stake in the local seafood industry.
Named after the Ngarrindjeri word
for pipis, Kuti Co has joined forces
with Goolwa PipiCo, the leading pipi
processing and marketing company in
Australia. Goolwa PipiCo is an associa-
tion of six local family fishing compa-
nies that transformed their catch from
low-value bait to a premium seafood
product by adding an extra processing
step to remove sand from the shellfish.
They now offer a range of ready-to-
cook packs of fresh and frozen pipis.
“When someone builds a business,
puts their own money into it, it’s not
that easy to allow others to come
in,” says Derek Walker, a Ngarrindjeri
Kuti Co is revitalising cultural
practices in partnership with
Goolwa PipiCo to ensure a
sustainably managed shellfish
industry on Ngarrindjeri country.
58 Australian Geographic
leader, chair director of the
Ngopamuldi Aboriginal Corporation and
Kuti Co executive director. “But we’ve
got something to offer. We can tell a
story that is thousands of years old.”
With every Goolwa PipiCo product
comes a story out of the dunes of the
Coorong coast. Ngarrindjeri country
runs west from Cape Jervis, past
Kangaroo Island, and east to Cape
Jaffa, along the Younghusband
Peninsula straddling the Murray River
mouth. “You’re talking about a peninsula
100km long, full of [shellfish] midden
sites,” says Ngarrindjeri man Luke
Trevorrow, cultural heritage manager
at the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority.
The middens have been dated to be
more than 8500 years old, but what-
ever the number, Derek says the coun-
try has always provided for his people,
and pipis were a dietary staple. “We
never lost that connection,” he says.
More than a food business, Kuti
Co is a way to create employment
opportunities for young people in the
Ngarrindjeri community. Others in
the native foods sector prefer wholly
Indigenous-owned enterprises, but
Derek saw a unique opportunity in the
partnership with Goolwa PipiCo and
a business model that would allow
the corporation to become organised,
attract government investment, rep-
resent Ngarrindjeri interests, own part
of the local fishery and return benefits
to the community. “Now we’re in the
industry,” he says.
Kuti Co currently holds a little more
than 10 per cent of the commercial
catch quota, plus a substantial share in
Goolwa. It aims to own a quarter of the
fishery in years to come. With that, Kuti
Co will be better positioned to actively
manage fish stocks along the Coorong
coast and maintain culture on country.
In January, Kuti Co fulfilled its first
commercial harvest and Arthur is exci-
ted by future opportunities: “We want
to be part of every aspect of the busi-
ness: from harvesting, to the factory,
to deliveries and distribution”. With
Goolwa PipiCo, Kuti Co is also develop-
ing new products, packaging wild native
greens and herbs with their pipis to also
bring those ingredients to the table.
Derek adds that the business
partnership has the potential to create
positive social change for
Ngarrindjeri people. “When you can
stand in a place as equals, it speaks
volumes to the broader community.”

NAAKPA enterprises are working with the Indigenous Land
and Sea Corporation (ILSC), an Australian government author-
ity, to establish the Kakadu plum value chain from one end to
the other – from harvesting fruit right through processing to
marketing and export. A critical piece is their latest collaboration
with Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
and IP Australia, the federal agency that administers intellectual
property rights in Australia, to develop a technology platform to
trace Kakadu plums back to the ground from which they came.
Pilot testing began in 2019. Clear elemental fingerprints
unique to Kakadu plums collected from different regions of
northern Australia were successfully detected. These signa-
tures could be used to identify where any processed fruit has
come from. Plus, an immutable ledger built using blockchain
technology could track the product through every step in the
supply chain: from when it leaves the community to when it
enters the processing facility, is handled by producers, and is
then sold to retailers. Testing continues with the 2020 harvest.
Projects such as this, that establish markers of geographical
provenance, are an opportunity for Aboriginal communities
to get a stake in the market and articulate their value, says Dr
Terri Janke, a Wuthathi and Meriam woman from Cairns and
an expert in Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.
Where current laws offer little protection, the NAAKPA project
could help Aboriginal communities assert their rights under the
protection of a legal framework and put a stop to foreign parties
PHOTO CREDIT, THIS PAGE: FRANCES ANDRIJCH
monopolising supply chains.
The next challenge on the horizon is growing native crops for
large-scale broadacre farming in arid Australia. Amid concerns
about our food supply and climate change, people are looking to
crops that once grew over the country’s vast interior. Endemic
grains and grasses such as native millet and kangaroo grass could
be cultivated and made into flours, breads and cereals. Ano-
ther crop high on ANFAB’s agenda is wattleseed. Such plants
are naturally tolerant to climate extremes, and, according to
Professor Andrew Lowe, plant scientist and director of AgriFood
Hand-picking
wild Kakadu plums
can yield tonnes of
fruit but production
varies year to year.
Daniel Motlop, who
sources plums
from Wadeye’s
Palngun Wurnangat
Aboriginal Corpora-
tion, says traditional
owners tell him
sometimes the trees
“just need a rest”.
The next challenge on the horizon is
growing native crops for large-scale
broadacre farming in arid Australia.
and Wine at the University of Adelaide, easy-to-harvest dwarf
varieties could be cultivated for commercial success. “There’s
a whole range of characteristics that can be selected for within
one or two generations that would revolutionise some of those
crops,” Andrew says. “The opportunities are immense, but for
the sector to move forward, it has to be done in partnership.”
There is cautious hope for a united native foods industry
where combining ancient Aboriginal knowledge and mod-
ern science produces the best results and enables us to share
Australia’s native foods with the world. As Suzanne Thompson
says, whether its plant science, business strategy, legal protocols,
or market growth and development, “We’ve got to work on
this together if we’re going to be seen seriously”.
Mike and Gayle Quarmby agree. Although they’re now re-
tired, they continue to support Indigenous-owned enterprises
and cultivate small native food plant plots in their Adelaide
Hills backyard. This includes preserving a number of rare and
endangered native arid-zone species that no-one else has ever
cultivated and that otherwise might have been lost forever.
Walking from their garden to the greenhouse, Mike points out
bush onions, desert yams and a plant nicknamed the ‘pantry of
the desert’ because you can eat its leaves, fruit, tuber and flowers.
“There’s so much potential in the desert regions. People don’t
realise the soil is so damn good,” Mike says. He believes that
with a little bit of understanding and a dash of water every now
and again, the arid zone could provide a bounty of food. Right
by Mike’s side, Gayle is quick to add, “It has to be a wonderful
gift from the past, from the elders, but it’s future food.” AG
September . October 59
 NATURE'S
FURY CAPTURED
Our renowned annual photographic competition
this year attracted thousands of high-quality
entries, to reflect the beauty and drama of
a region in crisis.

OV E R A L L W I N N E R

BORDER FIRE MT BARNEY

Ben Blanche, Queensland
Extremely dry Mount Barney National Park burned
uncontrollably for several weeks. The fire slowly
marched over the peak of Mt Barney as it moved
around the border area of Queensland and
New South Wales.
Mt Barney, Queensland
Canon EOS 5D MkIV,
Canon 70–200 f/4.0 IS, 6, f/6.3,
ISO 1600, Gitzo tripod
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
This image not only skilfully captures a
landscape, it captures a defining moment
in the modern history of Australian nature.
Its raw beauty is confronting, as it documents
the energy and scale of the recent bushfire
crisis. In the wave of flames snaking across
the mountain we see the true scale of the
fire and, for every burning tree that we see,
we imagine the shrubs, the vines, the insects,
the marsupials and the birds that we can’t.

60 Australian Geographic
September . October 61
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER
OF THE YEAR 2020

A
S THE SECOND HALF OF of this extraordinary year unfolds, it’s worth
noting that our annual celebration of the natural world is now in its A N I M A L P O RT R A I T
third decade, and has clearly established itself as the most prestigious
nature photography competition in our region of the world.
From its outset, the contest has encouraged us to appreciate nature
LEOPARD ANEMONE
Winner
captured by those with the talent and the eye to frame its beauty in ways Richard Robinson, New Zealand
that invoke awe, wonder, occasionally sadness and sometimes outrage. It has LEOPARD ANEMONE, ANTIPARACTIS SP.
invited us to consider the true value of the natural environment and led us
to question our relationship with it. A leopard anemone floats into the deep blue,
Each year we get an opportunity to see the wild world presented from one of 15–20 species that had detached from
the reef and were drifting – a migration
new viewpoints and with fresh interpretations of familiar subjects and
presumably part of their life cycle. These
themes. The entry period for this year’s contest spanned a catastrophic bush-
anemones generally inhabit black coral and
fire season in Australia. The scale of the devastation was like nothing we’ve
gorgonian fans on deep reefs out of
seen before, and the toll on native flora and fauna has been utterly heart- recreational diving range.
breaking. This dramatic context is beautifully realised in this year’s winning
image and is likely to influence how we view all the competition’s successful
Oculina Point, Poor Knights Islands Marine
photographs, which are presented on the following pages and in two major
Reserve, New Zealand
exhibitions in Adelaide and Sydney. These images artfully demonstrate both
Canon EOS 5D MkII, Canon 14mm f/2.8L II, 1/15,
the magnificence and fragility of the natural realm that we hold so precious. f/4.5, ISO 100, twin Ikelite DS 125 flashes, Aquatica
Entry into the competition closed before COVID-19 changed our lives, 5D Mk II housing
and judging was completed before the pandemic hugely restricted travel.
Combined with the impact of the bushfires, the limitations set by the spread
of the virus will now certainly affect the ability of photographers to travel to
remote locations and capture their prizewinning photos during this strange
year. But we encourage all would-be winners to get out and capture the Runner- WYULDA
up Matt Clancy, Victoria
beauty that can be found closer to home, including those wild creatures with
whom we share our cities and suburbs. Backyard wildlife has always featured SCALY-TAILED POSSUM,
strongly in the competition. It acts as a vital indicator of the health of our WYULDA SQUAMICAUDATA
altered ecosystems and provides ample opportunities for photographers to
Emerging upon nightfall from their rocky
demonstrate the rich biodiversity of our unique geographical region. lairs, the shy and solitary scaly-tailed possums
Congratulations to those whose work is included among the category (known as Yilangal by the Wunambal
winners, runners-up and the portfolio prize. Well done to all whose work is Gaambera people of remote north-western
included in the exhibitions at the South Australian and Australian museums. Australia) hang from their specialised
See page 73 for exhibition dates and opening hours. Special congratulations prehensile tail to reach food and forage
to the overall winner, Ben Blanche, for his arresting bushfire photograph. throughout the structurally complex
Heartfelt thanks to the professional judges, Georgina Steytler, Michael monsoon forest and vine-thicket habitat.
Aw and Drew Hopper, for taking on the difficult task of selecting the
successful images. Mitchell Plateau, Western Australia
We are proud of our long-running association with this competition and Canon EOS 7D MkII, Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8
its exhibitions, and would like to acknowledge Brian Oldman, Director of macro USM, 1/125, f/14.0, ISO 125, manual flash
the South Australian Museum, and Tim Gilchrist for their contributions to output, YN560 IV speedlite with speedbox-40 soft
the success of this annual event. box, handheld
CHRISSIE GOLDRICK

COMPETITION PARTNERS AND SPONSORS

Principal Sponsor Producer Touring Partner Threatened Species Production Partner Prize Sponsor
Category Sponsor

62 Australian Geographic
1 2

4 5

P O RT F O L I O P R I Z E 1 ROOSTING
BEE
BLUE-BANDED BEE,
AMEGILLA CINGULATA
Ethan Mann, Queensland
Sunshine Coast,
JUDGES’ COMMENTS Queensland
Canon 7D MkII, Tamron
An amazing display of urban wildlife shots that
90mm f/2.8 macro, 1/100,
prove you don’t need to travel to exotic destinations f/11, ISO 160, 2x Yongnuo 560
to take great photographs. The magic of this collection III flashes, Sirui T-1204SK
is in the photographer’s ability to draw us in to the tripod, SMDV 60 speedbox
diffuser, Yongnuo wireless
world of urban animals. With unique angles and an controller
excellent use of lighting, the photographer
demonstrates that great nature photography and
storytelling can begin in one’s own backyard.
2 IN THE
SPEAKER
NORTHERN LAUGHING
TREE FROG,
LITORIA ROTHII
Gaeta, Queensland
Canon 7D MkII, Tamron
90mm f/2.8 macro, 1/125,
f/7.1, ISO 250, Yongnuo 560
III flash, handheld, SMDV 60
speedbox diffuser, Yongnuo
wireless controller

64 Australian Geographic
 3

3 THE 4 RODENT 5 A HUNTER IN 6 THROUGH

BACK-SHED
BANDICOOT
LONG-NOSED
BANDICOOT,
PERAMELES NASUTA
Sunshine Coast,
Queensland
Canon 700D, Tamron
10–24mm f/3.5–4.5 Di II
VC, 1/160, f/10, ISO 400,
2x Nikon SB-28 flashes, Zomei
tabletop tripod, Camtraptions
PIR motion sensor V2, custom
DSLR housing, flash colour
filter, Camtraptions transmitter
and receivers
CONTROL
COASTAL CARPET
PYTHON,
MORELIA SPILOTA
MCDOWELLI
Sunshine Coast,
Queensland
Canon 7D MkII, Tamron
10–24mm f/3.5–4.5 Di II VC,
1/160, f/7.1, ISO 250,
Yongnuo 560 III flash,
handheld, SMDV 60 speed-
box diffuser, Yongnuo
wireless controller
THE SHADOWS
CAT, FELIS CATUS
Sunshine Coast,
Queensland
Canon 700D, Tamron
10–24mm f/3.5–4.5 Di II VC,
1/200, f/8, ISO 400, 3x Nikon
SB-28 flashes, Zomei M3
tripod, Camtraptions PIR
motion sensor V2, custom
DSLR housing, flash colour
filter, Camtraptions transmitter
and receivers
THE FERN
CASCADE TREE FROG,
LITORIA PEARSONIANA
Sunshine Coast,
Queensland
Canon 7D MkII, Tamron
90mm f/2.8 macro, 1/160,
f/5.6, ISO 320, Yongnuo 560
III flash, handheld, SMDV 60
speedbox diffuser, Yongnuo
wireless controller

September . October 65
 JUNIOR

Winner GRACEFUL
AND GREEN
Tess Poyner, New South Wales, aged 17
DAINTY GREEN TREE FROG,
LITORIA GRACILENTA

I photographed this dainty tree frog whilst

spotlighting in far north Queensland.
I was lucky this petite frog caught my eye,
as they’re hard to spot due to their size.

Daintree Rainforest, Queensland

Canon Powershot SX50 HS 4.3–215mm, 1/200,
f/7.1, ISO 200, handheld, flash

Runner- SCRUB PYTHON

up Robert Irwin, Queensland, aged 16
AUSTRALIAN SCRUB PYTHON,
SIMALIA KINGHORNI
While on a research expedition to the
remote bush of Cape York, I spotted this
scrub python coming down out of the
canopy, probably looking for the best spot to
sun. I climbed up onto its level and captured
this photo just as it flicked out its tongue
toward the camera.
Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, Cape York Peninsula,
Queensland
Canon EOS 1DX MkII, Canon EF 8–15mm f/4L
fisheye, 1/250, f/8.0, ISO 200, Canon Speedlight
600EX II RT flash + transmitter film, handheld
A N I M A L H A B I TAT
Winner
STORM DRAGON
Jari Cornelis, Western Australia
CENTRAL BEARDED DRAGON,
POGONA VITTICEPS
We were rushing to get to camp before
the storm hit when we encountered
this central bearded dragon, an iconic
representative of the reptiles of central
Australia. I could not forgo the
opportunity to capture this impressive
animal with the ominous scene
unfolding in the distance.
Tobermorey Station, Northern Territory
Canon 700D, Canon EF-S 10–18mm f/4.5–
5.6 IS STM, 1/160, f/10, ISO 200, Yongnuo
YN560-III mounted on hot shoe with 15cm
circular diffuser and a second YN560-III in
a 40x40cm softbox, handheld, partner held
the softbox to help with lighting
Runner- FIRESTORM
up Raoul Slater, Queensland
BLACK KITE, MILVUS MIGRANS
A Top End burnoff attracted a swirling
cloud of fork-tailed kites. With a
whoop I dived into the conflagration.
The autofocus wouldn’t work in the
heat-shimmer so I approximated with
the distance ring. A kite flew close
enough to smell burning feathers.
Hang on! That was my hair on fire!
Katherine, Northern Territory
Canon 6D Mk II, Canon 300mm f2.8,
1/500, f/4.5, 800ASA, handheld,
manually focused

September . October 67
68 Australian Geographic
 A N I M A L B E H AV I O U R

A FEVER
Winner
OF COWNOSE RAYS
Alex Kydd, Western Australia
COWNOSE RAY
RHINOPTERA SP.

