January - February 2019

Australian Geographic

The journal of the Australian Geographic Society

Australian Geographic2 min read
Your award-winning AG
WE LOVE GIVING OUT awards here at Australian Geographic. It’s the highlight of our year when, at the annual AG awards gala, we get to honour the adventurers and conservationists who motivate and delight us. This always inspiring event was made even m
Australian Geographic3 min readEarth Sciences
Notes From The Field
Adventure destinations don’t come much more exciting than Antarctica. For writer and photographer Justin Gilligan, whose trip formed part of his prize for winning the 2017 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition, visiting th
Australian Geographic1 min read
Featured Letter
Thank you for your illuminating articles in AG 147. I was particularly interested in references to post-Armistice sporting activities of the AIF (Australian Imperial Force), because I was vaguely aware that my grandfather W. R. (Roger) Bradley had pl
Australian Geographic4 min read
Memories of War
I was particularly interested that AG 147 has listed all our Victoria Cross recipients, because I have just finished reading the book One False Move [by Robert Macklin], which describes four brave Australians – Leon Goldsworthy, George Gosse, Stuart
Australian Geographic4 min readNature
Striking Out
MOST OF US HAVE experienced it at some time – the distressing thud that signals a probably fatal collision of bird and window. Such occurrences are a growing conservation concern; window collisions kill more birds than any other human-related factor
Australian Geographic2 min read
The Uluru ‘curse’
“THE MOMENT I put it back, it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” explains Steve Hill, who recently made a 3000km road trip from Canberra to return a small rock to Uluru. Hill, who pilfered the match box–sized rock from the base of the landm
Australian Geographic3 min readAstronomy & Space Sciences
The Moon’s Dusty Companions
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD of the Lagrange Points? If you’re a regular reader of Australian Geographic, you may have (see AG 91). But it’s usually only astronomers and mathematicians who are familiar with Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) and the imaginary
Australian Geographic2 min readAstronomy & Space Sciences
Kiss the Sun
NEED TO KNOW IN AUGUST 2018, NASA launched Parker Solar Probe to skim through the Sun’s super-hot atmosphere. You’d think this would be easy – just launch the spacecraft off the ground, and then drop it at the Sun. But no. Surprisingly, it takes 55 t
Australian Geographic1 min readEarth Sciences
Reef Of Hope
MARINE EXPERTS on board a November expedition to waters off far north Queensland have confirmed the existence of a tiny reef that was spared the recent bleaching events that reduced living coral cover across two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR)
Australian Geographic2 min read
Traces
SPEARING 868M out into the broad blue channel that separates the mainland from Fraser Island, Urangan Pier endures as a much-loved monument to the commercial and industrial glory days of Queensland’s Hervey Bay region. Built mostly by hand from sturd
Australian Geographic2 min read
The Last Muster
THIS SWEEPING PANORAMA, taken on the cracking clay plains of Mittiebah Station in the Northern Territory, could be a scene from the 1946 film The Overlanders. This film painted such a powerful picture of the romance of the outback that it changed the
Australian Geographic3 min read
Defining Moments In Australian Histrory 1902
‘Breaker’ Morant executed Britain reluctantly shared dominion of southern Africa with Dutch settlers called Boers throughout the 1800s. Tensions were evident from the outset, but heightened between the 1860s and ’80s when diamonds and gold were found
Australian Geographic3 min read
THE List
Watch Sunday nights in February, ABC TV THIS COMPELLING new documentary series reveals our own country to us, a country shaped by millennia of isolation, as well as its vast size and varied terrain. The result? One of the most biodiverse countries on
Australian Geographic2 min read
Your Society
The 2018 Australian Geographic Society Awards, held on 26 October last year, provided the perfect platform for HRH Prince Harry to present an impassioned speech about the need to step up to the challenges posed by the many environmental threats to ou
Australian Geographic3 min read
Your Society
CONSERVATION RESEARCHERS SPONSORED by your AG Society are using reptile scent to identify lizard species in outback Australia. PhD candidate Stephen Zozaya and Dr Conrad Hoskin, both from James Cook University, and volunteers spent two months catchin
Australian Geographic1 min read
On assignment with DON FUCUS AND THE SONY RX10 IV
TO GET THE IMAGES I envision, and my editor expects, while on assignment for Australian Geographic, I need top-of-the-range gear. The comparatively lightweight Sony RX10 IV earns its place in my kit bag for those times when I need a super-versatile,
