The Magazine for Australian Travellers

Current Issue

July 2005

GREAT PLACES TO GO

Visit Mt Augustus in Western Australia, a “sleeping giant” that is bigger than Uluru.

Not far from Mackay in Queensland is an area known as the Pioneer Valley, where rainforest, sugar cane and wildlife help to make a visit extra special.

Waterfront camping in NSW

These four national parks, hidden among the ranges, are sure to leave you with fond memories.

Campsite reports

This month our campsite reporters have found some superb places to camp in South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria.

CARAVANS & MOTORHOMES

Tough and elegant

Trakmaster’s Nullarbor caravan won’t mind being taking through the rough stuff.

GOOD GEAR & GADGETS

Walkabout

This month we’ve found some excellent books for travellers, where to go and see koalas in the wild, how to have a special bicycle holiday and much more.

CAMPERS’TALES

Bush trailers

If you plan to take your trailer off the bitumen it, and your vehicle, must be prepared. Dick Eussen offers some practical advice to get you there and back again safely.

Campfire safety

2005 Australian of the Year Dr Fiona Wood talks to On The Road about burns prevention and first aid in the
outdoors.

In luxury on the Ghan

Pat Hayes takes it easy on a journey to Alice Springs aboard the legendary Ghan.

Campfire cooking

An expert on camp oven cooking shares some secrets on how easy this methods of cooking can be.

2004/5 index to 12 months of On The Road

JUST FOR READERS

My Favorite Place

This campground in the Northern Territory is a pleasure to stay in and has won for a reader a pair of fantastic daypacks from Snowgum.

GETAWAY VEHICLE

Affordable and honest

Kia has updated its Sportage
soft-roader.

CATCH A FEED

Stay safe, stay alive

Paul B. Kidd offers advice for every owner – and occupant – of a small boat.

REGULAR FEATURES

Readers’ letters

A reader urges others to learn what their four-wheel-drive can and can’t do.

Rocks and flowers are a conspicuous feature of the bushland at Dunn’s Swamp.

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It’s the best catch around

Let nature entertain you

On a winter’s morning I crawled out of my tent as a curtain of mist rose to reveal the dark waters of the swamp, the forests that surround it and a maze of sandstone boulders where trees have snatched a toehold in every crevice.

Dunn’s Swamp, a secluded wilderness on the western edge of Wollemi National Park, had been the stage upon which the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people once played out their lives. They came to hunt the wildlife that is here in abundance, to harvest the forest’s bush tucker and to fish in the waters of the Cudgegong River.

Today, the most conspicuous players on nature’s stage are kangaroos, blue wrens that flutter among the reeds that congest the water’s edge, moor hens that patrol the shallows, and whip birds, black cockatoos, and crimson rosellas that make their presence known with raucous squawks and endless chattering.

As night falls across the forest, wombats stride onto the scene and, if you tread quietly at dawn or dusk, you’ll have a good chance of spotting them. A web of wombat highways, linking the burrows of the world’s largest burrowing animal, weaves through the forest, slashing across the park’s network of narrow walking trails that lead beside the dark waters of the swamp, among the sandstone formations, known as pagodas, that are a dominant feature of the landscape, and through shaded tunnels of forest foliage.