A fever of cownose rays encountered on

Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. The rays
were in a writhing mass, moving throughout
the water column – possibly demonstrating
mating or courting behaviour. This was a
once-in-a-lifetime encounter with a rarely
seen species.

Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

Nikon D810, Sigma 15mm f/2.8 EX DG diagonal
fisheye, 1/250, f/9, ISO 320, photographed using
natural light while freediving

September . October 69
 A N I M A L B E H AV I O U R SPAWNING JEWEL
Runner-
up ANEMONES
Richard Robinson, New Zealand
JEWEL ANEMONE,
CORYNACTIS AUSTRALIS

A colony of jewel anemones release eggs

into the water. This synchronised mass
spawning is believed to occur twice annually
in New Zealand. The colour of jewel anem-
ones varies between colonies, rather than
individuals, from pink, brown, fluorescent
green, yellow and apricot. The different
colour varieties were once thought to be
distinct species.

Deep Water Cove, Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Canon EOS 5DS R, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L
macro IS USM, 1/100, f/11, ISO 100, twin Inon
Z330 flashes

M O N O C H RO M E

PHIL’S WORLD
Winner
Charles Davis, New South Wales
COMMON WOMBAT, VOMBATUS URSINUS

The snow was deep after a week of storms,

and grass close to the surface was hard to
find. The world had little detail except for
the dead, white, skeletal snow gums left
over from the 2003 fires and the wombat.
I took advantage of the white background
to capture both subjects together.

Guthega, New South Wales

Nikon D850, Nikon 200–400mm f/4 VR2,
1/1600, f/4, ISO 250, handheld

Runner- FACE OFF

up Andy Wingate, Queensland
FAMILY ANTENNARIIDAE

A solemn-looking grey anglerfish (aka frog-

fish) lies still, moving only its eyes as it waits
for its next unsuspecting meal to swim past.
This is an expert hunter that walks, swims
very little, and owns one of the fastest-
moving set of jaws in the underwater world.

Gold Coast Seaway, Queensland

Nikon D810, Nikon 60mm AF-S micro, 1/320,
f/18, ISO 100, Sea & Sea YS250 Pro flash, Sea &
Sea MDX810 housing, subject top-lit using a single
strobe with a Retra LSD (snoot) attached

70 Australian Geographic
 T H R E AT E N E D S P EC I E S
TASMANIAN
Winner
DEVIL
Jasmine Vink, Queensland
TASMANIAN DEVIL ,
SARCOPHILUS HARRISII
STATUS: ENDANGERED
Tasmanian devils were once
common throughout Tasmania.
A facial tumour disease has
resulted in severe population
declines throughout much of
their range. The devils
on Maria Island are an insurance
population used to
supplement the numbers and
genetic diversity of other
populations in Tasmania.
Maria Island, Tasmania
Canon 5D MkIII, EF40mm f/2.8
STM, 1/160, f/14, ISO 400, 3x
Canon 430II speedlites, tripod using
Camtraptions PIR v3
Threatened Species
Category Sponsor
Runner- FACING
up EXTINCTION
Kevin De Vree, Belgium
CELEBES CRESTED
MACAQUE, MACACA NIGRA
STATUS: CRITICALLY
ENDANGERED
Seeing these majestic animals in
the wild is a humbling
experience, especially since
humans are responsible for the
challenges they face: illegal
logging, the demand for
bushmeat and a cruel pet trade.
By taking this picture, I wanted
to capture what would be lost if
we don’t protect them.
North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Olympus OM-D EM-5, Olympus
M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8
macro, 1/15, f/2.8, ISO 1600, hand-
held, ISO set at 1600 but brightness
level later adjusted to match the real
experience in the jungle
O U R I M PAC T
THE WRECK
Winner
OF THE
PENGUINS
Richard Robinson, New Zealand
LITTLE PENGUIN,
EUDYPTULA MINOR
Daniel Thomas from Massey
University necropsies korora
[little penguins] from the
2017–18 die-off event, in which
hundreds of birds washed up
in the north of New Zealand.
Most had succumbed to
starvation. Such wrecks are not
a new phenomenon – in 1974
almost 4000 penguins were
found on Northland beaches.
Some scientists are concerned
wrecks will become more
common as seas warm.
Massey University, Auckland
Canon EOS 1D X MkII, Canon
16–35mm 2.8L II at 27 mm, 1/125,
f/10, ISO 800
DON’ T
Runner-
up
FORGET TO
CHECK FOR ME
Doug Gimesy, Victoria
COMMON BRUSHTAIL POSSUM,
TRICHOSURUS VULPECULA
This female brushtail possum –
most likely killed by a car and
moved to the side of the road –
was later discovered to have
a live joey in her pouch. Taken
to a vet, the joey survived,
but this shows the importance
of always checking a dead
marsupial’s pouch.
Prahran, Victoria
Nikon D750, Nikon 105mm f/2.8,
1/200, f/3.2, ISO 100, flash,
handheld, manual exposure
September . October 71
 B OTA N I C A L
Winner
ENCHANTED
FOREST
Kevin De Vree, Belgium
UNIDENTIFIED SPECIES
Lamington National Park is
a fairytale forest teeming with
waterfalls, gigantic old trees
and wildlife. Taking in all this
magical beauty, I wondered
when the ancient trees would
start talking and if the fairies
would appear. To me, this
fungi stairway captures the
magic of this century-old,
semi-tropical forest.
Lamington National Park,
Queensland
Olympus OM-D EM-5, Olympus
M.Zuiko Digital ED 9–18mm f/4.0–
5.6, 13/10, f/18, ISO 200, tripod
72 Australian Geographic
Runner-
up
GONDWANAN
LINK
Nick Monk, Tasmania
FAGUS, NOTHOFAGUS GUNNII
A time-weathered Nothofagus
gunnii bush hugs the alpine
rocks of Cradle Mountain–
Lake St Clair National Park,
providing an ancient link of
modern Tasmania to the super
continent of Gondwana.
Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair
National Park, Tasmania
Nikon D800, Nikon 16–35mm, 2,
f/13, ISO 100, tripod
LANDSCAPE

Winner

BOLT ON STORMY
OCEAN
Mat Beetson, Western Australia
This aerial image was captured
on the mudflats along the
Dampier Peninsula in the
Kimberley region. The huge,
receding tides expose the silty,
white sand of the creek beds
and the remaining water cuts
its path back out to sea, leaving
behind some amazing patterns
and colour.

Broome, Western Australia

Fujifilm GFX 50s, Fujifilm GF
100–200mm f/5.6 OIS WR, 1/2700,
f/7.1, ISO 1250, handheld, Robinson
R44 helicopter

Runner-
up
THE MAIN RANGE
Karl Strand, New South Wales
Last winter, my mate Adam and
I hiked out into Kosciuszko
National Park during 70km/h
headwinds to camp for the
night. The clouds swept across
the sky like a time lapse right
before your eyes. The dappled
light painted the Main Range
in glorious light and shadow,
emphasising the contour of
the land.

Kosciuszko National Park,

New South Wales
Nikon D850, Sigma AF 35mm f/1.4
DG HSM Art, 1/640, f/16, ISO 200,
handheld

SEE THIS The SA Museum has reopened to the public, with changes in place to keep visitors and staff safe,
Y E A R ’ S B E ST in line with COVID-19 restrictions.You can see all finalists, including, of course, the winners of
N AT U R E the 2020 AGNPOTY competition in a stunning exhibition at the museum from
P H OTO S Friday 28 August to Sunday 15 November. For details: samuseum.sa.gov.au/c/npoty/exhibitions
You can also see these breathtaking images in Sydney in an exhibition at the newly reopened
Australian Museum from 24 October until mid-April 2021.
For details: australian.museum

September . October 73
This is a selection of the shortlisted images in the 2020
Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year
awards. Along with the winning photos, they will be on
show at the South Australian Museum, Adelaide, and the
Australian Museum, Sydney, later this year.

ANIMAL PORTRAIT
1. KORORA – LITTLE BLUE
PENGUIN
Richard Robinson, New Zealand
LITTLE PENGUIN, EUDYPTULA MINOR

Rehabilitation Centre of the National

Aquarium of New Zealand, New Zealand.
Canon EOS 1DX, Canon 16–35mm 2.8L II @
16mm, 1/200, f/11, ISO 100, twin Canon 600EX
II RT speedlite flashes and umbrellas

ANIMAL HABITAT
2.FROZEN MOBILE HOME
Greg Lecoeur, France
CRABEATER SEAL,
LOBODON CARCINOPHAGUS

Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica

Nikon D500, Tokina 10–17mm, 1/250, f/9, ISO 250, 1
2x Ikelite DS161 flashes

LANDSCAPE 2
3.MOONSCAPE
Julie Fletcher, South Australia

Lake Eyre, South Australia

Nikon 850, Nikon 16–35mm,
10, f/8, ISO 200, tripod

74 Australian Geographic
4

3 5

ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR ANIMAL PORTRAIT

4.FATAL ATTRACTION 5.THE SMALLEST
Doug Gimesy, Victoria POSSUM
GREY-HEADED FLYING-FOX, Jannico Kelk, Queensland
PTEROPUS POLIOCEPHALUS WESTERN PYGMY POSSUM,
CERCARTETUS CONCINNUS
Yarra Bend golf course, Victoria
Nikon D750, Nikon 24–70mm f/2.8, 1/60, Lake Cronin, Western Australia
f/10, ISO 800, 2x flashes through umbrellas, Canon 5D MkIII, EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS
handheld, manual exposure USM, 1/80, f/10, ISO 100, handheld diffused
Canon 580 EX flash
September . October 75
 STORY BY CRAIG SHEATHER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DON FUCHS

EAST
GIPPSLAND
GRIT
Immense community spirit
and resilience are driving
the bushfire recovery
in south-eastern Victoria.

A fire-damaged tree near Mallacoota

sprouts new life. After being badly
burnt, most eucalypts will produce
epicormic shoots such as this from
buds that lie dormant beneath the
bark (see page 16).

76 Australian Geographic
September . October 77
 Weeks before COVID-19
spread to Australia, face masks
were deployed to protect locals
and holiday-makers from acrid
smoke at the height of the
bushfire crisis at Mallacoota.
The Mallacoota Wharf is
often a hive of activity, where
fishers and charters launch their
boats, and pelicans and seagulls
wait patiently for a free feed of
fish off-cuts.

I
T WAS A SUMMER no-one in East
Gippsland will ever forget. The recent
bushfire crisis was the Victorian region’s
largest natural disaster and no community
was left unaffected. The fires were first reported
on 21 November last year and not finally
declared contained until three months later, on
20 February. The region’s entire population
of almost 47,000 residents – plus thousands of
tourists – were directly or indirectly impacted.
The road to recovery is largely being paved
by community groups. Although restrictions
associated with the COVID-19 pandemic
have affected recovery processes, locals hope
that once the dust settles, visitors will return
to East Gippsland. Reviving tourism is vital
to helping people get back on their feet.
In the meantime, as residents band together
to rebuild their homes and businesses, heart-
warming stories of generosity, kindness and
community spirit abound. Here are some of
their stories.
MALLACOOTA
Apocalyptic images of people forced to shelter on the beach
under blazing red skies were circulated around the globe and put
Mallacoota firmly in the spotlight during the bushfire disaster.
The fire catastrophe hit the small coastal town hard: 120 houses,
plus commercial buildings and other infrastructure, were lost.
Local resident Grant Cockburn, president of the Mallacoota &
District Business & Tourism Association and owner of Mallacoota
Hireboats, has been active in the town’s recovery. “Our initial
focus was to boost morale, regain some normality and restore
important assets that the locals enjoy. It was all about moving
forward and getting everyone back on the beach and enjoying
the place again,” Grant says. “The local Mallacoota Lions Club
have been fantastic. They’ve been instrumental in coordinating
numerous projects, including rebuilding the beach access steps
at Bastion Point.”
Teams of people from television programs such as the Today
Show and The Block were also on hand to assist. The Lions Club
worked with The Block to rebuild an elaborate chicken coop at
the local school as well as a new barbecue pavilion and picnic
facilities at Betka Beach. Boardwalks, walking paths and jetties
around the lake are also being restored.

78 Australian Geographic
 Jason York (right)
with a catch of sea
urchins. Mallacoota’s
new Fishermen’s Co-op
will process abalone and
sea urchins, providing
critical local jobs.
With the fire front
rapidly approaching,
Dale Winward (right)
made the courageous
decision to go out to sea
on his boat to rescue a
group of stranded hikers.

Dale Winward, another local tourism operator, runs
Mallacoota Cruises. With his historic timber ferry built in the
early 1900s from Huon pine and kauri, MV Loch-Ard, he shows
tourists one of the town’s main assets – the beautiful waters of
Mallacoota Inlet. He also works as an abalone diver, operates
scenic coach tours and transfers hikers into surrounding wilderness
areas. In late December last year, he dropped off a group of 11
experienced hikers at Wingan Inlet, their plan being to trek the
wild coast of Croajingolong National Park back to Mallacoota.
Later that day, with the fire front rapidly approaching, Dale made
the courageous decision to go out on his boat to try to rescue
the hikers. “They had no idea the firestorm was approaching,”
he says. “The road was cut off and we were told by a policeman
that a boat rescue would be too dangerous. But there was no
choice, we had to go, otherwise we would have lost them.” He
searched the shoreline, eventually found them at Red River,
where they’d planned to camp, and returned them to safety.
Many of Mallacoota’s major employers had their buildings
destroyed by fire, including Victoria’s largest abalone co-op.
Before the fire, the Abalone Fishermen’s Co-operative employed
eight permanent and 40 casual staff and had an annual turnover
of about $15 million. For any small town, the loss of such a
business is devastating. Because it’s the town’s biggest employer,
rebuilding the facility has been a priority: it’s scheduled to reopen
in the middle of next year.
“It was horrible to lose the co-op but we are remaining positive
and excited about moving forward,” says co-op board member
Jason York, a local abalone and sea urchin diver. “We’re using a
small, temporary facility but the new plant will provide additional
opportunities for us to expand and be more productive.”
It will facilitate waste-product processing: abalone shells will
be able to be crushed for fertiliser and soft components of these
marine delicacies incorporated into sauces for international export.
Opportunities are also being explored for it to become a processing
plant for sea urchins, which are a pest in this area, dominating the
ocean floor and affecting marine biodiversity. The processing of
urchins in Mallacoota will help reduce numbers of this pest while
opening new revenue streams for the co-op.
BUCHAN
The limestone rock of the Buchan Caves was formed about
400–300 million years ago, during the Devonian Period. Over
time the limestone was slowly dissolved by water, leaving a
cave system that is among the most spectacular in Australia.

