The Nullarbor Plain: Australia’s Vast Limestone Wilderness

The Nullarbor Plain Inland from the Great Australian Bight, straddling Western Australia and South Australia, is the world’s largest limestone plain – the Nullarbor. The flat, almost treeless landscape of semi-arid country stretches about 1,200…

Norman Tindale

Norman Tindale’s Aboriginal Tribes of Australia Norman B Tindale – pioneering anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist, and ethnologist – is best remembered for his work mapping the distribution of Indigenous Australian people and their languages. His lifetime project utilised data from various sources, including his own field observations in Aboriginal communities all over Australia from as early […]

Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula region offers 700 kilometres of spectacular coastal scenery, pristine white beaches, and azure seas, contrasting starkly with the mallee landscape behind. One of South Australia’s most accessible seaside holiday escapes, the leg-shaped peninsula is located just an hour’s drive west from Adelaide, surrounded by Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent.

Motorcycle safety Australian outback

As a rider, you have invested in your bike, it is important and responsible to yourself and for those who care about you including your family that you take any chosen outback motorcycle adventures with your safety and those of your travelling companions as the priority. It will never be a good story if you do not return or do but are permanantly disabled through just a second of lapsed concentration.

Charles Sturt and the search for the inland sea

In 1844, the explorer Captain Charles Sturt set out with a large party into the central Australia to find what he believed would be the Australia inland sea. This latest course of exploration had begun at Narrandera, onto Balranald where the party crossed the Murrumbidgee river towards the Simpson desert.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service History

May 1928, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) was born, taking its first flight across the skies of Cloncurry, Queensland, on a life-saving mission.

Aboriginal Fire Management

In Aboriginal culture, ownership provides rights to the resources of the land, as well as responsibilities for managing the land and caring for country. For tens of thousands of year, in a process tightly connected to this duty, Aboriginal cultures across Australia used fire deliberately and skilfully to manage their environment.

William Creek, SA

William Creek follows the words of Henry Ford, except in William Creek, you can have any colour as long as it is White! And it is infamous for having a drive through bottle shop for “light planes” Welcome to outback Australia. 

The Ghan Railway- a story for travellers

The legendary Ghan train is still operational today as a popular tourist attraction, widely regarded as one of the world’s great train adventures.

John Eyre Colonial explorer of South Australia

Edward John Eyre, one of Australia’s youngest and most fearless explorers, is immortalized in the names of the South Australian landscape, most notably Lake Eyre and the Eyre Peninsula.

Moonta, South Australia

Moonta, located on the Yorke Peninsular of South Australia, 165 kilometres from Adelaide, is steeped in history. Following the discovery of copper in the area in 1861, both the Moonta Mine and town developed rapidly and prospered.

Kadina, South Australia

Kadina By Marco Stojanovik Kadina is the largest town on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, only 148 kilometres from Adelaide. Along with the nearby towns of Moonta and Wallaroo, it was established as a direct result of copper mining in the early 1860s, servicing the nearby Wallaroo and Moonta Mines, which were worked continuously for […]

19th Century South Australian Copper Triangle

The Leyshon Joneses and the South Australian Copper Smelting Industry By Marco Stojanovik The early mining industry in South Australia during the second half of the 19th century could not have prospered without the decisive role played by Welsh smeltermen. Coming to Australia during an industrial period known as the Swansea Moment, they introduced the […]

Aboriginal Shell Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Shell Trade Baler and pearl shell ornaments played a key role in the history of distant trading relationships across ancient Aboriginal Australia and remain an important part of many Aboriginal cultures today. Prior…

Farina, South Australia

Farina On the edge of the desert within the Lake Eyre Basin, South Australia, 600 kilometres north of Adelaide, sits the abandoned railway town Farina. Historic crumbling buildings yearn for a by-gone time the busy town bustled with energy. Once a rail head from Port Augusta, a centre for mining and transport route for stocks […]

Historical Aboriginal Marketplaces

Ancient Aboriginal Marketplaces By Marco Stojanovik Trade was a central part of life in Aboriginal Australia prior to British settlement, with trading routes criss-crossing the breadth of the continent, flowing from one nation to the next. Isabel McBryde (1987: 267) explains that lying at the intersections of various routes on mutual soil were exchange centres, which may […]

How was Pituri Traded in Ancient Aboriginal Australia?

Ancient Aboriginal Pituri Trade By the time European colonisation began in Australia 1788, Aboriginal people had been using and trading a leafy psychoactive plant substance called ‘pituri’ for thousands of years (Watson 2011). A highly…

Australian Aboriginal Paths of Migration

The Peopling of Australia Before Europeans reached Australia, there were probably already more than a million Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people inhabiting the land. Their ancestors had been there for upwards of 60,000 years.…

Aboriginal Stone Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Trade of Stone Axe and Spear Heads  Ethnographic evidence from Australia shows us that the Aboriginal tribes were interconnected with another by a complex network of exchange systems from one side of the…

Key Aboriginal Trade Routes of Ancient Australia

Key Aboriginal Trade Routes By Marco Stojanovik Trade was a central part of life in Aboriginal Australia prior to British settlement. Trading routes criss-crossed the breadth of the continent, flowing from one nation to the next, dispersing goods information, technologies, and culture. These routes were not necessarily narrow, well-defined trails, with some passing haphazardly between […]

Aboriginal Ochre Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Ochre Trade The natural clay ochre was one of the most important and valuable trading items for Australian Aboriginal people. An iron oxide pigment, it is found in a range of colours, ranging…