May - June 2024

Australian Geographic

The journal of the Australian Geographic Society

Australian Geographic3 min read
From the Editor
AUSTRALIAN WILDLIFE IS Something you’ll always find a lot of in the pages of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC. It is, after all, very much part of what makes this country so special, and bringing stories to you about our extraordinary flora and fauna has always
Australian Geographic2 min read
Obsessed With Obsession
WHEN IT CAME to assigning a photographer to cover the World Solar Challenge, from Darwin to Adelaide, we had to have Thomas Wielecki! As well as being a long-time contributor to AG, Thomas has been shooting for motoring magazines and auto companies f
Australian Geographic1 min read
Australian Geographic
EDITOR Karen McGhee SENIOR DESIGNER Mel Tiyce GROUP PICTURE EDITOR Nicky Catley CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Maggie Cooper STAFF WRITER AND SUB-EDITOR Esme Mathis DIRECTOR OF CARTOGRAPHY Will Pringle PROOFREADER Susan McCreery COPY EDITOR Jo Hartmann AUSTRALIAN
Australian Geographic5 min read
Your Say
Political prisoners are nothing new (AG179). From its earliest days, Australia was used as a dumping ground for Irish rebels and anyone else who dared to challenge British authority. In the 1830s, however, events in Canada would bring a new complexio
Australian Geographic1 min read
Big Picture Historic hop
THIS IS THE first moment in more than 70 years that a woylie (brush-tailed bettong) has leapt free into Central Australia’s desert country. Once prevalent across much of the mainland, the woylie is now extinct or critically endangered in most of its
Australian Geographic7 min read
Geobits: Bite-sized News And Events
NORTHERN AUSTRALIA’S First Nations people have been practising fire management for at least 11,000 years, confirms new research published in Nature Geoscience by scientists from Queensland’s James Cook University (JCU). Researchers studied an 18m-lon
Australian Geographic2 min read
Snapshot: Australia’s Larget Political Demonstration
THE 2000 BRIDGE Walk for Reconciliation was a landmark event that sparked similar actions around the nation during the weeks that followed. But it grew out of actions that ocurred almost a decade earlier in 1991, when the Federal Parliament created t
Australian Geographic3 min read
Tim the Yowie Man: The Long Beach whalebone saga
FOR MORE THAN 20 years, the jawbone of a whale lay on the grass just behind the golden sands of Long Beach, near Batemans Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales. In summer, swimmers dried off on it after a dip, while in the cooler months, families
Australian Geographic5 min read
Australia Portrait: In The Name Of The Great-great-grandfather
CHRIS DARWIN IS weeding. His lanky frame, clad in a white shirt, trousers and braces, is folded over the mossy pavers outside the back door of his Blue Mountains home, as he tries to lever out a botanical interloper with the help of a kitchen knife.
Australian Geographic5 min read
In Search Of Our Mysterious Painted-snipe
THERE WERE NO Australian painted-snipe the morning I searched the drainage ditches near Brisbane Airport in November 2023. Although one had been photographed there days earlier, the wily wader eluded me. I’m not the only one who hasn’t seen this enda
Australian Geographic2 min read
Earth View Perspective: Moving on migration
THE CATCHCRY OF COP14 – the meeting of parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals that was held in Uzbekistan in February 2024 – was “Nature Knows No Borders”. It might seem obvious, but the fact that nature do
Australian Geographic3 min read
Need To Know With Dr Karl Kruszelnicki: Agriculture And Renewables
AGRICULTURE AND ENERGY have been essential to humanity for at least 10,000 years. Recently we’ve begun “farming” them together. However, the protestors at the “Rally Against Reckless Renewables” (held outside Federal Parliament House in February 2024
Australian Geographic3 min read
Defining Moments: Pemulwuy Fights Back
THE EORA PEOPLE of the area now called Sydney faced profound change when the First Fleet arrived in 1788 carrying nearly 1500 people, limited food supplies, a cargo of foreign animals, sophisticated firearms and a firm belief in their superiority. Wi
Australian Geographic3 min read
Space: Another Ocean World?
ONE OF THE big surprises that’s come in recent years from our exploration of the solar system is the existence of icy ocean worlds in its outer reaches. Most of them are moons of the giant planets, although some dwarf planets such as Pluto may also h
Australian Geographic8 min read
Your Society