September . October 79

Hamish Hancock, ranger team leader for Parks Victoria at
the Buchan Caves Reserve, is passionate about the caves. He
appreciates their importance as both a significant geological site
and a tourist attraction. “The whole town relies on the caves for
its livelihood and we were very lucky to escape the recent fires
with relatively minor damage at the reserve,” he says.
The fire at Buchan came through from Snowy River National
Park on the afternoon of 30 December. It swept through the
reserve’s Northern Arm Campsite and razed two self-contained
cabins, five eco retreats, a kitchen facility, and a barbecue shelter.
Fire crews managed to douse the Visitor Centre, which houses
heritage items, relics and interpretation displays, with fire retar-
dant. This saved the main buildings and their contents.
Although all the hills surrounding the reserve were severely
burnt, the valley itself was relatively unaffected due to the pres-
ence of an assortment of non-native trees. “That’s the beauty
of exotics and deciduous varieties; they’re not full of oils that
explode when they superheat like the eucalypts,” Hamish says.
The impact of fi re and smoke on the caves was initially
unknown but geotechnical assessments and air-quality tests
have now confi rmed there was no damage within the cave
system. Once access was granted, the immediate focus was
to fi x all the fuse boxes, wiring, lighting and phone lines that
run through the caves.
The heritage-listed entrance to Fairy Cave, built in 1938,
was, however, completely destroyed. It will be replaced via
the heritage restoration process. According to Hamish, “the
clean-up and recovery is happening very quickly, faster than
we could have ever imagined”.
80 Australian Geographic
Hamish Hancock from Parks Victoria
has been instrumental in the clean-up,
recovery and rehabilitation within
Buchan Caves Reserve.
The heritage-listed entrance to
Fairy Cave, built in 1938, was,
however, completely destroyed.
Help came from the east coast of Canada in the form of fire-
fighters from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward
Island, who were deployed to assist with the East Gippsland
recovery. The 22 firefighters, specialists in rugged bushfire ter-
rain, worked at Buchan Caves Reserve for four days, clearing ash
and debris, opening roads and walking tracks, chain-sawing and
managing hazardous trees, and assisting with heavy machinery.
“They just ripped in and put us a couple of months ahead of
schedule,” Hamish says.
The reserve is also home to the tree known as Buchan blue
wattle, which is endemic to the area. It is found mostly in clay
soils over limestone rock. Many of the big stands were wiped
out by the fire, but, because the wattle needs and thrives on
fire to regenerate, the species is likely to experience a strong
germination phase.
The story is different for four gigantic Monterey cypress
trees that were planted in 1920 to provide shade for the first
toilet block at Royal Cave. They didn’t survive the blaze. Their
legacy, however, will continue: timber from these trees will
be used to replace picnic tables and seating, and will serve as a
reminder of the bushfires.
NOWA NOWA and WAIREWA
Sandra and Greg Huggins have owned the Nowa Nowa General
Store for 10 years and always considered their business as a safe
place and community hub for locals and visitors. When the fires
threatened they didn’t think twice about keeping the doors open
to act as a communication base and food centre for emergency
services crews and locals.

EAST
GIPPSLAND
When the time is right, be sure to add
East Gippsland to your holiday and travel plans.
Where: Located in south-eastern
Victoria, East Gippsland stretches
north from the Mitchell River to
beyond the Great Alpine Road and
east to the Croajingolong Coast,
at the state’s most eastern reach.
Major towns: Bairnsdale,
Paynesville, Lakes Entrance
(see page 26), Orbost,
Mallacoota, Buchan.
This aerial view of Mallacoota
before last summer’s fires shows
the usually picturesque entrance
to the area’s coastal lake system.
Industries: Forestry and logging, Places of interest:
tourism, agriculture, health, retail, 1 Krowathunkooloong 7 Mallacoota Bunker
manufacturing, construction. Keeping Place Museum
2 Den of Nargun 8 Oriental Claims
Things to do: Boating and sailing, 3 Cape Conran Historic Area, Omeo
motorcycling, off-road driving, 4 Buchan Caves Reserve 9 Nyerimilang
fishing, canoeing and kayaking, 5 Legend Rock, Metung Homestead
food and wine touring, cycling, 6 Point Hicks Lighthouse
mountain biking, bushwalking and
hiking, caving, horseriding, camping THANK YOU to Visit Victoria and Destination
and caravanning, golf. Gippsland for their assistance with this article.
September . October 81

Sandra, Greg and their team worked around the clock for
the first few days, cooking barbecues for anyone who needed a
meal. They were eventually evacuated, but since returning, their
focus has been to continue helping their community. They set
up a ‘pay it forward’ scheme to provide fire-affected residents
with free food, fuel, products and supplies.
“In the beginning everyone was ringing us asking, ‘What
can we do?’,” Sandra recalls. “People were offering to give us
money so we put it into a fund and then we paid it forward
to locals who had lost things or were in need. It’s been really
heartening. People donated whatever they could. One day a
man came in to buy a bottle of water; he handed over $50 and
said, ‘Keep the change.’ A local pensioner donated $600, and a
business in Lakes Entrance who wanted to remain anonymous
has contributed about $3000.”
The ripple effect of the ‘pay it forward’ idea has had a pow-
erful and emotional impact on Kylie Miller, who lives with
her husband, Brett, on the Gippsland Lakes at Newlands Arm,
near Paynesville. The couple also owns a 4ha hobby farm at
Wairewa, a small farming community a few kilometres east of
Nowa Nowa. There the couple planned to build their dream
home on a scenic hilltop.
82 Australian Geographic
Faces of recovery: Sandra Huggins (left) from
the Nowa Nowa General Store, which became an
important communication and supply hub during
the crisis. BlazeAid volunteers John Wyeth from
Flemington and Stewart Clarke from Geelong repair
fencing at Wairewa (below left). Kylie Miller (below)
nurses the lime tree she received from the ‘pay it
forward’ scheme for her hobby farm.
Kylie and Brett weren’t at the Wairewa property when the
fire front came through, but neighbours saved their cabin before
retreating to the local community hall where 30 people, 15 dogs
and two horses were protected by Country Fire Authority (CFA)
firefighters during the firestorm. The couple lost fences, water
tanks, pumps, wiring and sheds, and the orchard took a hit
as well. It’s the irreplaceable things that most matter to them.
“What we really love and miss are the majestic old trees, our
orchards, the rolling green hills, the lichen-covered timber
fences and the abundance of birds and wildlife that can be seen
on the property.”
A few weeks after the fire, Kylie stopped at the Nowa Nowa
store to buy a drink. She saw some fruit trees for sale out the front
so picked out a replacement lime tree to plant at the orchard.
When she went to pay, Sandra informed her about the ‘pay
it forward’ scheme and insisted that Kylie take it for free.
“The incredible generosity is what makes everyone emotional,”
Kylie says. “People are so amazing and kind.”
When I meet her at her property, she is cradling the lime tree
in her arms and has decided to plant the tree only once water is
reinstalled on the property. “This lime tree means everything
and I want to give it every possible chance of survival,” she

“The incredible generosity is
what makes everyone emotional.
People are so amazing and kind.”
says. “To me it symbolises so many things – new growth, new
beginnings, recovery, a fresh start, healing and the unbelievable
generosity that is attached to the ‘pay it forward’ scheme. I still
cry every time I think about it.”
SARSFIELD
The small farming district of Sarsfield, located about 20km
north-east of Bairnsdale, lost 65 homes when the fires hit on
30 December. Many more properties lost fences, sheds and live-
stock. Eventually the fire stopped about 100m from the Sarsfield
Recreation Reserve (SRR) and community hall.
The hall has since become an unofficial meeting place and
support hub for residents. Jo Andrews is one of many who have
volunteered their time to help the badly affected community.
This view from the air of scorched
bushland in East Gippsland suggests
the scale of the fire in the area.
Experts believe it will take decades,
possibly a century, for some
environments to fully recover.
She and other volunteers have provided more than 100 relief
packages to fire-affected homes and have organised community
events to support people through their recovery. For the first
three weeks after the fire, the hall was open every day and then
the SRR committee began hosting weekly ‘Friday Night Feeds’,
where all food is provided and cooked by local businesses and
community groups.
“Everyone was busy cleaning up their properties, so initially
we thought it would be good to provide people with a hearty
meal to keep them going,” Jo says. “Community cohesion
started to build and neighbours began relying on each other
and talking about their experiences. We don’t have any formal
mental health support at the moment, but we have become an
important hub for informal conversations. There’s a real sense
of community connection with no expectations. People can
just rock up, eat and chat.”
A photography program for the children of Sarsfield was also
launched at the hall. Photography company Fujifilm donated
20 digital cameras, which will be used to document the recovery
process from the perspectives of local children. They will take
turns photographing their lives for a week, before passing the
cameras on to other children. The photos will be printed and
September . October 83
 Friday Night Feeds were quickly
established at Sarsfield to help locals
in their recovery. COVID-19 restrictions
have limited face-to-face interactions,
so volunteers have since focused on
providing support via online platforms.

displayed in the hall. Down the track, the images will be used
in an art show or exhibition. “Some kids are affected more than
others, so capturing what their world looks like is going to be
really diverse,” Jo says. “That’s a bit special.”
Among those who lost their homes and belongings are the
Bryant brothers, Boris (17) and Dylan (16). They lost the house
they lived in with their primary carer, Aunty Margaret. The
boys attend Bairnsdale Secondary College where they’re part
of the Clontarf Academy, a national program that focuses on
education and sport to help young Indigenous students achieve
their full potential.
Despite their own personal losses, Boris and Dylan have
shown remarkable resilience, generosity and community spirit.
When the opportunity to volunteer with BlazeAid arose
through the academy, the boys didn’t hesitate to chip in. They
helped cook evening meals and worked with other BlazeAid
volunteers. “We put up our hands to go and help because we just
wanted to give something back to the community,” says Boris.
The boys are currently living in emergency housing in
Bairnsdale with Aunty Margaret and other family members.
They are sharing a bedroom with their younger brother, Alan,
so it’s a tight squeeze until they can find more permanent
“We put up our hands to go and
help because we just wanted to give
something back to the community.”
accommodation. “Our room is a bit messy at the moment with
the three of us crammed in there,” Dylan says, laughing. “Hope-
fully, we’ll find a bigger house soon.”
WILDLIFE AND ENVIRONMENT
More than 1.5 million hectares of land was burnt during the
fire season, threatening the survival of many native plants and
animals. The state Department of Environment, Land, Water
and Planning (DELWP), along with Parks Victoria and other
conservation specialists, are working together to understand
the impact of the fires and lead the biodiversity recovery plan.
Once access was granted into the fire-affected regions, Chief
Conservation Scientist for Parks Victoria, Dr Mark Norman,
and his team performed reconnaissance flights all over eastern

84 Australian Geographic
 Ary Row (below), from Bruthen Bat and Roo
Wildlife Shelter, operates a 24-hour wildlife
rescue and rehabilitation centre with the
intention of releasing sick or injured animals back
into the wild. Brothers (right) Boris (with sleeves)
and Dylan Bryant volunteered with BlazeAid to
help build fences on farmland near Sarsfield.
Jo Andrews (with daughter Eliana) has been a
driving force in providing support services to the
Sarsfield community.
Victoria. They identified 18 sites of importance for wildlife,
threatened species and vulnerable habitats. “From the flights,
we’re finding sobering impacts. [There were] really high in-
tensity fires in some areas,” Mark says. “In other areas, there
are large patches of green on the landscape and we’re really
pleased that some areas have remained unscathed, and they are
becoming a focus of our attention.”
Mark says the scale of these fires and their impacts was unprec-
edented. “We’re moving into new times and new circumstances
because of climate change and its impacts,” he says. “This was
not a normal bushfire – it was beyond that. The recovery will
take a long time and some landscapes may change forever.”
Before the fire front approached, an emergency rescue of
threatened eastern bristlebirds was undertaken by scientists and
wildlife experts at Howe Creek, in Croajingolong NP. Fifteen
birds were captured and taken to Melbourne Zoo where they
will live until it is safe for them to be returned. Another import-
ant project is underway to rescue threatened aquatic species, such
as varieties of galaxiid fish and freshwater mussels and crayfish.
Helping injured and displaced wildlife depends heavily on
volunteers such as Ary Row, a wildlife carer who runs the
Bruthen Bat and Roo Wildlife Shelter at her 8ha property. She
is currently caring for two young kangaroos named Royni and
Karol that suffered burns and other injuries in the fires. Royni
was named after local police officers, Roy and Roni, who drove
through the fire to rescue her. Royni and Karol are currently
housed in pens to limit their movement while they heal. As
they gain strength they will be soft-released onto the property
and when fully recovered they will be introduced to a wild
population of local kangaroos.
Ary also recently cared for 15 flying-foxes that were rescued
from a large colony at Bairnsdale. She bottle-fed them, nursed
them back to health and provided an environment where they
could regain their social structures. Many flying-foxes were
killed due to the extreme heat, smoke and fire stress.
Ary, too, has suffered personal trauma during the bushfire
crisis, with the passing of her stepfather caused by a fire event
on the south coast of New South Wales. Her teenage brother,
a firefighter, is dealing with post-traumatic stress after being on
the frontline. “I’ve definitely struggled and it’s been extremely
hard,” Ary says. “I’ve had good and bad days, but caring for
injured wildlife and doing something positive keeps me going.
We have an amazing network of carers and wildlife shelters work-
ing together and none of us would be here without each other.” AG
September . October 85
 What happened
on Whakaari?
New Zealand’s White
Island volcano gave fair
warning of its impulsive and
devastating power…
but it went unheeded.
STORY BY GEOFF CHAPPLE

88 Australian
86 AustralianGeographic
Geographic
 An aerial view of the south-eastern
bays of Whakaari/White Island,
photographed on 9 December last
year, immediately following the tragic
volcanic eruption, which blanketed
every surface in a thick layer of ash.

July .. October
September August 89
87
 AUCKLAND Whakaari/White Island

T HE ERUPTION BEGAN at 9.35pm with big heaves

inside the crater. By 10.03pm it was pelting the nearby
walking track with projectiles, but withheld its final
energy until 10.11pm, when with a whoomph it sent
a plume sky-high. A scalding current of steam and
debris, coloured green by hydrothermally altered rock, rolled
right across the track at 11m/s, and down to the south-eastern bays.
This eruption took place on Whakaari/White Island,
New Zealand, on 27 April 2016, more than three years before
the catastrophe in December last year that claimed the lives of
WELLINGTON
NEW ZEALAND
CHRISTCHURCH

21 people (17 of them Australians) and injured 26 others.

Geologists from GNS Science, NZ’s leading provider of
geoscientific research, reconstructed the pulses of the eruption
from acoustic and seismic data, and, three weeks later when
they could safely land on the island again, began figuring out
the reach of those pulses. The resulting scientific paper was
published on 1 April last year, and its authors warned: “These
eruptions clearly pose a significant hazard to the tourists that
visit the island.” More than a quarter of the walking track had
been bombarded by rock fragments. The pyroclastic surge,
though just 5mm thick at its extremities, had nonetheless covered
95 per cent of the track.

