An epic journey of discovery into the heart of a vast and contested Australian wilderness.John Blay laces up his walking boots and goes bush to explore Australia's rugged south east forests stretching from Canberra to the coast and on to Wilsons Promontory in a great circle from his one-time home near Bermagui.In Wild Nature, the bestselling author of On Track charts the forests' shared history, their natural history, the forest wars, the ...

On Track tells the story of John Blay's long-distance search for the Bundian Way, an important Aboriginal pathway between Mt Kosciuszko and Twofold Bay near Eden on the New South Wales far south coast. The 360-kilometre route traverses some of the nation's most remarkable landscapes, from the highest place on the continent to the ocean.This epic bushwalking story uncovers the history, country and rediscovery of this significant track. Now heritage-listed, and thanks to the...

At its peak, Gunns Ltd had a market value of $1 billion, was listed on the ASX 200, was the largest employer in the state of Tasmania and its largest private landowner. Most of its profits came from woodchipping, mainly from clear-felled old-growth forests. A pulp mill was central to its expansion plans. Its collapse in 2012 was a major national news story, as was the arrest of its CEO for insider trading.Quentin Beresford illuminates for the first time the dark corners of the Gunn...

Brings to full and rich life the extraordinary characters, events and challenges that have made Qantas an Australian icon.From its earliest days, Qantas has attracted its fair share of unusual challenges and unique characters. These are the stories of a great airline and the people who made it, told by a man who has Qantas blood running through his veins. They are hilarious, nostalgic, heroic and sometimes even odd.They are about the brilliant risk takers w...

Yachting Yarns is great news for lovers of all things nautical. This captivating book with its fascinating sea stories is a must for anyone with maritime interests.It traces the history of 10 South Australian sailing vessels, each from its construction through its life journey and is interspersed with humorous anecdotes. To promote the remarkable achievments of South Australian sailors, author Judith Roinich has researched the sailing careers of a variety of local sailing ...

In the South Seas is a work of non-fiction by the Scottish writer and poet Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the famous Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It recounts his travels and experiences in the Pacific ocean. During the voyage, he was accompanied by his wife, Fanny, as well as by other members of his family. However, his personal purpose was not mere entertainment, but rather to collect material for a serious work on the South Seas and on the life and cultures of their inhab...

An implicit sense of public service and 'otherness' has now come to permeate Canberra's identity to a point that there is a great smugness, arrogance even, that the rest of Australia can hate us - but they'll never know how good it is to live here.Canberra is a city of orphans. People arrive temporarily for work, but stay on because they discover unanticipated promise and opportunity in a city that the rest of the country loathes, but can't really do without. Daley's C...

"Sydney may look golden, but this is the sunniness of Mozart, whose bright notes, especially at their most joyous, seem to cast themselves out across a great abyss."Sydney has always been the sexiest and most gaudy of our cities. Here, novelist Delia Falconer conjures up its sandstone, humidity, and jacarandas. But she goes beyond these to find a far more complex city: beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at times deeply spiritual. It is a slightly unreal place, haunted by a...

Louis Nowra burrows beneath the sensationalist Underbelly 'sex and sin' narrative, revealing stories and a cast of characters some household names others little-known - that not even a writer could conjure up.Kings Cross is a no-holds barred place, where backpackers, prostitutes, strippers, chefs, mad men, poets, beggars, booksellers, doctors, gangsters, sailors, musicians, drug traffickers, eccentrics, judges and artists live side by side. Part flaneur, part hist...

In "Botany Bay, True Tales of Early Australia," John Lang delivers a meticulous account of the early exploration and settlement of Australia, intertwining a rich tapestry of historical narratives with vivid personal anecdotes. Written in the early 19th century, Lang employs a narrative style that reflects the Romantic sensibilities of his time, emphasizing the interplay of nature and human endeavor. The book serves not only as a chronicle of colonial encounters but also as a critique of Br...

Alice Springs, Alice, The Alice, Mparntwe, is the most talked about but least familiar place in Australia. It is a town of extremes and contradictions: searingly hot and bitterly cold, thousands of miles from anywhere, the heart of black Australia and the headquarters of the controversial NT Intervention. It's seen as a place where blokes are blokes, yet the town has a high lesbian population. It is the gateway to the red centre, but relatively few Australians have been there. Its striking...

In this updated edition, Peter Timms leads us on a journey through his adopted city of Hobart, Australia's smallest, most southerly, least prosperous, but arguably most beautiful state capital. He reveals a city in transition, shaking off its dark and troubled past to claim its special place in the post-modern world: 'going boutique, nice and slow', as one overseas visitor notes. From Hobart's convict legacy, its spectacular natural setting, heritage architecture and climate, to crime rate...