It’s that time of year when we ask you to nominate your heroes. AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’S ANNUAL Awards for adventure are the longest running and most prestigious accolades for the adventure community in Australia. With the launch of our new Australian
Australian Geographic5 min read
Sense of Place The Chronicles of Naracoorte
LOCATED 345KM SOUTH-EAST of Adelaide, on South Australia’s Limestone Coast, is a World Heritage-listed fossil site that offers a glimpse of how life was long before humans arrived on the continent. Welcome to Naracoorte Caves, which for 500,000 years
Australian Geographic6 min read
Understanding Indigenous DNA
IT’S WELL KNOWN that First Nations people first arrived on the Australian continent more than 65,000 years ago. Since then, landscapes have changed dramatically after an ice age reshaped the land and oceans rose to isolate Australia from its nearest
Australian Geographic7 min read
Aust Most Endangered: Spreading the Joy
RECOVERY FOR MOST threatened Australian mammal species is rarely about just rebuilding numbers. It’s also about reclaiming the range they formerly occupied. And that’s more true for the numbat – Western Australia’s faunal emblem – than for most speci
Australian Geographic6 min read
Outback Starman
IT WAS THE early 2000s, and Trevor Barry had just enrolled in a graduate certificate of science in astronomy at Swinburne University of Technology. The fact he hadn’t completed high school, let alone a university degree, proved only a minor impedimen
Australian Geographic7 min read
Sex, Stress And Fertility In Australian Wildlife
WHEN A ZOOS Victoria team had difficulties breeding some of their critically endangered mountain pygmy-possums, they decided to investigate the animals’ hormone levels. A lot is known about hormones in humans and domestic animals, but it was the firs
Australian Geographic10 min read
Floating First
IT’S JUST AFTER 4am when hot-air balloon pilot Nicola Scaife trundles out of bed and pulls on thick, rainbow-coloured socks to brace against the pre-dawn chill. The two-time women’s world champion pads around in the inky darkness, brewing a cup of te
Australian Geographic10 min read
Beyond the Emerald Fringe
Less than 1 per cent of Australia’s population lives on the small islands dotted around our continent. This number is growing as more people head across the water after the onset of COVID, rejecting costly city living and office-based work. But is “i
Australian Geographic14 min read
From Red Dirt To The Stars
AT THE BOWEN Orbital Spaceport facility, in northern Queensland, the first all-Australian orbital rocket is preparing for lift-off. Eris is a three-stage rocket designed and built by Aussie startup Gilmour Space Technologies. Now fully assembled, Eri
Australian Geographic11 min read
Saving Our Bat Babies
DOZENS OF BLACK, wide-open eyes are staring down at us, curious and intelligent, as ears twitch and bodies hang upside-down. “This is their second chance at life,” Tamsyn Hogarth says quietly of this batch of grey-headed flying-fox pups orphaned in a
Australian Geographic19 min read
Chasing The Sun
A GROUP OF STUDENTS, rugged up in beanies and puffer jackets and carrying clipboards, scurries into the Engineering Building at the Australian National University (ANU), in Canberra. Deep in the bowels of the drab building is a mechanical workshop, i
Australian Geographic13 min read
Unique Experiences With Our Trusted Travel Partners
Travelling with Australian Geographic inspires people to care about the planet by providing meaningful opportunities to explore it. Our experiences are rich in nature and adventure, and our travel partners specialise in small-group experiences. Austr
Australian Geographic2 min read
Aus Quiz: Test Your Wits
1 Which Australian poet wrote “We Are Going”? 2 Which three Australian prime ministers died in office? 3 In scientific classification, the bottlebrush belongs to which genus? 4 In what year was an unsuccessful referendum held to ban the Australian Co
Australian Geographic4 min read
Aussie Towns: Walhalla, Vic
WALHALLA, KNOWN AFFECTIONATELY as “Australia’s Valley of the Gods”, is a beautifully restored historic goldmining town, perfectly located in a narrow valley between hills that are now verdant, but were once almost totally denuded of trees. The mining
Australian Geographic3 min read
Traces: Mary Kathleen, Qld
IN APRIL 1983 Bargain hunters and mining executives alike flocked to the uranium-mining town of Mary Kathleen, about 50km by road east of Mount Isa in north-western Queensland. Mary Kathleen’s uranium mine had closed the year before, leaving scant em

Australian Geographic

More Issues From Australian Geographic