Y
OU MIGHT WONDER if this eruption triggered any
changes, but it happened at night, with no witnesses,
so it simply passed on by. You might, therefore, be
tempted to wish it into the daylight, when tourists would have
been afoot, because then it might have garnered more notice –
since it came in pulses of ascending violence, there would have
been time to run, and the headlines would have been nothing
more than “Tour operators reassess risk after near miss”. It would
have been a wake-up call that produced only meetings over
cups of tea, with scribbled notes, bottom-line business interests
weighed against risk, and some kind of agreed reform.
Three years later, at 2.11pm on 9 December 2019, there was

A
another eruption – one that came without warning. Except, TTITUDES TO WHAKAARI have long been cavalier. In
GEORGE NOVAK/BAY OF PLENTY TIMES, REPRODUCED
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGES AND THESE PAGES:

perhaps, that on 8 December the instruments that measure 1914 miners drained the crater lake to uncover deeper
tremors in nanometres momentarily spiked 30 per cent higher deposits of sulphur. Geologists suspect this affected the
than any tremor during the previous two months. Or perhaps for stability of the crater cliffs, because in September that same year,
COURTESY THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD

a moment during a video shot by tourist Allessandro Kauffmann
earlier in the afternoon. Kauffmann was part of the group aboard
Phoenix, a White Island Tours vessel, and he videoed much of
the island tour. At about 1.30pm, he panned along the hot,
strangely bright stream flowing from the crater lake. Amid the
snap and spit of boiling mineral water, the microphone caught
an off-camera aside by a White Island Tours guide: “I’m a little
bit worried why it’s going green.”
a 300m-wide chunk collapsed. As it fell, the rock, weakened
by heat and saturated with water, mutated from an avalanche
into a highly fluid lahar (a violent type of mud or debris flow),
which ran for more than 1km eastward to the sea, burying the
11 miners and destroying the sulphur factory.
Then, during Whakaari’s long eruptive phase from 1976 to
1982, the keen young geologists of the NZ Geological Survey’s
Rotorua office put together the first comprehensive analysis

88 Australian Geographic

of the volcano’s mighty hydrothermal systems. They were often
photographed as minute specks against vast up-rushing columns
of steam, or in front of dark umbrellas of mud thrown up by the
vents. They were out there for hours, measuring the gradual
expansion or contraction of the crater floor, even when the
volcano was – to use their word – “ashing”, the grey flakes
coating their hair and clothes.
“We took risks and didn’t even think about it,” says Ian Nairn,
who was one of that group. “We often went out straight after
a serious eruption. It was our job, our interest, and the main
problem was how long it took to organise a boat or a helicopter.”
Peter and Jenny Tait first became similarly transfixed by
the volcano’s dangerous charm when they took a group from
After the initial violent eruption of hot
gases, steam, rocks and ash at 2.11pm,
the volcano continued to cast huge
clouds of hot steam into the atmosphere
throughout the day.
Germany on a fishing charter, but, at the Germans’ impulsive
request, finished up exploring the island. The Taits built a busi-
ness out of taking tourists to stand at the junction of the real
world and the unruly energy of the underworld: the strange
colours, the steaming lake, the crater cliffs painted bright yellow
at their base and then rising almost vertically to 300m, cupping
the humans below within a thrilling amphitheatre.
“That first trip was in 1990,” Tait tells me, “and, as it
developed, Jenny and I were taking six people a day there.
It was very personal. The reaction of the punters was, ‘It’s
unbelievable,’ and that’s what drove us to keep developing it.”
In 2017 the Taits sold their business, White Island Tours –
a 27-year-old enterprise that came with a motel and cafe –
September . October 89

to Ngati Awa Group Holdings, which kept on many of the
Taits’ employees.
“Safety?” Tait says, when asked about the potential risks of
taking visitors to an active volcano. “We were more worried
about the Whakatane River bar than the island erupting, to
be honest. There were so many things. It was an adventure
trip. You have to cross the river bar. You have to cross pretty
rough ocean, then get into an inflatable and land, with very
tricky conditions, to get onto the island at times. And you’re
on the island a very short time, really. The overall chances of
it erupting seemed pretty small.”
On the afternoon of 9 December, Tait was sitting in his
lounge, high on the rocky ridge that overlooks Whakatane
and out across 50km of blue ocean to Whakaari. He saw the
eruptive column’s silent rise. He didn’t know if there were
people on the island or not.
T
HOSE ABOARD PHOENIX KNEW. At about 2pm, passen-
gers had returned to the vessel, which was moored in
Te Awapuia Bay on the south-eastern corner of the
island. Phoenix motored north around Troup Head, giving its
passengers one last photo opportunity directly up the crater,
before it turned south to return to Whakatane.
It was right at that moment, to gasps of pure wonder, that
the eruptive column boiled into the sky. Then the column
darkened at the base, and a sinister ground-hugging wave
90 Australian Geographic
At 2.12pm American tourist
Michael Schade photographed the
eruptive column surging into the sky
from tour boat Phoenix. The last photo
he had taken while still on the island was
date-stamped 1.49pm – 22 minutes
before the deadly eruption.
steadily overwhelmed the island, billowing towards the vessel.
The framing on every camera went up, down or sideways,
jerking with fear.
The skipper accelerated clear of the ash cloud, and for his
passengers the eruption was no more than a terrible fright.
But there were people on board who knew that White Island
Tours’ new flagship vessel, Te Puia Whakaari, was still moored
back at Te Awapuia Bay, and that its tourists were still on shore.
That meant 38 passengers from the cruise liner Ovation of the
Seas, plus four guides. Meanwhile, the Rotorua-based company
Volcanic Air had brought four tourists to the island on a Squirrel
helicopter that the company’s pilot and guide had set down on a
landing pad behind the ruin of the sulphur factory. That made
47 people still on the island.
At 2.14pm, Phoenix sent out an emergency call to Coastguard
Whakatane, advising of an eruption and requesting urgent
medical evacuation. Phoenix then sped back to Te Awapuia Bay,
PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY MICHAEL SCHADE
and called the coastguard again at 2.16pm, confirming casual-
ties. Minutes later, Te Puia Whakaari also contacted the coast-
guard. The three calls triggered a Civil Defence emergency,
alerting police, St John Ambulance services, rescue-helicopter
services and hospitals on the mainland.
But Whakaari lay across 50km of rough ocean, far from
any immediate help. As national agencies began to tool up, the
locals were already organising their own ship-to-shore and
air-to-ground rescues.
 By 2.24pm White Island Tours guides
(in blue striped shirts) were rescuing
survivors from the landing aboard
Phoenix’s inflatables, a scene also
photographed by tourist Michael Schade.
The rising plume from Whakaari had
served as a shrill alarm for pilots from
Whakatāne, Rotorua and Taupō.
At Te Awapuia Bay, the ash had already cleared. The sky was
once again blue and the sun shone, but Te Puia Whakaari and
the island itself were a dull, flat grey. Phoenix’s skipper kept his
engines running, ready to speed clear if the volcano blew again.
Paul Kingi was a senior skipper and the tours manager at White
Island Tours, but he’d joined Phoenix that morning simply as a
guide and was free of any captain’s responsibility to stay with
the vessel. He took immediate charge of the rescue, loading two
crewmates into Phoenix’s inflatable, then gunning its motor to
PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY MICHAEL SCHADE
intercept a woman swimming towards Te Puia Whakaari. After
plucking another two women from the water, he took all three
to Phoenix. Then he turned to the dozen or so people, grey with
ash, who were huddled on or near the island’s landing.
As the sea-to-shore rescue got underway, an air-to-ground
rescue was assembling. The rising plume from Whakaari had
served as a shrill alarm for pilots from Whakatane, Rotorua
and Taupo. Mark Law, head pilot of Whakatane-based heli-
copter operators Kahu NZ, saw the eruption as he drove back
from Tauranga in his car. He got on the phone, and the Kahu
base confirmed that GNS Science’s monitoring cameras on the
island had blanked out. Simultaneously, high above the blue
expanse of the Bay of Plenty, a helicopter pilot who had lifted
off from Whakaari just six minutes earlier called his head pilot,
Tim Barrow, at Volcanic Air, and described the scale of the
eruption. Barrow then called Law.
Meanwhile, retired helicopter rescue pilot John Funnell was
in the air in a small fixed-wing aircraft near Whakatane, keep-
ing up his flying hours. As two Kahu choppers prepared to lift
off for Whakaari, with pilots Law, Jason Hill and Tom Storey
aboard, Funnell was enlisted as ‘top cover’, a specific role within
emergency operations – the top cover is the fixed-winger that
circles high above the scene and transmits information received
from the team below.
So a small airborne unit was formed, bound together not
by official roles or rehearsals, but by the natural meshing of
grave concerns and aided by local knowledge of landing pads
within the crater.
B
Y THEN, THE SEA-TO-SHORE rescue was closing up, and
Phoenix had become a de facto hospital ship. Kingi’s
inflatable had delivered the people on the landing to
the vessel, including the four Volcanic Air tourists and their
pilot. Three of those five were probably the luckiest people
on the island that day, because when the volcano blew they
September . October 91
 Reconstructing a
were already at the shoreline, the last point of interest in their
hour-long tour. The pilot urged them into the water, and he
and the two who immersed themselves escaped serious injury.
The other two hesitated, and were later hospitalised for burns.
Kingi, back on the island, had gone inland on the walking
track towards the crater to find more survivors and help them
down to the inflatable. The last person Kingi found, just as
he had decided to stop searching, was 19-year-old Australian
hydrothermal eruption
Jesse Langford, who stumbled down towards him. Jesse had
been more than 300m inland when the volcano blew. He was
his family’s only survivor, because his father, Anthony, mother,
Kristine, and sister, Winona, passed away around him.
At about 2.45pm, Phoenix took off for Whakatane. The Kahu
helicopters above and the vessel below crossed paths just before
3pm, and Law swooped low, the urgency of his mission and the
scale of it confirmed by the sight of prone people being tended
to on the back deck. Mt Gisborne (320m)
Those who had sustained the worst burns had been placed
at the front of the vessel, and two doctors had stepped forward
from among the passengers to tend to them – a general prac-
titioner on holiday from the UK, and another from Germany.
Geoff Hopkins, a pastor at Arise church in Hamilton with a
St John certificate, also provided assistance. He dug deep into
remote first-aid training he’d done in the UK, but he was dealing
with people drifting in and out of consciousness, people who
were saying, “I’m not going to make it.” So he dug deeper yet,
into his faith, and told them, “You’re not going to give up.”
His daughter, Lillani, was at the back of the vessel with the
other victims, doing her best to stave off hypothermia and shock.
She found herself singing the evangelical song “Waymaker”:
You are here – moving in our midst…
You are here – working in this place…
You are here – healing every heart…
And if she stopped there’d be a touch on her leg, and a whis-
PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: RICHARD ROBINSON. DIAGRAM OPPOSITE: COURTESY NEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHIC

per: “Keep singing.”

Halfway back, Phoenix was met by a coastguard vessel deliv-
ering paramedics and pain-relief medication.
About 3pm, the Kahu helicopters entered the crater airspace,
and Law descended to 200 feet for a closer look. The centre of

A lake of hot acid fills Whakaari’s western sub-crater. It’s 20–25m

lower than the main crater floor. The water, which ranges in temperature
from 30ºC to 50ºC, is 60 times more acidic than battery acid.

92 Australian Geographic
 W HEN SUPERHEATED water is trapped in the pores of rocks, a number of
triggers – heat, rising gas, tremors, changes in crater lake levels – can
cause it to blow. Water flashes to steam, expanding up to 1700 times its original
volume, with enough energy to shatter solid rock. Because these eruptions are
unpredictable and short-lived, few have been analysed in detail. Following the
Crater lake 27 April 2016 eruption, researchers from GNS Science and the University of
Canterbury reconstructed the events based on sampling. Ballistic modelling of
rock projectiles suggested these had been ejected in several pulses. A pyroclastic
surge flowed to the east at an estimated 11m/s, its current and direction restricted
by the crater cliffs. The study found that 29 per cent of the tourist track was
within the area struck by ballistics, while 95 per cent of it was covered by the py-
roclastic surge. “Survivability during the eruption would most likely have been low
in areas of the main crater floor,” wrote duty volcanologist Steve Sherburn
in a GNS Science volcanic alert bulletin. These bulletins are published on the
GNS website, and are sent to groups such as Bay of Plenty Civil Defence and
Emergency Management, which is responsible for managing risks and hazards
on the island.

N
t rack

Helicopter
He
el pads
g

lk
in

Wa
ORTHOMOSAIC MODEL: ARIE SPYKSMA

0 100m 200m

Te Awapuia Ba
y
•
• Moorings

Small craft landing point Extent of pyroclastic surge in 2016

R
Ruins of sulphur factory

September . October 93

the island was now mostly clear of steam and ash. He saw some
figures lying down, and others sitting – there were people alive
down there. The Kahu pilots set their choppers down on the
crater floor and got out of their machines, scuffing through the
grey ashfall, amid dense gases and drifting ash.
Breathing was difficult, even with gas masks. They assessed
the dead, the dying and the living. Through a handheld radio
– they had to remove their gas masks to speak into it – they
described injuries to Funnell, their top cover, who relayed the
information to Whakatane Hospital.
The fliers felt the desperation in everyone they encountered,
and their response was to talk back, to comfort, to tell each
person, “We’re here. We’ll get you out,” before moving on to
the next person. Law got word that the big air ambulances were
still being staged at Whakatane, so any immediate rescue was
up to them. The most badly injured – by ballistics as well as
scalding – were those nearest the crater. The Kahu team hopped
one of the choppers further up into the threatening miasma to
get them, loaded five people, and Hill took off for Whakatane
Hospital. Below him, out of the steamy cauldron that had pro-
duced the lethal blast, the volcano suddenly started ashing.
By now, it was about 3.40pm, and Barrow was settling his
helicopter onto a landing pad by the shore. He’d flown in from
Rotorua with pilot Graeme Hopcroft. Funnell had updated
them on conditions, and they raced up to the crater to join
the search. They half-carried one survivor to their chopper,
then joined the Kahu crew to assist five more survivors into
Law’s machine. Law lifted up and out for Whakatane. Barrow,
Hopcroft and Storey loaded one more survivor into the
94 Australian Geographic
In the days that followed, the vital task
of retrieving the dead from the island
was a perilous one in the unpredictable
conditions following the eruption. The
search scene also included the waters
around the island where two victims had
been swept out to sea by heavy rains.
The fliers’…response was to talk back,
to comfort, to tell each person,
“We’re here. We’ll get you out.”
Volcanic Air helicopter, then Barrow and Hopcroft fired it up
and banked south for Whakatane.
For a time, Storey was left alone. He spent the next half-hour
grouping bodies for later retrieval. Among the bodies was his
friend, White Island Tours guide Hayden Marshall-Inman.
A second Volcanic Air helicopter arrived to pick up Storey, and
completed an aerial reconnaissance of the crater.
By then it was all but over.
Two Westpac air-ambulance helicopters arrived, one circling
on standby above the crater, while the second landed St John
medical director Tony Smith and three other clinicians on the
eerie domain below. They checked the bodies for signs of life,
PHOTO CREDIT: NEW ZEALAND POLICE
and confirmed no survivors were left behind.
I
N GEOLOGICAL TERMS, the steam-driven eruption on
9 December was a small one, similar in energy and range
to the 27 April event three years earlier. One significant
difference was that it happened more quickly.
Shane Cronin, professor of volcanology at the University
of Auckland, compares the 9 December eruption to a giant
 In mid-November last year, the alert
for Whakaari volcano was raised to
level 2 after increases in sulphur gases
and seismic activity were detected by
GNS Science and its GeoNet geological
hazard monitoring system.

