Australia [antikvár]

P AU ST R A L I A: T H E JOURNEY This mighty continent is made for adventuring; it is full of natural marvels and unique plants and animals. There are primeval rainforests, awesome deserts, rugged, snow-capped ranges and a coastline of scenic splendours. The Great Barrier Reef, with its teeming marine life and enchanting islands, extends some 2000 kilometres along the north-eastern coast, and on the other side of the country are the dolphins and dugongs of Shark Bay. It is not necessary to travel far from the major cities to encounter fantastic landforms such as the Twelve Apostles in Victoria or the Three Sisters in New South Wales. Longer, weli-planned adventures are safe and rewarding. A few hours' drive takes travellers from Darwin to Kakadu; a few hours in a plane brings the majestic sight of Uluru, that awe-inspiring rock in the centre of the continent. Australia's cities are safe places to stroll, to savour the sights and to enjoy great meals and sophisticated shopping and entertainment. Country towns offer their own delights, from warm hospitality to historic buildings and a taste of life on the land outback. This is my Australia, and I spend as much time as I can journeying its highways and byways, always finding new places to see and new sights to record on film. Creating this book has been a journey in itself. It has taken me three years to complete, although the images span three decades and the stories have collected over my lifetime. During its compilation I relived the ecstasy of wild encounters, the adventure of new places, the joy of sharing and the dread of failure when confronting enormous challenges. The huge task of structuring the images and experiences into a book was simplified by editing them into Australia's broad climatic areas of tropical, arid and temperate lands, coasts and seas. Then, while I was browsing the enormous library of images I have collected, memories of journeys flooded back and I created short word and photo essays reflecting the meaning and beauty of my experience. Each topic, whether hunting for orchids, stalking fish for close-up portraits or wandering urban streets in search of the character of a city, is an intrinsic part of my fascination for documenting Australia. My wild orchid pursuit is a recent obsession; others, such as fish photography, go back to my childhood when the stunning pictures in the pages of National Geographic kindled my forty-year love affair with fish. My objective in this book is to communicate the sense of wonder and personal empowerment that is Nature's gift, a gift that has blessed me throughout my life. I would like this book to instil in you a desire to record your own journey, whether in words or pictures made with a computer, pen, brush, needle and yarn or, my choice, a camera. I strongly believe that through sharing our feelings, stories, hopes and dreams, we are nourished and grow. Nature, too, is our responsibility and requires care; but my worry is, if we do not care for each other and ourselves, how can we possibly care for the environment that sustains us? This is a special book I created to share with you some of the places, people and events from my life; the journeys within the journey that have shaped me into the person I am today So, I present some of the experiences of a lifetime: my journey Opposite: Re/lected in the calm waters of a tropical billabong, a jacano begins another journey.