Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Australia & Oceania

Ten years after returning from the New Zealand outback, Jon receives a mysterious manuscript in the post. Narrated by Jon's former home, the lone caravan, Squashed Possums reveals what it's like to live in the wild through four seasons, including New Zealand's coldest winter in decades. Discover how Jon finds himself reversing off the edge of a cliff, meet the Maori chef who survived 9/11, the pioneers who paved the way, and catch sight of the elusive kiwi bird. Encounter hedgehogs that fly, possums that scream, and perhaps most importantly, the lone caravan with a story to tell....

When a nine-year-old R.A. Dalkey decided he was going to become an Outback truck driver, the poor Australia-besotted boy had no idea what he was getting into. He’d been born on the wrong continent, for a start. And even if he could make it out of Africa one day, where was an Australian work visa to come from? A sensible adult would have filed that dream away as a juvenile fantasy and gotten on with life. Especially after taking five attempts to get the most basic of car licenses. But R.A. Dalkey never claimed to be a sensible adult, did he?

Sail with Mary and Bruce on a 13,000-mile adventure from Seattle to legendary South Pacific Islands and home again. From magical sights and scents of their first tropical island landfall to the bustling, colorful Tahitian markets. From sudden midnight squalls and a cyclone in Samoa to pristine anchorages in the Kingdom of Tonga. Share the adventure as they fulfill their dream.

Tahiti is one of the Society Islands which, with the Gambiers, the Tuamotus, the Australs, and the Marquesas, make up French Polynesia. This archipelago spread out over several million square miles of the south central Pacific is a mixture of high volcanic islands and low coral atolls. All the detail you will need about these Pacific islands is in the guide - the hotels, restaurants, what to see and do, how to get around, the history and the culture.

No visit to Sydney is complete without a trip to the historic Rocks district on the harbour foreshore. And no visit to the Rocks would be complete without this self-guided audio walk. The Rocks is the enclave where European Sydney had its beginnings. Here the first convicts were ordered to build their huts and here they worked the sandstone that made Australia's first buildings. This self-guided walk will take you to the places they lived and tell you their stories.

David Bayley was 34 when his life underwent a spiritual revolution. On passionate internal suggestion he bought a campervan, gave away his possessions, and strode toward life on four wheels. Having no plan or direction, he cast himself forth into the beauty of Australia, capturing the land in poetic prose. Like a rite of passage, however, this journey was not an easy one.

Take a self-guided audio walk from Sydney's Circular Quay -- the spot where European Australia had its beginnings. The walk takes in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and winds its way along Sydney Harbour into the Royal Botanic Gardens. It finishes at Mrs Macquarie's Chair, with views of Fort Denison, Garden Island and down harbour. As you enjoy spectacular views and iconic landmarks, you'll enjoy a breezy commentary on 200 years of Australian history.

Australia is different - a vast island continent with distances so great that the capital of Western Australia is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. The landscape embraces magnificent tropical rainforests and deserts the size of several European states; temperate areas that sustain a flourishing wine industry, making Australia the world's fourth largest wine exporter; and a 16,000-mile coastline of breathtaking beaches. Plus its unique fauna is testament to the country's down-underness.

Great Australian Road Trips is the companion to the SBS series that hits the open road alongside four beloved personalities as they journey through the country’s most iconic drives and hidden detours. The heartwarming show stars actor Claudia Karvan, writer and performer Steph Tisdell, comedian Nazeem Hussain and author, food writer and critic Melissa Leong.

The Marshall Islands, named after a British sea captain who explored the group in 1788, are scattered like flung necklaces over about 750,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean. Positioned 2,200 miles southwest of Hawaii, they occupy an area between four and 20 degrees north of the equator. The islands are aligned in two groups. Those to the west are the Ralik Chain; to the east, they're in the Ratak Chain. Altogether they total 34 islands and 850 sea-washed reefs.

When Vicky and Joe wave goodbye to their beloved Spanish village, they face their future in Australia with some trepidation. Now they must build a new life amongst strangers, snakes, and spiders the size of saucers. Accompanied by their enthusiastic new puppy, Lola, adventures abound, both heartwarming and terrifying.

A follow-up to Tim Bowden's highly successful Penelope Goes West, this time covering the intriguing adventures of Tim, Ros, Penelope (the car), and The Manor (the caravan) as they travel across remote north western Australia. Tim and Ros Bowden explore the Kimberley by land and sea, where dramatic 12-metre tides guard coastal locations unchanged by time - still as 17th century buccaneer William Dampier first described them.

Discover a world of wild, mysterious and audacious journeys. Bruce Ansley retraces the path of the doomed surveyor John Whitcombe across the Southern Alps; follows the raiding party of the Northern chief Te Puoho along the West Coast; sails around New Zealand's Northern and Southern capes; walks through the Valley under the Two Thumb Range to the mythical Mesopotamia; drives from Waiheke to Wanaka (in a hurry); sets off on a hunt for the South Island's Grey Ghost; looks deep into the heart of volcanic New Zealand and tracks our most unlikely hero, the prison escaper George Wilder.

Nature is excessive, lovely, and ominous in the Solomons and the Melanesians who live there, often blond or redheaded, are the blackest of all people. Before World War II such names as Guadalcanal, Savo, Munda were rarely heard. Guadalcanal, over 100 miles long by 30 miles wide, is the largest island. Then in descending order there's Malaita, San Cristobal, Choiseul, New Georgia, and Santa Ysabel. All of them are mountainous, covered with rain forest, and laced with rivers.

In this delightful memoir, Jared Gulian describes the first four years of their new life in the country, its disasters, small triumphs, surprises, and pleasures. But most of all, he describes the warmth of the local community that welcomed them, saved them from certain peril, taught them how to cook, how to care for animals, and how to understand and love the land.

If you want to learn about the best of New Zealand, then you have come to the right place. Planning a trip to a strange country can be a bit intimidating sometimes, but this audiobook will make the whole process a lot easier. New Zealand is legendary for its natural beauty and ancient cultures. Even today New Zealand is still a unique mix of modern and old that creates an exceptional experience for every traveler that comes to its shores.

Driving around Australia is one of life's biggest adventures, if you're crazy enough to do it. But as anyone who has broken down on the Nullarbor can attest, it's nerve-wracking to head out into the big red. David Batty knows how to get out of hairy situations because he's wound up in a bunch himself. From nearly being washed away by flash floods in the Kimberley to being marooned on an island in the Top End eating stingray, Batty's Bush Bible is chock-full of yarns from David's four decades as a film director in the most remote regions of Australia.

Twenty years ago Joe Bennett hitchhiked the length and breadth of New Zealand. The result was A Land of Two Halves, a portrait of the country and its many contradictions that is as telling today as it was then. For as Joe says in his reintroduction to this classic road trip, the name of the All Black first five may have changed but there is still an All Black first five, the waves still thump against Hokitika beach and the debate still rages over the Treaty of Waitangi.

Book One in the series, inspired by radio interviews collected on round-Australia jaunt for a national broadcaster; stories mostly light and bright with an amusing “innocent abroad” feel.

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean - a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across the North Atlantic, Maud raised the bar to defy the elements, the daunting solitude, and the circling sharks of the South Pacific on her second solo voyage.