W Anatomy
hakaari/White Island is one of
several volcanoes in NZ that can
produce sudden, explosive eruptions at

of a volcano
Eruptive
any time. In this case, magma is shallow, plume
and the heat and gases affect surface
and groundwater to form vigorous
hydrothermal systems. In these,
water is trapped in pores of rocks in
a super-heated state. Any external Ejection of ash, steam
TEXT REPRODUCED COURTESY THE CONVERSATION (US EDITION); PHOTO CREDIT: RICHARD ROBINSON

and rock
process, such as an earthquake, gas
input from below, or even a change in Rainfall

the lake water level, can tip this delicate

Sea level
balance and release the pressure on the
hot and trapped water. The resulting
steam-driven eruption, also called a
hydrothermal, or phreatic, eruption, 500 Circulating
can happen suddenly and with little to sea water
no warning. The expansion of water into Circulating
1000
steam is supersonic in speed and the sea water
liquid can expand to 1700 times its
original volume. This produces 1500
catastrophic impacts because erup- Vapour
tions caused by steam are difficult to phase
2000 Unconsolidated crater fill
track with current monitoring systems.
“Many systems are already primed for Chemically sealed zone
such events, but the triggers are poorly 2500
Acid brine
understood,” says the University of
Brine, gas and vapour
Auckland’s Shane Cronin. This model
3000
of Whakaari’s structure was developed Gas and vapour
during its previous eruptive phase. Magma
3500 metres below sea level

September . October 95
 Daytrip to tragedy
Ovation of the Seas moored
at Tauranga in the days
immediately after
the disaster.
W HEN THE Whakaari
volcano erupted at
2.11pm on Monday
9 December last year,
47 people were on the
island, including 38 pas-
sengers from the cruise
ship Ovation of the Seas,
21 of whom would lose
their lives that day and in
the hours, days and weeks
that followed. The ship
had sailed out of Sydney
four days earlier packed
with excited holidaymak-
ers setting off on a 12-day
voyage to NZ at the start
of the summer break.
The opportunity to tour
the island volcano was
offered as a shore
excursion when the ship
berthed at the Port of
Tauranga in the Bay of
Plenty. The tour was
operated by local company
White Island Tours.
While this group of
mostly Australians was
exploring the island, the
volcano suddenly erupted,
shooting scalding steam,
ash and debris along
the track between the
crater and the landing
area, catching many as
they made their way
back towards tour boat
Te Puia Whakaari. Within
minutes staff aboard a
boat that had recently
left the island, Phoenix,
launched a rescue mission,
96 Australian Geographic
plucking 23 tourists from
the water and landing
area, many with terrible
injuries. Others trapped
further inland were later
rescued by chopper pilots
who instantly scrambled
in response to the huge
steam plume visible from
the coast 50km away.
Eight people died on the
island, while a further 13
succumbed afterwards
from their injuries.
Among the 21 dead
were 17 Australian
nationals, with a further
10 seriously injured, many
of whom remain in hospital
or rehabilitation eight
months later. The youngest
victim was 13-year-old
Knox Grammar School
(Sydney) student Matthew
Hollander, who died along
with his 16-year-old
brother, Berend, and both
parents Barbara and
Martin. The family moved
to Sydney from the USA
five years earlier.
The tragedy is now the
subject of official investi-
gations in NZ. Royal Carib-
bean, operators of Ovation
of the Seas, may face legal
action in Australia and
the USA, over claims the
company allegedly failed
to adequately warn of the
risks of visiting the island.
Island tours have been
suspended indefinitely.
A dense, ground-hugging pyroclastic
surge flowed from the vent, over the
walking track, down to the shoreline.
pressure cooker blowing its lid. Whakaari’s “lid” consisted of
layers of sulphur, salts and weakened rock, which were metres
deep. These were blasted away to form an entirely new vent.
When this lid blew, a pressure wave fled across the island at
supersonic speed, invisible but forceful enough to knock gas
masks off the faces of tourists and guides and to shift Volcanic
Air’s 1.3 tonne Squirrel helicopter half off its landing pad.
Then an eruptive column of steam and ash climbed into the
sky, perilous to any who stood close by.
But the most lethal event in the eruptive sequence was the
third: a dense, ground-hugging pyroclastic surge, which flowed
from the vent, over the walking track and right down to the
eastern shoreline.
Cronin calculates from past studies of steam-driven eruptions
on Whakaari that this surge would have burst from the crater at
300ºC and 100km/hour, losing force and heat in the ambient
air as it rolled east. It was still boiling hot but had slowed to
about 25km/hour when it flowed into the sea.
The surge was mainly formed of steam and ash, but carried
within it a “salty aerosol”, says Cronin. Past testing of residues
from this type of eruption has found them to consist mostly of
fine fragments of pulverised rock coated in sulphur and acid
salts, which turn into concentrated droplets of sulphuric acid
when they come into contact with air, water or human skin.
The remaining residues are hydrochloric acid and small amounts
of hydrofluoric acid, which is the most corrosive of the residues,
especially if inhaled.
Although the Squirrel helicopter was 1km away from the
eruptive vent, its rotor blades flapped up and down like a bird’s
wings in the turbulence of the pressure wave. Then the pyro-
clastic surge plastered it with ash. Afterwards, it sat stranded
in the grey surrounds, grievously damaged, its carbon fibre
and aluminium rotors broken and drooping, undone by
nature’s power.
T
HE ERUPTION HAD triggered a national emergency, and
leadership had been formally handed to Bay of Plenty’s
Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, with
police the lead agency for search and rescue, and for recovery.
The helicopter pilots had operated independently of the official
system, but fell under its command once they landed and were
stood down.
Eight bodies still lay on the island, two of them White
PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
Island Tours guides – Tipene Maangi and Hayden Marshall-
Inman. As public pressure rose by the day to recover the
Whakaari dead, Marshall-Inman became a symbol for all eight.
The 40-year-old was well liked within the communities of
Whakatane and Ohope, and he’d been with White Island
Tours for many years.

A sense of frustration was growing in Whakatane, fuelled by
outside control swooping in and sidelining local pilots, quaran-
tining tour boats without properly cleaning them of corrosive
ash, and suggesting – wrongly – that there was a criminal inquiry
into White Island Tours. The town’s diffuse anger found focus
on delays in the recovery.
But police were responsible for ensuring no further casualties,
and the GNS Science seismometer on Whakaari was laying
down a continuous recording of the volcano’s quivering energy.
The volcano had erupted out of nowhere, and might do so
again. In the hours after the eruption, the island was relatively
quiet – and, in retrospect, this was the window for recovering
the bodies.
Indications of unrest became more pronounced on Tuesday
10 December when the tremors began again, and on Wednesday
and early Thursday the tremors peaked at levels well above the
eruption itself. On Thursday evening, the tremors fell away
PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY MICHAEL SCHADE
sharply, and continued to fall on Friday, when the NZ Defence
Force landed on the island at first light.
It was a team of eight, including six bomb disposal spe-
cialists, kitted out in three protective layers, with breathing
apparatus and four hours’ worth of air. The work they did was
exhausting. Around the active crater area, they waded through
dense, hot, acidic mud, but they collected the bodies, and prepared
them for final retrieval by helicopter to HMNZS Wellington,
which was waiting offshore.
The pressure wave that surged down
from the crater was powerful enough to
dislodge a Squirrel helicopter
from its landing pad.
They recovered six bod ies, but t wo had gone.
Marshall-Inman and Winona Langford had been 800m away
from the eruption, and 300m from the shoreline, but a violent
rainstorm had swollen the stream near where they lay, and
washed them into the sea. Police would later say that, while
patrolling in Te Awapuia Bay, they’d seen a body believed to be
Marshall-Inman near the landing, but couldn’t get close enough
to recover it, and called in a Navy inflatable. In rebounding
waves, the Navy personnel were unable to take the body aboard,
and the rough sea allowed no second chance.
Resigned to the lack of any formal goodbye, the Inman family
organised a celebration of life at the Whakatane Baptist Church
on 20 December. Maangi’s photo was on display, too, and
hundreds attended. The mourners heard from the helicopter-
pilot rescuers that both Marshall-Inman and Maangi had tried
to help members of their tour groups before they’d finally suc-
cumbed. Monday 9 December had been Marshall-Inman’s
1111th venture onto the island, and each one of them, except
the last, had been recorded in his diary.
A few weeks later, Marshall-Inman’s brother Mark Inman
and friends rode jet skis out to Whakaari, and sat on their craft
in Te Awapuia Bay. After the long haul out to the island, the
eight riders opened cans of beer and performed their own
karakia – Maori incantations and prayers, used to invoke spiritual
guidance and protection – to their friend and brother, and to all
those who’d lost their lives. AG
September . October 97
This photo of Lieutenant Ian McGregor
of QLD’s 11th Light Horse (Darling Downs)
Regiment appeared in Brisbane’s
Courier-Mail newspaper on 3 March 1938.
In the years preceding WWII, McGregor
became an accomplished and prize-
winning horseman.

98 Australian Geographic

The
EGG MAN
OF CHANGI
Regular AG writer Alasdair McGregor shares the story of his father’s
remarkable wartime experiences as a POW in Singapore’s harsh
prisoner-of-war camps during World War II.
W
HEN WE MET in Wollongong, New South
Wales, in 2007, Guy Baker had just a few
days to live. He was a big man, but his
86-year-old, once-powerful rugby for-
ward’s frame was by then a useless burden. His breathing
was fitful, and, tethered to an oxygen cylinder, he sat
slumped in a chair by his hospital bed. Guy had heard me
on ABC Radio a couple of weeks earlier, and although
in terminal decline he resolved that we must meet. The
ABC facilitated contact and so it came to pass.
It was an unusual first meeting; I arrived a stranger, yet
an hour later we parted as friends. My presence somehow
helped a dying old man tap a reserve of strength, and, as
if there was some magic elixir circulating in that oxygen
cylinder, he became animated and energised.
There would be no further contact – we had no time
to lose. In those precious moments Guy determinedly
ventured back in his mind to his young adult years in the
1940s when, like so many Australians of his generation,
th
75
Anniversary
end of W WII
★
he saw more of life and death than he may have
cared for. Therein lay our bond, a connection born of
Guy’s wartime encounter with my long-dead father,
Ian McGregor. We talked of that, and much more.
H
AVING ALREADY SERVED in the citizen mili-
tia, 19-year-old Guy Templeton Baker joined
the all-volunteer Second Australian Imperial
Force (2nd AIF) in July 1940 and was posted to its
27th Infantry Brigade, one of three brigades of the
Australian Army’s 8th Division. The 20,000-strong
division had been raised for war in North Africa, but,
with the rapidly escalating threat from Japan in Asia
and the Pacific, the 8th was broken into four units and
deployed much closer to home.
The 27th Brigade joined with the 22nd in rein-
forcing the British garrison in Malaya, while other
elements of the division headed for Rabaul, Ambon
and Timor. From August 1941 onwards, the 22nd and
September . October 99
Guy Baker
Born in Leura, NSW,
Guy Baker, pictured here
as a 19-year-old private,
enlisted in the 2nd AIF
in July 1940.
27th brigades were involved in hasty preparations for the
collective Allied and British Commonwealth defence of the
Malayan peninsula, and Singapore at its southernmost tip.
The island of Singapore was Britain’s great strategic hub
in the Far East, but this supposedly unconquerable fortress
would soon be rendered as defendable as a house of cards.
Through the following December and January, a relent-
less enemy, whose air superiority proved to be devastatingly
effective, pushed ever southward. Despite pockets of stiff
resistance, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) quickly over-
ran the Malayan peninsula. Singapore fell after a further
two weeks of fighting, and a campaign that had lasted a
mere 70 days came to an abrupt end.
On 15 February 1942 the Malaya Command capitu-
lated, and, along with 15,000 of his fellow Australians,
Private Guy Baker found himself a prisoner of war (POW).
Units of the 8th Division fighting elsewhere in Asia fared
no better and were also condemned to captivity.
Some 50,000 Allied soldiers – most of them British and
Australian – were marched to Singapore’s Changi pen-
insula where the Japanese cordoned off a large area for a
sprawling series of crowded camps centred on the British
Army’s Selarang Barracks. In the first weeks of captivity,
the POWs were more or less left to their own devices, with
little interference from their captors. Minimal food and
medical supplies were provided, and as much as possible
life returned to pre-captivity military routine.
But by April 1942, Japanese attitudes were hardening.
Imperial Japan’s bushido militarist ethos held that POWs
were utterly dishonoured. They had failed the ultimate
100 Australian Geographic
The 415km-long Burma–Thailand Railway stretched from Thanbyuzayat,
Burma to Nong Pladuk, Thailand. Construction didn’t start at one end and
finish at the other – rather, units worked along the entire length.
test of death in battle, and as a consequence their lives were
rendered worthless. Because Japan had not ratified the 1929
Geneva Convention on the rights of POWs, its military
commanders felt under no compulsion to act humanely.
Prisoners were to be put to hard labour, repairing dam-
aged buildings, roads and the like, building airfields, and
loading ships taking the spoils of war back to Japan. Further
afield they were to be used as slave labourers on the construc-
tion of a railway linking occupied Burma with Thailand.
OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP: THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; MCGREGOR COLLECTION
I
N MID-APRIL 1943, Guy Baker was one of 3662 Australians
transported to Thailand to labour on the railway. They
joined 3400 British POWs to form F Force. Condi-
tions in the infamous construction camps were appalling.
Diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery took a
disastrous toll, while Japanese and Korean guards exacted
PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: ROSLYN BAKER; SHUTTERSTOCK;
punishments with sadistic brutality.
It’s a familiar and painful episode in Australia’s history,
seared into the consciousness of Guy Baker’s generation
and many who followed. By the time F Force survivors
returned to Changi in October, Baker had been reduced
to little more than a pitiful sack of bones. Out in the Thai
jungle, 1060 of his Australian comrades lay dead, almost
a third of those who had headed north six months earlier.
Like Baker, Ian McGregor had served in the citizen militia,
but his service extended back to the mid-1920s. He was
born in 1907 in Broken Hill, the second-eldest of four boys.
His father, Alexander McGregor, worked as a livestock
agent and auctioneer. However, business soured in
union-dominated Broken Hill after A lexander
 Burma–Thailand Railway construction
Hard labour on the Burma–
Thailand Railway, c. 1943. In all,
9500 Australians were sent to
either Burma or Thailand, with
2646 dying during the railway’s
construction. The work was
completed by October 1943.

On their first wedding

anniversary, Charmian and
Ian McGregor attended the races
in Toowoomba, April 1940.
Ian departed for war in July of
the following year, leaving behind
his wife and newborn son.

Conditions in the infamous

construction camps were appalling,
and took a disastrous toll.

incurred the ire of the Fremantle, in Western Australia. Following weeks of

all-powerful Barrier
Industrial Council. In
about 1923, Alexander was forced to cut his losses, and,
with his wife Ethel and their two youngest boys,
retreated to the Brogo Valley near Bega, on the NSW
south coast, to where the wider McGregor clan had eked
out a livelihood as dairy farmers since the 1840s.
Alexander’s financial troubles forced Ian from school
around the age of 15. He found work as a teller with the
Commonwealth Bank, serving in branches in NSW, New
Guinea and Queensland. Somewhere in his youth, perhaps
in Broken Hill or on visits to Brogo, Ian learnt to ride.
He became a skilled horseman, and, drawn to the deeds
of Australia’s mounted troops in the recent war, joined a
succession of cavalry and mounted infantry regiments, rising
from the ranks to become a junior officer in Queensland’s
11th Light Horse (Darling Downs) Regiment.
In April 1940, aged 32, Ian Alexander McGregor joined
the 2nd AIF, enlisting while working in the Queensland
outback town of Roma. He was posted to the 2/26th
Battalion and later that year promoted to captain with
Headquarters (HQ), 27th Brigade.
McGregor was one of three officers responsible for
embarking the brigade from Sydney, Melbourne and
toil, and almost on the eve of departure for Singapore,
he hurried to Toowoomba in July 1941 to join my mother,
Charmian, at the birth their first child, Graeme (Tim).
Ian would not see them again until September 1945.
Snatched tender moments and hasty farewells were fol-
lowed after February 1942 by an agonising silence lasting
months. Ian was posted as missing in April. Charmian
waited until 8 January 1943 to learn that he was still alive.
It was wonderful news, but came with a bleak caveat in the
final 13 words of an urgent official telegram: “PRISONER
OF WAR MALAYAN CAMPS STOP MINISTER FOR
THE ARMY EXTENDS SINCERE SYMPATHY.”
In the early days of captivity, rumours circulated among
the POWs that liberation was imminent. With the USA
drawn into the war following Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack
in December 1941, assuredly the Americans would come
to the POWs’ aid? McGregor thought otherwise. With a
dour realist bent – some said linked to his Scottish ances-
try – he predicted a captivity of years, an unpopular, but
of course accurate, prediction.
After a month of incarceration, a meeting of AIF HQ
heard that the IJA could provide only a further two months
supply of food. The POWs needed to become as self-
sufficient as possible, and fast. A 40ha vegetable garden

September . October 101

 Roberts Hospital, Changi,
depicted by war artist
Murray Griffin. The painting
contrasts the wretched
hospital conditions and the
plight of the sick with the
tropical beauty of Singapore.