Australian Geographic2 min read
Size Matters
Paroo lilies, found in dry sclerophyll forest and coastal heath, were important in traditional Aboriginal culture. This herb with pretty purple-and-yellow flowers on 1m-high stalks was called ‘snake whistle’; its leaves were said to be used to make a
Australian Geographic3 min read
Impressions Of The Past
WHILE THE FOSSILISED bones of dinosaurs tell us about the size, shape and anatomy of the animals they once belonged to, fossilised footprints can tell us a whole different story about these animals, revealing clues to prehistoric behaviour. In 2017 D
Australian Geographic4 min read
City-slicker Dragons
ALIZARD BASKS IN the subtropical sun. It’s almost a metre long and powerfully built, with muscular hind limbs and an impressive crest of spines running down its neck and back. It warily eyes a similar large male lying nearby; both are scarred from re
Australian Geographic1 min read
Fact Box:
Water dragons are among Australia’s largest dragon lizards, with a head and body length of about 25cm and a total length of over half a metre. The long tail is flattened laterally and a crest of spines runs from the neck along the back to the tail. M
Australian Geographic6 min read
For The Love Of Frogs
IF YOU’RE HOPING to be involved in the discovery of a new vertebrate species, then Australian frogs could be your best chance. So far, Australia has a confirmed 246 species and subspecies of frog. But there may be several dozen more out there still w
Australian Geographic2 min read
Frogs In Your Backyard
1 Some frogs like to be cramped when spawning. Others need space. Some will lay eggs in water-filled depressions in the ground, while others climb to places with water. Small tadpoles mainly eat algae, so there’s no need to remove it from your garden
Australian Geographic9 min readEnvironmental Science
Finding The Lost Continent
AS A TAXI whisked me into Townsville in tropical north Queensland, my eyes were drawn to the tallest object on the skyline: a drilling derrick, seemingly out of place in the harbour. I soon recognised it as part of the JOIDES Resolution, a one-of-a-k
Australian Geographic16 min read
From The Tablelands To The Sea
THREE WEDGE-TAILED EAGLES have hit the jackpot. A relentless breeze funnelling up from the vast crack in the earth at my feet is generating a turbocharged updraft that the raptors have hooked into. Spiralling skyward at an incredible speed, they’re s
Australian Geographic4 min read
Southern Exposure
AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ANTARCTICA NEW GUINEA Justin Gilligan travelled to Antarctica as part of his prize for winning the 2017 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition. The prize was kindly donated by Heritage Expeditions and
Australian Geographic9 min read
Are We There Yet?
IF YOU’VE BEEN READING about autonomous cars and wondering when they’ll be on our roads, here’s a news flash for you: they already are. Yep, right now in Australia it’s possible to drive down a freeway, hands off the steering wheel and feet off the p
Australian Geographic9 min read
White Gold
JUST HOURS OLD and unsurprisingly wobbly on his new hooves, the rich black bundle of buffalo fur huddles against his mother’s 530kg frame. Naturally protective, she sniffs the top of his newborn fluffy topknot and focuses, with ears pricked, on the s
Australian Geographic6 min read
Big River Dreaming
To tackle the Franklin River independently – in a kayak, canoe or raft – you need to have plenty of whitewater and river-running experience. But this doesn’t mean the less-experienced paddler needs to relegate it to their aspiration-only list. Guided
Australian Geographic8 min read
Saltwater Cruising
MARCHINBAR ISLAND IS about as far-flung as it gets. Halfway between Darwin and Cape York, it’s the largest of the Wessel Islands, which extend 130km from northeastern Arnhem Land like a row of pontoons. From afar, the sandy curve of Jensen Bay on Mar
Australian Geographic2 min read
Water Fight
ONE OF THE country’s most notable environmental battles began in 1978, when Tassie’s Hydro-Electric Commission (HEC) proposed damming the middle section of Tasmania’s Gordon River, which would have impacted the flow of the Franklin. The dam was to su
Australian Geographic6 min read
Devil’s In The Detail
AG SOCIETY HOSTED EXPERIENCES Come on an adventure with us while raising funds for the AG Society at the same time. DATES: 15–17 November 2019 EARLY IN THE YEAR I jumped at a three-day expedition to see Tasmanian devils at Devil Ark, a captive breedi
Australian Geographic2 min read
Ulpma (Serpentine Gorge)
WE MAKE CAMP just off the Larapinta Trail on a flat claypan covered in flannel flowers. Cold frosts our breath. We lie on the ground watching stars fall below the bulge of the starry coolamon, the Corona Australis, which once tumbled earthwards holdi

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