Showing titles in Australia & Oceania

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.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is the only country that has a whole continent to itself. Although it is world-famous for its natural wonders and wide open spaces, its beaches, deserts, "the bush", and "the Outback", Australia is actually one of the world's most highly urbanised countries with vibrant, cosmopolitan cities such as Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Perth.

In New Guinea pidgin, "throwim way leg" means to kick out your leg on the first step of a long journey. Full of adventure, wit, and natural wonders, Flannery's narrative is just such a spectacular trip - a tour de force of travel, anthropology, and natural history.

Robyn Davidson's perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea began with only four camels and a dog for company. Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity.

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.

This audiobook talks in detail about this small piece of land that drifted into the Pacific Ocean during continental drift. Everything you need to know about each city in the country is explained in detail with no bias.

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.

A mid-career American Emergency Doc goes off the deep end and relocates with his bewildered wife and five school-aged kids from Upstate New York to exotic Australia. Chaos, hilarity and wild Oz adventures ensue. Briskly paced; informative, insightful and entertaining in equal measure, "Doc Down Under" covers a wide array of timely topics including Australian/ New Zealand family adventure travel and natural history; contemporary Aussie lifestyle and culture, as well as US/ Australian comparative healthcare systems. Doc's philosophical musings focus on the realities of expat family life; the ...

New Zealand is a country of stunning and diverse natural beauty: jagged mountains, rolling pasture land, steep fjords, pristine trout-filled lakes, raging rivers, scenic beaches, and active volcanic zones. These islands are one of Earth's most peculiar bioregions, inhabited by flightless birds seen nowhere else such as a nocturnal, burrowing parrot called the kakapo, and kiwi. Kiwi are not only one of the national symbols but also the name New Zealanders usually call themselves.

Australia offers the most adventurous water sports on its beautiful beaches, to invite people from around the world. It also offers a sneak peek into the traditional cultures and lifestyle that prevailed here for ages. Australia has a multicultural history, and the people who have come and settled here brought colorful traditions and influence. In the past few years, the Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, along with the other cities, have seen a sharp increase in the number of the foreign tourists.

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.

In Wild 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.

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.

After half a century of travel, from Ethiopia to Tibet, from Belfast to Jerusalem, Pico Iyer asks himself what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict. In a spectacular journey, both inward and outward, Iyer roams from crowded mosques in Iran to a film studio in North Korea, from a holy mountain in Japan to the sometimes spooky emptiness of the Australian outback.

This charming account of the voyage of two men in a small boat half way round the world from Plymouth to New Zealand in 1953 is a rare insight into a time, not long ago, when sailors had no GPS, electronics, radio or any of the mod cons that we take for granted today. Without lifejacket or a life raft, they 'just took what came along', hand steering all the way, navigating by sextant, hand-cranking their engine and using oil lamps for light at night and for navigation. Sailors will be staggered how primitive conditions were only a few decades ago, even though it was the norm at the time.

Ed Stafford - adventurer extraordinaire and Guinness World Record holder for walking the length of the Amazon River - likes a challenge. Casting about for an adventure that would top the extraordinary feat he recounts in Walking the Amazon, Stafford decides to maroon himself on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. His mission: to survive for 60 days equipped with nothing - no food, water, or even clothing - except the video cameras he would use to document his time.

Paradise is Larry McMurtry's most original and personal work to date. From the harsh violent landscape of west Texas to the lush sensuality and easy living of Tahiti, McMurtry answers some of the questions of what paradise is, whether it exists, and how different it is from life in his hometown.

Are you excited about planning your next trip? Do you want to try something new? Would you like some guidance from a local? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this Greater Than a Tourist audiobook is for you. Greater Than a Tourist - Wellington, North Island, New Zealand by Leigh Hogle offers the inside scoop on Wellington.

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.

Greater Than a Tourist - Brisbane Queensland Australia, by Claire Heath, offers the inside scoop on Queensland’s capital city, which basks in a year-round great climate.