With the war raging,

messages to and from home
were few and far between.
They could take longer than
a year to reach loved ones.

102 Australian Geographic

 “Some will never be well again. They have an intolerable
burden to bear – few comforts and little food.”
was developed, and “without it”, McGregor later wrote,
“the camp would have practically no green vegetables
at all”. Individuals also worked their own tiny plots and
grew what they could. But a meagre rice ration and a few
vegetables would not stave off starvation. Critically, where
was their protein to come from?
Pigs were proposed, but how would hungry men find
enough extra food for a piggery? Separate poultry farms run
by each brigade were suggested and rejected, although some
soldiers began keeping one or two chickens or ducks for their
own consumption, or to profit from the sale of their eggs.
Consistent with his gloomy prediction of years in cap-
tivity, McGregor hatched grander and more determined
plans that none could dispute.
W
ITH THE PERMISSION of his superiors, McGregor
became Officer in Charge (OIC) Poultry, and,
between May 1942 and the liberation of Changi
in September 1945, managed a farm that grew to be more
like an industrial enterprise than a backyard chook run. Yet
despite his family’s farming background, there was little in
his early years to prepare him for his role as OIC Poultry.
Writing in March 1944, McGregor recalled that “people
laughed at me rather at the start – however, I persevered”.
His activities faced risks and setbacks, but as each arose
it was tackled with a stubborn refusal to brook failure.
Of an initial stock of 204 chickens obtained from local
PHOTO CREDITS, OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; MCGREGOR COLLECTION
Chinese traders, 183 were wiped out by avian cholera.
Second and third flocks suffered similarly, but fortunately
choosing hardier ducks put the farm on a more sustain-
able footing.
Because the IJA sternly discouraged fraternisation
between POWs and the Chinese, even obtaining new
birds could be hazardous. In More Lives Than a Cat, a self-
published memoir of his POW years, Guy Baker recounted
how “one night [McGregor] sneaked outside the barbed
wire where he purchased chickens...[and] proudly...bore
them back in a bag”. While the farm was mostly tolerated
by the IJA, harassment and arbitrary threats to have it
moved meant that McGregor’s activities were never settled.
Yet in a June 1945 report for AIF HQ, he was able to
summarise in precise detail – literally to the last egg – his
farm’s remarkable output for the preceding three years. A
total of 12,112 chicken and 27,366 duck eggs had been pro-
duced, with an average of 1012 eggs collected each month.
Based on his typical weight for an egg (chicken 1.69
ounces and duck 2.34 ounces), McGregor even calculated a
total tonnage. Perhaps more impressive than the number of
eggs laid was the tally of 5281 pounds (2.4 tonnes). When
the farm closed after liberation in early September, it was
producing eggs at a rate of 3000 a month. Almost 47,000
eggs had been distributed and consumed, or diverted for
breeding, during its entire operation.
Apart from the farm’s size, it was the destination of the
produce that set McGregor’s enterprise apart. Keenly aware
of the likelihood of protracted malnourishment, he also
knew that the sick and those still recovering from wounds
sustained in battle would suffer most.
McGregor’s diary is dotted with references to the sorry
state of the sick and how the farm’s produce was to supple-
ment their paltry rations. “Some will never be well again,”
he wrote in March 1944. “They have an intolerable burden
to bear – few comforts and little food”.
The four hospitals treating Australians received eggs,
as did the “sick in the lines upon medical request”. And
the Red Cross took eggs to “all nationalities”. The farm’s
produce went nowhere else, and despite their own gnaw-
ing hunger, McGregor and his offsiders never indulged.
As the years dragged on, and as each work party stag-
gered back to Changi, McGregor’s diary descriptions sank
deeper into the squalid tragedy of the many hollowed
out husks of manhood he encountered. On 29 February
1944 he wrote:
“The hospital is a very depressing place these days: malaria &
dysentery in all their types; ulcers (tropical) & duodenal; beriberi,
diphtheria, TB; skin diseases in all forms; typhus, cholera & many
examples of sheer starvation. Men who at one time were examples
of a fine soldierly masculine bearing now have infantile yet bovine
[sluggish] faces & where there is a little flesh to cover their emaciated
frames have quite feminine limbs.”
And out of the hellish darkness of the punishment cells
of Outram Road Gaol in Singapore emerged men more
dead than alive. McGregor mentioned several “batches”
returning to Changi in a “pitiful state”, their bodies:
“…covered in scabies and sores, so sick with beriberi, unable to
walk or stand, emaciated to the extreme – beaten & thrashed &
starved & yet retaining a mental balance after months in solitary
confinement.”
These were men who through sheer mental strength
had regained the light and relative sanctuary of Changi.
McGregor was able “to give 30 eggs immediately”. He
was also confident about putting them “on their feet with
products from the big farm” – more eggs, vegetables, and
perhaps a nourishing broth made from a bird whose laying
September . October 103
 McGregor continued to visit
from time to time with an
egg in hand, or would send
them with others.
days were done. Such were McGregor’s ways as he helped
those in desperate straits.
One such individual among many was Guy Baker.
Reduced to less than half of his 93kg rugby weight upon
the return of F Force, Baker lay dangerously ill for weeks
and lingered in hospital for four months. One of his first
visitors was Ian McGregor, who slipped him a couple of
eggs and a few “quiet words of encouragement”.
McGregor continued to visit from time to time with
an egg in hand, or would send them with others. When
Baker was fit enough to leave hospital the captain called
again. But this time he came empty-handed. Instead, he
arrived with an order for the lowly private. Baker was to
become McGregor’s batman.
“The worst job in the army!” Baker cringed at the
prospect of being an officer’s servant, but an order was an
order. “What a surprise I got when I reported for duty,”
he recalled in More Lives Than a Cat:
“I felt somewhat ashamed…I did not wash a thing for Captain
McGregor, nor clean his boots or do any cooking… He looked
after me like a baby for the three weeks. I acted as his batman and
then he sacked me and took on another lame duck.”
Cosseted back to functioning health by McGregor, this
ex-batman, and several that followed, were given jobs on
the farm. Ravenous ducks needed plenty of food. Minced
grass, kitchen slops and the smallest scrap or grain of rice that
fell to earth – it all went to the farm. But what sent a duck
into a frenzy was a meaty snail. McGregor made Private
Arthur Rollings his “master snail catcher”, and when not
detailed elsewhere, Guy Baker became one of his helpers.
After much pleading with the IJA, the snail catchers
were given permission to scour the bush outside the camp
perimeter. Their prey was not like a typical garden snail,
but a creature “as large as a small man’s clenched hand”.
The snails congregated in clusters, and each collector
could “very quickly fi ll a bucket”. Men heading out in
labouring parties were also given buckets to fi ll with
snails. With the hard snail shells cleaved by a bush knife
(known as a parang) and the flesh exposed, the ducks
greedily gobbled every last skerrick.
The full impact of Ian McGregor’s activities shines from
the few surviving thankyou notes written by recipients of
the farm’s produce. Lieutenant Colonel Cotter Harvey, a
doctor with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, sent
104 Australian Geographic
Lieutenant Colonel
Cotter Harvey
Thoracic physician and later anti-smoking pioneer
Lieutenant Colonel Cotter Harvey, here depicted by
Murray Griffin, strove to improve the POW diet.
such a note from the Kranji Camp on the other side of the
island, addressed to “Capt. McGregor, Eggologist, Changi”:
“[What?] a grand fellow you are”, the colonel’s note began:
“The birds arrived in perfect condition & were roasted (beauti-
fully). For dinner that night, having given Chas O. a drumstick,
I ate the remainder of one entire bird, thereby consuming more
chicken at one sitting than I have done in my entire life.”
A
PART FROM THE forgotten joy of a full stomach, the
health blessings were palpable. “Already my ulcer
has taken a turn for the better,” Cotter Harvey
enthused, “and healing promises to be rapid henceforth!”
What he didn’t reveal was that he had nearly died from
septicaemia. The birds and eggs sent to Kranji had helped
him survive.
In September 1942, just a few months after the farm
was set up, Brigadier Duncan Maxwell (commander of
the 27th Brigade during the Malaya campaign) wrote
to McGregor before being shipped off to Taiwan with
other senior officers. He conveyed the thanks of all in his
hospital ward “who have lost legs and had serious wounds
and have been here since the capitulation”.
One in particular said that “since the start, back in the
black days when he was so sick, he had in all 28 eggs from
your farmyard and they had saved his life!”
McGregor’s own health suffered as a POW. Even before
the fall of Singapore, he had been forced into hospital.
While the fighting raged in Malaya, he was incapacitat-
ed and frustrated in equal measure noting that “the war
coming closer and closer down the mainland and me in
 Heading home at last,
liberated 8th Division POWs
gather outside their Changi
quarters, 10 September 1945.
Precious Red Cross food
parcels had begun arriving,
bringing more food than any of
them had seen in years.

bed doing nothing about it”. As the enemy drew near,
he was almost declared medically unfit and sent home.
In contrast to his meticulous farm production records,
McGregor’s diary provides little detail of the personal
trials of illness and hunger, and any ailments are only
noted in passing. And yet through three and a half years
spent in captivity it seems that he suffered from a range
of aff lictions, including: scabies, tropical ulcers and
PHOTO CREDITS, OPPOSITE PAGE: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; THIS PAGE: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
McGregor’s efforts undoubtedly helped save many lives;
but unlike his egg tally, such a number would always have
defied calculation. The Eggologist of Changi was unas-
suming throughout, writing as late as December 1944 that:
“It has been said that men’s lives have been saved in some
instances by these [eggs]. Perhaps an exaggeration, but if the
effort has assisted in the saving of one life it has been worth it.”

unspecified fevers; a kidney complaint and chronic back

pain; and an excruciatingly swollen testicle, the “size of an
emu egg”.
He twice required surgery for the removal of painful
cysts. But whatever ailed McGregor, he always knew
that he was one of the lucky ones. In August 1944 he
reflected on:
As I went to take my leave from that Wollongong hospi-
tal room, Guy Baker’s eyes became moist. No words were
needed to mark our parting. His eyes said it all. They spoke
to me with ineffable gratitude, telling me that, yes, Ian
McGregor had saved at least one life, and the selflessness
of one among many had all been worth it. AG

“…how fortunate I was to miss the rigors [sic] & privations of

the trip to the north...I would have gone gladly had I been asked Ian McGregor was Mentioned in “personally more than sorry that
but in no way pressed the point.” Dispatches for his efforts during such devotion to duty was not
three and a half years as a POW. adequately recognised”. Aged
He was simply glad not to work for the enemy, but in Lieutenant Colonel (later Major 56, McGregor died in 1964.
truth he would not have survived. General Sir) Frederick Galleghan In the 2007 Queen’s Birthday
DSO OBE ISO ED, commander Honours, just before he died,
McGregor brooded on “years of anxiety and loneli- of the 8th Division in captivity, Guy Baker was awarded the
ness...and such an intolerable waste of time”. They were, nominated McGregor for the Order of Australia Medal (OAM)
in quoting the Bible, the “years the locusts have eaten”. award of Member of the Order for his service to the welfare of
He suffered bouts of depression, but his great weapon of the British Empire (MBE). It veterans and their families.
in fighting despair was a sense of purpose – a deeply felt was denied, and Galleghan was
compulsion to do all he could for men who were in a far
Quotes relating directly to Ian McGregor are from diaries and
more wretched state than himself. As much as these were papers held by the McGregor family. I thank my brothers Tim and
wasted years, they were also years tempered by “faith and Andrew for their help with that material and with this story. I also
hope and charity”. thank Guy Baker’s daughter Roslyn for her assistance.

September . October 105

 Travel with Us
Explore Escape Discover

Beautiful leafy
seadragons can often be
spotted under the jetty in
Tumby Bay, SA.

P108

Gulf Country
driving
adventure

P118

Here be dragons
PHOTO CREDIT: JAMIE COOTE

Visit the seadragon capital of South Australia

Australian Geographic Society expeditions Going wild Road trip

Recommended travel Expedition diary Festivals and Events
September . October 107
 Travelling in the NT Gulf region
will invariably mean tackling a
water crossing. If approached
with caution (and not driving too
fast) they’re easily achieved and
add memorable moments to
your adventures.

Where the
wild things are
The Northern Territory’s Gulf Country is
big, bold and beautiful, and your road trip
there will be all that and more.
Story and photography by Justin Walker

108 Australian Geographic

 The edge
of the world The Northern Terri-
tory’s Gulf Country
is one of this country’s most rugged and remote regions,
but one that is surprisingly accessible to adventurous
vehicle-borne families and explorers. Here, visitors
have the chance to immerse themselves in a rich and
thriving Indigenous culture and an ancient landscape,
along with spotting some of Australia’s more unique
fauna and flora, overnighting at a selection of the world’s
most amazing campsites, and retracing the steps of early
European explorers. In short, it’s a wild land but one
that can be experienced relatively easily and memorably
by well-prepared travellers.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a couple of weeks
or more to disappear and go off-grid with your family,
then exploring what is one of Australia’s most pristine
and remote areas – the NT Gulf Country – should sit
high on your dream trip bucket list. This part of Australia
is ideal for those chasing true adventure, thanks to its
mix of cultural heritage, ancient terrain and the fact it
contains some of this country’s more elusive wildlife
(think dugongs, crocodiles and an abundance of birdlife).
This circuit of some Gulf-region highlights will ensure
you see and experience all of the aforementioned.
An excuse for a delayed start
The regional centre of Katherine, on the Stuart Highway
(about 3 hours south of Darwin), is your starting point
and the ideal place for picking up supplies. It’s also a
great example of not rushing to get going on a road
trip, thanks to neighbouring Nitmiluk National
Park, a 30km drive east of the town. Besides the park’s Wending through Nitmiluk NP, Katherine Gorge has a series
renowned gorge and river, it has an excellent camp- of waterholes to visit. You can swim, canoe, fish or boat cruise
ing ground (powered and unpowered sites) and visitor here, or join an Aboriginal tour to discover its Dreaming stories.
centre, and is well worth a few nights stopover, allow-
ing you time to explore the park on foot and/or in a
canoe or kayak. The visitor centre contains plenty of it a multi-day experience, with campsites at gorges
info (and knowledgeable staff ) to ensure you see the four, six and nine (a permit is required to use a
best parts of the park, focused on the gorge system that privately owned canoe/kayak in Nitmiluk NP). This
is its centrepiece. allows you to continue deep into the gorge system, way
One of the best ways to explore the 13 separate past where most visitors venture. Just be prepared for a
gorges that make up Nitmiluk is to jump in a canoe. For few portages (carrying your canoe past sections of rapids)
those visitors who don’t have their own, you can hire as you move from one gorge to another. The effort will
one for a half- or full day. You can also hire canoes for pay you back in spades as you enjoy a night under the
an overnight trip and camp at the fourth gorge. How- stars with the flowing water of the gorge for company.
ever, even a daytrip in a canoe is brilliant; watching for For walkers, Nitmiluk has numerous tracks, including
turtles, freshwater crocs, Jawoyn rock art and birdlife will the Jatbula Trail, a multi-day trek that takes walkers from
PHOTO CREDIT: DAVID HANCOCK

keep you occupied, as will stopping off at the numerous
beaches along gorges one, two and three and going for
a swim. Note: the gorge system is checked for saltwater
crocs at the end of the wet season. Before heading out
check with parks staff regarding any saltie alerts.
For those who have their own watercraft, you
can stretch out your gorge(s) exploration and make
Nitmiluk through amazing country to Leliyn (Edith
Falls), where another fantastic campsite is found, as well
as great swimming. There are many other shorter walks
that follow the cliffs of the gorge system – and there are
even a few overnight campsites as well – so the keen
walking family will have plenty to keep them occupied
when camping at Nitmiluk for a few days.

September . October 109

 The campsites at Seven
Emu Station offer sublime There are brilliant private cattle stations and
views over the Robinson
River, a haven for birdlife. wilderness parks that offer plenty of adventure.
To the Gulf
After a few days of exploring Nitmiluk NP it’s time to
pack the vehicle and continue east along mainly
sealed roads toward Limmen National Park,
following the Stuart Highway before turning
left (or east) onto the Roper Highway, which is
itself part of the very popular tourist route, the
Savannah Way, that traverses Australia’s northern
regions and links Western Australia to Queensland.
The turn-off to the Roper Highway is also the entry
point for those wishing to visit Elsey National Park
(where the mighty Roper River actually begins its
journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria) and the famous
Mataranka Thermal Pool. These springs are a must-see,
and swim, before continuing east towards Roper Bar.
It’s about 1.5 hours after Elsey NP that you will encoun-
ter your first stretch of dirt/unsealed road before you
reach the township of Ngukurr, where we’d suggest
refuelling and restocking anything you forgot to buy at
Katherine. If you’re a keen angler, we’d also recommend
a short side-trip north-east from here to the fishing
110 Australian Geographic
Mecca of Numbulwar (you will need a Northern Land
Council permit to drive the track to this community
and also to stay there), right on the coast, which offers
boat access to the Gulf. From Ngukurr, you will turn
south, entering one of the NT’s lesser known, but utterly
spectacular, national parks.
Going big
Limmen NP is the Territory’s third largest, at a massive
10,000sq.km. So yeah, it’s big – as are many of its wild
inhabitants. It is easy to spend a week camping in this
park, exploring its massive waterways and rugged land-
scape, fishing and bushwalking. For anglers keen on
catching one of the NT’s famed barramundi, this is one
of the best places to find them. The park itself abuts the
Gulf of Carpentaria and is fed by numerous big water-
ways, such as the Roper, Limmen Bight and Towns
rivers, all of which contain this famed sportfish. The
Limmen Bight Fishing Camp still allows fishing off the
coastline as well, with both Numbulwar and Limmen
Bight Fishing Camp offering boat-launching sites.

Lorella Springs Wilderness Park on Lorella Springs Station (below)
offers fantastic camping, brilliant fishing, numerous hot springs to
soak in and what would have to rank as one of the best outback
bars in the NT (above).
Big rivers also mean rather large reptiles. Whatever
you do, avoid swimming in any of the waterways in this
park because the huge saltwater crocodile is prevalent
throughout. If you’re keen to spot a saltie, you won’t have
to work hard; they are easily sighted sunning themselves
along the banks of the park’s rivers. Limmen NP has a
number of boat ramps so if you do have a boat – or are
keen to jump on board a hire charter – you may also
catch sight of the Gulf ’s shyest resident: the dugong.
These gentle marine mammals inhabit the waters in this
region, and spotting one provides a lifelong memory.
The national park is dotted with excellent camping
grounds, including one of my favourites, Towns River
in the park’s northern section (others in this region
include Yurrimundji, Munbililla, Mountain Creek
and Didi Baba). As you enter the park’s southern section
you are further spoilt for bush accommodation choices.
Limmen River, Butterfly Falls and the Southern Lost
City campsites are all good. Speaking of which, the
Southern Lost City is a great opportunity to get out and
explore the fascinating rock formations of the region
Parked at Seven Emu Station sorting out food and supplies.
This station is a must-visit for everyone to the region, with fishing,
camping and excellent wild- and birdlife spotting.
– and get a swim in; Butterfly Falls is the only location
in the park safe for swimming (but still check with parks
authorities beforehand). An overnight stop here is one
well spent. For those in a high-clearance four-wheel-
drive, don’t miss the Western Lost City (you will need
a gate access code from the ranger station at Nathan
River) and its sandstone rock formations that resemble
a block of city flats.
Station life
As well as the Gulf ’s awesome national parks, there
are some brilliant private cattle stations and wilderness
parks that offer plenty of adventure, great camping and
an insight into life in this part of Australia. Just south of
the Southern Lost City camping ground is the turn-off
to Lorella Springs Wilderness Park. This million-acre
property is an outdoor playground for 4WD tourers,
bushwalkers and anglers. It stretches all the way to the
Gulf coast and its multitude of tracks make exploring
brilliant fun. You can also relax in the many thermal
springs on the property (owner Rhett Walker estimates
there to be more than 100). The main spring is right
next to the camping ground – and just a few steps from
the campsite’s bar.
Returning to the Lorella Springs turn-off, we
continue south to the park’s southern entrance,
rejoining the bitumen Carpentaria Highway at
Cape Crawford (and refuelling). From here,
follow this highway 110km east to Borroloola.
This large centre is a base for numerous
fishing adventures; as well as fishing, boat-
borne adventurers can also explore the
Continued page 114
A blue-winged kookaburra
perches on a tree branch,
which offers the best
view of potential prey.
September . October 111
 THE NORTHERN TERRITORY’S GULF COUNTRY

Nine rivers drain

into the NT’s Gulf
region, making this
unspoilt area one
of the Territory’s
best remote fishing
destinations.

Fact
The NT Gulf region
sits between the wet
tropics and the arid
zone. Summer temps
exceed 40oC and
rainfall 800mm.

112 Australian Geographic

 Impressive rivers and cascading
waterfalls are par for the course after the
wet season in Gulf Country. Good prep equals good times

T
RAVELLING in remote regions of Australia means you need to
ensure you are fully prepared and self-sufficient. As much as
the wonders of technology (mobile phones, etc.) have brought
humanity ‘closer’ together than ever, a lot of Australia is still seriously
remote, with no phone reception, and, in the case of mechanical fail-
ures or medical-related incidents, help is far away. This means
ensuring you’ve packed all the equipment you need to cover both
of those (and any other) potential incidents that may occur. Fingers
crossed, they won’t, but it’s best to be prepared for them just in case.
Here are our top 10 essentials for remote-area travel in Australia.

The essentials
When to go: May to September is the
best time to visit the Top End and Gulf
Country. The weather is more settled, and
the wet season has (usually) finished so
most roadways will be clear of floodwaters.
What to drive: We’d recommend a 4WD
for this road trip – and ensure it is diesel-
powered (for better fuel economy and fuel
availability; petrol is not always available
at remote communities), has been recently
serviced and has appropriate tyres fitted.
If you don’t own one of these vehicles, hiring
one is the go. Britz has an excellent Toyota
LandCruiser-based 4WD camper that
includes a rooftop tent and annexe (for up
to five people), portable shower, all kitchen
gear, fridge/freezer and heaps of other
equipment. There’s also a 4WD van for
couples, or a Toyota HiLux-based set-up
option. See britz.com.au
Accommodation: The Top End and Gulf
Country contain a number of accommo-
dation options, ranging from national park
bush camping grounds through to luxury
station stays. For information on camp and
national park fees see parksandwildlife.
nt.gov.au For station stays at Seven Emu
Station and Lorella Springs Wilderness Park,
see sevenemustation.com.au and
lorellasprings.com.au
National parks: For the latest info on the
NT’s national parks, see nt.gov.au/leisure/
parks-reserves
Permits: To access Aboriginal communi-
ties and travel through Aboriginal-owned
land you may need a permit to drive roads
and also for overnight camping in a commu-
nity. For the necessary info on this,
see nlc.org.au
A serviced vehicle. If you own
1 a 4WD and intend venturing off
sealed-surface roads, make sure
your mechanic is experienced in
servicing and preparing vehicles for
outback travel. Things like suspen-
sion, all engine bay hoses, and other
high-wear components should all be
checked before you head out.
Spare parts.
2 Not all of us
are accomplished
mechanics but parts
like radiator hoses
are relatively Changing a tyre
straightforward to is an essential
replace and should skill for travellers.
be carried in your
vehicle.
A second spare
3 tyre/wheel. Having a
second spare is a no-brainer;
outback roads and tracks to
Indigenous communities are
unsealed, often rough and don’t see
much maintenance.
A puncture-repair kit. These
4 are brilliant and easy to use, so
pack one in the back of your vehicle.
A 4WD driver-training course.
5 Most modern 4WDs drive just
like an everyday sedan or station
wagon, but to learn how to make
the most of their additional features,
such as low-range gearing, enrol in a
driver-training course.
Carry plenty of water in
6 separate containers. As much
as an inbuilt water tank sounds
fantastic, if that’s your only source
of hydration and it springs a leak,
you’ll be left high and dry. Allow for
10L per day, per person for most
eastern seaboard trips, and 20L/day
for dry or tropical regions.
Communications are an
7 absolute essential. A UHF
radio is okay for when
chatting to nearby
vehicles, but it has
limited range. For fully
effective comms you
need a satellite
phone; hire one for
the duration of your
trip.
Versatile
8equipment. Take
gear that can do ‘double-duty’
at camp, i.e. a swag, which you keep
rolled up as a seat until it’s bedtime.
Fridge/freezer. These units
9 are a godsend for remote-area
travel because they keep your food
fresh if you plan on being away from
civilisation for a week or so. Some
larger units include a separate
freezer. For shorter overnight trips
near home, an esky is ideal.
An EPIRB or emergency
10
beacon. Some units offer a
simple emergency signal that’s
emitted once you hit the button.
With others, such as the Garmin
inReach, you can check in with your
family each day via email/text when
you reach the day’s destination.

September . October 113

 A sea mist that has moved inland from the coast shrouds a
Gulf Country campsite and covers the swags and tent in droplets
of moisture.
The levels at the Robinson River crossing just before
Seven Emu Station are low enough in the dry season to allow
traffic through.
Sir Edward Pellew Group of islands just off the Gulf
coast from Batten Point. You can even camp out at
Barranyi (North Island) National Park, at its Paradise
Bay camping ground (permits apply).
From Borroloola, our road trip route turns south-east
and continues for 68km to the turn-off to Seven Emu
Station. The station itself is reached via a 4WD-only
road (which includes a crossing of the Robinson River,
so be sure to ring the station to check depth before cross-
ing). I was lucky enough to visit Seven Emu Station back
in 2009 and can vouch for it being probably one of the
most unique – and spectacular – camping destinations
in the Gulf region.
The station is run by the Shadforth family, with
traditional owner Frank Shadforth running tourism-
based activities here, while his son, Clarry, looks after
the cattle and stock side. Frank’s father was one of the
first-known Aboriginal people to buy a pastoral lease,
back in 1953. Interestingly, Frank has partnered with
the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to create what is
the first private nature reserve in the Gulf region. The
Pungalina-Seven Emu Wildlife Sanctuary subleases close
114 Australian Geographic
A morning looking out for
crocs, dugong and turtles is
a great way to spend time.
to half of the station and, along with additional land,
comprises a total of 3050sq.km. It protects 50 mammal,
and more than 200 bird and 100 reptile species found
here.
Visitors to Seven Emu Station not only have the
chance to participate in cultural tours with Frank him-
self, but also get to see how one of these big cattle stations
works, all while camping at what I think are close to
the best campsites in Australia.
The station has six cliff campsites – all private from
each other – that provide amazing views, perched above
the vast Robinson River directly below. A morning
looking out for crocs, dugong and turtles in the waters
below is a great way to spend your time. Or you can
explore the property and the coastline it adjoins. Make
sure you spend a few days here.
The final leg
From the station, Savannah Way continues south on
more graded dirt road. You can follow it (and the Gulf
Coast) into Queensland, or you can turn right onto
Calvert Road (about two hours south of Seven Emu
Station turn-off ) and start making your way back to
Katherine – the long way. Our suggestion would be
to follow Calvert Road until the Tablelands Highway
junction, then turn south again and aim for the Barkly
Homestead Roadhouse. You’ll travel through the lunar-
esque Barkly Tableland during this leg – a stark contrast
to the lush Gulf region you’ve just left, but amazing
in its own right. The roadhouse is a favourite among
Australian Geographic’s 4WD touring experts,
especially after a week and a half of bush camping with
only the occasional dip in a swimming hole. The camping
ground at the homestead is excellent (hot showers!), the
restaurant is brilliant and the location is pretty cool, too.
From here it’s only a few hours west along the Barkly
Highway, then the Stuart Highway, to reach Tennant
Creek, the NT’s fifth-largest town and the centre of the
Barkly region. Spend a few days of rest and exploration
here. The Devils Marbles are only an hour down the
Stuart Highway (and the “UFO centre of Australia”,
Wycliffe Well, about 20 minutes further south), while
Tennant Creek’s goldmines are worth a look via a guided
tour as well.
From Tennant Creek, the drive back up the Stuart
Highway to Katherine can be as quick or slow as you like.
I’d suggest you choose the latter and revel in the NT’s rich
culture, bold landscapes, unique wildlife and cracking
campsites. It’s a definite for the road-trip bucket list. AG
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 TRAVEL
The Australian Geographic team has put together unique and authentic trips for our readers and anyone
who is interested in exploring the fauna, flora, history and culture of Australia.
All trips have been curated with an emphasis on discovering hidden gems off the beaten track
and offer sustainable travel experiences that you're unlikely to find anywhere else.

RAYMOND ISLAND, VICTORIA
CONSERVATION TOUR
5–9 November 2020
8–12 April 2021
4–8 November 2021
This special trip to Raymond Island
allows you to become involved and
provide assistance in a region that
suffered horrendous wildlife losses as
a result of the 2019–20 bushfires.
These fires destroyed nearly 2 million
hectares of forest in the far south-
eastern corner of Australia and killed
untold millions of wild animals.
Raymond Island itself was not burnt
and has now become a significant
island ark for many species of plants
and animals including koalas,
kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and
many bird species. Join this trip and
you'll be helping locals with a wild
koala research project on the island.
KAKADU AND ARNHEM LAND,
NORTHERN TERRITORY
15–25 September 2020
1–11 June 2021
4–14 September 2021
See spectacular landscapes and
experience the world’s oldest living
culture firsthand as we take you on
a remote journey into the Northern
Territory’s Top End. Our exclusive
itinerary provides travellers with an
intimate glimpse into the lives of
Aboriginal people and offers the
opportunity to meet and interact on
their home soil. You’ll also experience
some of Australia's most picturesque
scenery as we travel through Kakadu
and Arnhem Land. On this 4WD safari
you’ll experience ‘country’ through
sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
This is a truly extraordinary and
authentic NT experience.
MARIA ISLAND WALK,
TASMANIA
25–29 November 2020
19–23 February 2021
24–28 November 2021
Recognised as one of Australia’s truly
outstanding experiences, the four-day
Maria Island Walk is a delightful blend
of rare wildlife, fascinating history,
island tranquillity and gourmet
delights. Maria is a beautiful island
national park off Tasmania’s east
coast, and our small groups of just
10 guests and two friendly guides
will explore its pristine beaches,
ancient forests and World Heritage
sites by day before, each night,
relaxing at a mouthwatering dinner.
A Noah’s Ark for rare animals and
birds, some of which are found
nowhere else, Maria is also one of the
best places in Oz to see wombats.

cost $1848/person twin share cost $5715/person twin share cost $2599/person twin share
$378 single supplement $1879 single supplement

Fo r f u l l d e t a i l s a n d t e r m s a n d c o n d i t i o n s v i s i t t h e w e b s i t e o r c o n t a c t o u r t r a v e l t e a m
118 Australian Geographic
 The eyes have it. This mesmerising
portrait of a young Aboriginal man
on the side wall of the Tumby Bay
Yacht Club greets passers-by. It's a
collaboration between artists
Matt Adnate and Vera Richards .

The colours
of Tumby Bay
Exploring the many faces of this charmingly idiosyncratic
South Australian town by the sea.

Story and photography by Cathy Finch

September . October 119

 The cool waters under Tumby Bay’s jetty (top) provide the perfect home
for ornate leafy seadragons. Nearby, a mural of a snapper (above), painted
by Australian-born and Glasgow-based street artist Smug, expresses the
town’s love of fishing and the ocean.

120 Australian Geographic

 South
Australia

Tumby Bay ADELAIDE

The air is brisk with a savage

bite here in South Australia,
perhaps reaching 10oC if I
stand on tippy-toes, as the
warmest air rises.
Still, it doesn’t stop two skimpily clad bodies
rushing over the foreshore’s f luorescent green-
coloured grass and plunging into the arms of its
intoxicating bay.
Tumby Bay, on the shores of the Eyre Peninsula, has
always drawn a carefree, easygoing crowd, and had its
first visit by Matthew Flinders back in 1802. He named
the bay and nearby island after the village of Tumby,
located near his own birthplace in Lincolnshire, England,
although I can’t imagine it projecting the same alluring
shades of blue.
Backed by the rolling Koppio Hills, this historic sea- Cafe L’Anse chef Marvin Lattrez with wife Grace (above, at left)
and Gemma Whittaker offers superb meals as well as tasty
side village provides a tranquil haven for many of the
French treats, including croffins (top), a hybrid croissant muffin.
area’s retired, hardworking sheep and wheat farmers,
together with enthusiastic fishers, ex-city dwellers and
ocean lovers. Perhaps its biggest catch to date is a resident
chef who previously cooked for the French president You have a different background, different heritage, and
Jacques Chirac. different food. I mean, people eat eggs and bacon in the
“What brings the French president’s chef to Tumby morning? I was like, what? Coffee as well – it’s just like
Bay?” I ask his wife, Grace Lattrez. an extraction for us. You press the button and you have
“We were working in Melbourne at the time,” long black or espresso. That’s it. We don’t have all these
she replies. “We had moved from France and Marvin things based on milk. But I have always loved making
was supposed to go online to find a vehicle for us to pastry. That was easy. I studied dessert.”
see more of Australia. Instead, he came to me with a

Gumtree add for a business for sale, asking if I would
move to South Australia. Neither of us knew anything
about SA, let alone the Eyre Peninsula or Tumby Bay,
but we flew in for a look. The rest is history, really.
It was just a feeling.”
Marvin and Grace moved to Tumby Bay two years
ago with the idea of taking up surfing and paddle board-
ing – but instead their French cafe, L’Anse, has them
riding the wave of people lined up down the street in
the summertime.
“It was a steep learning curve for me,” says Marvin.
“Being a chef, everything in Australia was new to me.
G
RACE GOES ON to share with me a little more
of the man behind the story. Marvin, it seems,
is exceptionally talented – not that he will tell
you that. Having won a prestigious cooking competition
in the town where the president lived, and classified as
the number one chef in his entire cooking academy, his
first job was as the president’s personal chef.
Marvin runs from the kitchen to our table wearing a
huge French grin. “You must try my croffin,” he gushes.
“A croffin?” I press. “Oh, yes. It’s when a croissant
meets a muffin. It’s a croffin. Croissant artmaking really
has been reborn. It’s a real thing, you know.”

September . October 121


Tumby Bay locals gather daily at the jetty to socialise and
resolve many of seaside hamlet’s most pressing issues,
ranging from the need for a new fish-filleting table to fresh art
installations that both beautify the town and attract visitors.
Later that day I make my way to the town jetty where
a bunch of local men are gathered. A visitor pulls up with
an ACT registration plate and asks, tongue in cheek,
“What’s this – the local CWA group?”
“No, mate,” says sheep farmer Ian Charlton. “We’re
the senate. We fix the problems in an hour that you guys
[in Canberra] take two years to solve.”
It’s the sort of humour that seems to tumble from
the locals, and I realise I have stumbled on the town’s
‘information centre’ – a group of local retirees who
gather regularly for a chat down here on the jetty.
“There’s a morning group as well that come for a
chinwag,” Ian says, with a chuckle. “And a 90-year-old
lady who comes each morning for her swim.”
I sit and chat with the lads for a long while, hearing
about the area’s King George whiting catches, year-
round sailing habits, swimming, diving, dolphins, sea
lions and, proudly, their leafy seadragons, which live
under the jetty.
“There’s tons to do in Tumby,” says Sticks (Ian and
I are on a nickname basis now). “At the moment we’re
restoring the town well that used to be Tumby Bay’s
water supply from 1849 to 1949. Everyone wants
something to do. We all know who’s good
at what and the jobs just get handed out.
Like that filleting table over there that
the boys are cleaning their King
George whiting on. It was talked
about at the pub on Friday night
and by Tuesday it was there.
Someone had a sink and some-
one else had some stainless steel.
The whole community works
together.
“And have you seen our art
trail yet? It’s incredible. A King George whiting mosaic.
group of the local ladies got
122 Australian Geographic
I sit and chat with the lads about
King George whiting catches, sea
lions and their leafy seadragons.
Local fishing legend Tumby Tom (Tierney), who lives across
the road from the jetty, shows off his fishing wall of fame. He also
has an incredible collection of shells, coral and seahorse skeletons
from years spent on the local beaches.
together to make it happen. Honestly, the mosaic work
is really beautiful.”
The 1km Leafy to Sleepy mosaic trail, twisting
around the narrow, sandy seafront, is the work of
55 community members who created mosaic pavers
from photographs provided by locals.
And then there’s Tumby’s renowned silo art. In 2018
Argentinian artist Martin Ron and his good friend Matt
Gorrick spent 28 days and 430L of paint depicting the
joy of Tumby Bay in an image of two boys jumping
from the town jetty.
Not only did it win the silos, and the town, a place
in the Australian Silo Art Trail, but it kicked off the
inaugural Colour Tumby Street Art Festival. Now held
annually in March/April, it attracts artists from around
the world who converge on the town to add to its murals.
“It really is quite amazing to see what they can do
with a spray can,” says Paul Neindorf, Tumby’s
friendly grocer. “People come from every-
where to watch them work. The streets
here are packed.”
Paul has run the general store for
the past 27 years. Built in 1898, it
has traded through many changes,
and he admits, “Not everyone is a
mural fan. Some installations don’t
appeal, but that’s art. I think it’s great.
It has certainly brought a new look to
the town. The eyes on the Aboriginal
portrait painted on the side of the Yacht
Club stare right into your soul.”

F
EATURING PREDOMINANTLY in the works is the
area’s ornate leafy seadragon population. Endemic
to the southern waters of Australia, these elaborate
masters of disguise blend delicately into the beds of swaying
seagrass under the town jetty. Local Jamie Coote, or
Yook, as everyone knows him, has become a well-known
ambassador for the leafies.
“The first time I saw a leafy seadragon, I was just
blown away,” he says. “I was like a giddy schoolkid. I just
wanted to rush home to go through my photos and tell
everyone about it. Many of the locals had no idea what
was living under the jetty. In fact, I was even called a
liar. So it became my mission to teach the locals and the
kids at school about what was here, and how to look after
it. Unfortunately, we had five adult seadragons taken a
while ago, which was a big hit for our population. It is
still recovering”.
While these decorative dragons are highly sought
after as pets, thankfully the Australian government has
placed a protective order on the species, which is listed
as near threatened on the IUCN list, so taking one home
now comes with a hefty fine. There is no protection for
their habitat, however, and its destruction continues to
be a huge problem for the conservation of the species.
Yook and I meet at the jetty in the early morning
and together we descend into the dark, shadowy waters
in search of this fairytale-like creature. Gliding past
While searching for leafy seadragons
beneath the Tumby Bay jetty, divers
encounter sea stars that measure
much larger than a human hand.
pylons covered in coloured sponges, we head for patches
of swaying kelp and seaweed, the perfect hiding spot for
a leafy seadragon. With clouded visibility, it’s an eerie
feeling weaving in and out of this cold-water landscape,
past huge starfish wielding 11 arms, numerous nudi-
branchs and different species of fish. Sadly, we don’t
happen upon any dragons, but Yook later shows me
photos of the 14 he’s documented, including a large
male laden with eggs (see page 107).
After I exit the water, local fishing guru Tumby Tom
(Tierney) invites me across the road to his house to see
some skeletons that have washed up on the beach. “We
can’t have you leaving without seeing one,” he says,
clearly proud of the aquatic dragons. With all the delicacy
of handling the Queen’s jewels, he opens a cabinet, to
reveal his fine china. Exotic shells, coral and seahorses,
from a lifetime of beachcombing and collecting, are on
display. Reaching right to the back of the cabinet he picks
up the exquisitely preserved remains of SA’s emblem,
the delicate leafy seadragon. Even skeletonised, it’s a rare
and treasured sight.
I vow to Tom that I’ll return in the summertime to
see, finger’s crossed, these exquisite animals mating and,
of course, to eat more croffins. AG
HOW TO SEE: Guided Leafy Sea Dragon Tours, The Dive
Shop, Port Lincoln. Call Yook on 0472 625 735.
September . October 123
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at australiangeographic.com.au
or call 1300 555 176

Out early
November
Join us next issue
A life on our planet
Sir David Attenborough shares his hopes for the future of the
natural world in an exclusive extract from his new book.

PLUS:
Kimberley: the last true wilderness Echidnas Unearthing Australia’s
climate history Indigenous fire management Leafy seadragons
PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

While waiting for your next issue, get your daily hit of fascinating
AG stories and stunning photography at:

australiangeographic.com.au
The original and the best mountain film festival.
Featuring a collection of films from around the
globe that capture the spirit of mountain adventure.

VIEW THE TRAILER, DATES & BOOK NOW

www.banffaustralia.com.au
Image © Ben Tibbetts
PRESENTED BY AN EVENT BY
 Expedition diary Please check directly
with the individual
operators on the status
of these experiences.
At the time of going to

AG SOCIETY HOSTED EXPERIENCES press they were

proceeding as planned,
Come on an adventure with us while raising funds for the AG Society at the same time. but things may change
due to COVID-19.

Citizen Science on the

Great Barrier Reef
J
ourney to the outer Great Barrier
Reef (GBR) with a special Citizen
Science expedition, in partnership
with GBR Legacy and the Australian
Geographic Society. Hosted by Dr Dean
Miller, and accompanied by Dr Charlie
Veron and John Rumney, you will take a
30 veritable marine science masterclass
JUNE exploring remote outer reef systems.
2021 Join experts to assist surveying
remote reefs for diverse coral species
and other marine life. Discover the GBR’s
unforgettable Ribbon Reefs, snorkel with
HOSTED BY dwarf minke whales and unwind with
DR DEAN MILLER sunset drinks at deserted sand cays.
Partnership proceeds will help fund GBR
Legacy’s Living Coral Biobank project.

WHO: Coral Expeditions

DATES: 10 nights | 30 June 2021 hosted
by Dr Dean Miller
COST: From $12,400 per person
BOOKINGS: Call 1800 079 545,
email explore@ coralexpeditions.com or
visit the website (see below)

Coastal wilds
of Tasmania E xplore Australia’s pristine island state,
where World Heritage wilderness
teems with native wildlife and the mighty
Southern Ocean meets rugged
mountains and soaring granite cliffs.
17 JAN With Australian Geographic host
2021 Justin Jones, hike the pristine
wilderness trails of isolated Port Davey,
discover convict heritage and unique
wildlife on Maria Island and dip into the
refreshing waters of Wineglass Bay.
Onboard, enjoy food and wine from
Tasmania’s fertile valleys, making this
an experience for all the senses.

WHO: Coral Expeditions

DATES: 10 nights | 17 January 2021
COST: from $7200 per person
BOOKINGS: Call 1800 079 545,
HOSTED BY AG’S JUSTIN JONES email explore@ coralexpeditions.com or
visit the website (see below)

BOOKINGS: coralexpeditions.com

128 Australian Geographic

 Expedition diary September . October 2020

Banrock Station:
walks, wildlife
and wine
A visit to the Ramsar-accredited
Banrock Station Wine & Wetland
Centre is more than just a visit to a
Cellar Door. Located in the heart of the
Riverland, South Australia, the Banrock
Station Wetlands has more than
1400ha of floodplains, woodlands,
shrublands and native mallee habitat.
All this is home to more than 180
different types of bird, including the
rare regent parrot. With three self-
guided walking tracks, information huts
OPEN
and bird-viewing hides, you are sure to
YEAR-
spot an abundance of wildlife. ROUND

WHO: Banrock Station

DATES: Year round. Free self-guided
walking tours.
MORE INFORMATION: 08 8583 0299,
email cellardoor@banrockstation.com.au
or visit the website (see below)

BOOKINGS: www.banrockstation.com.au

APRIL–
SEPT 7–9
2021 OCT
2020

APT Kimberley Aussie Ark experience

Wilderness Adventures
J oin our expert driver-guides
for an off-road journey of a
lifetime. On our 12-day Iconic
Kimberley small group 4WD
journey, you’ll explore hidden
wonders like Mitchell Falls and
the breathtaking Bungle Bungles.
And after exploring by day,
relax in APT’s exclusive luxury
wilderness lodges. APT has been
operating tours in the Kimberley
BOOKINGS: aptouring.com.au/gkbk12
for more than 40 years, and
are experts in tailoring holidays
to showcase the best of this
magical region.
WHO: APT Touring
DATES: April–Sept 2021
COST: From $7995pp, twin share
SAVE: $1600 per couple*
*Conditions apply.
BOOKINGS: email (see below)
J oin Tim Faulkner for a unique
hands-on experience with WHO: Aussie Ark
this breeding program for the
Tasmanian devil and eastern quoll
DATES: 7–9 October 2020
COST: From $1400pp
in the beautiful Barrington Tops BOOKINGS:
of NSW. You will see devils up Call 02 4340 8610
close, as you help with feeding and or email (see below)
monitoring individuals. There’ll also
be opportunities to explore the
region’s natural treasures and spot
local wildlife at night. Don’t miss your
chance to get involved.
BOOKINGS: admin@devilark.org.au

September . October 129

The art of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
AG’s archives are a treasure trove of scientific illustration and botanical and
zoological art. Here we revisit some of the highlights from our vast collection.

Lloyd Godson was named the

AGS 2007 Adventurer
of the Year for his underwater
experiment in survival
and sustainability.

The famous THE PLAN OF marine biologist Lloyd Godson to live under water in a dam near Albury,
New South Wales, netted him the $50,000 first prize in AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’s 2005
BioSub Live Your Dream competition. For 12 days Lloyd breathed oxygen produced by algae,
generated electricity by riding a bike and held daily internet classroom sessions, while having
By Mick Posen his cognitive and physiological health monitored using software designed for NASA astro-
nauts. He became a global sensation. The steel BioSub in which he did all that measured
Underwater man
2.4m wide by 3 long by 2 high and took 18 months to design and build. It was an experiment
lives his dream,
in biospherics, the science of ecological systems, and Lloyd set out to prove it was possible
AG 87, Jul–Sep 2008
to survive under water using a self-contained life-support system. Critical to the experiment
was a ‘biocoil’ – 90m of clear PVC tubing filled with bright green Chlorella sp. microalgae that
provided up to 10 per cent of his oxygen. As shown here, the submerged BioSub lent itself
very well to a detailed cutaway technical illustration by British illustrator Mick Posen.

130 Australian Geographic

 Discover the remarkable stories of ordinary Australians
in this exhibition celebrating the bush, the outback, the
coast and the people who live there.

EXHIBITION ON SHOW
PINE RIVERS HERITAGE MUSEUM | WHITESIDE, QLD | 16 October 2020 – 14 February 2021
ORANGE REGIONAL MUSEUM | ORANGE, NSW | 21 October - 22 November 2020

A travelling exhibition from the National Museum

of Australia developed in collaboration with
Australian Geographic. Photograph by Colin Beard.
nma.gov.au/portrait-of-australia