Title search results
Showing 1 - 18 of 18 items
Eucalyptus oil: Australia's natural wonder
By Peter S Abbott, Tegan Abbott. 2012
It's Australia's natural wonder. From leaving floors sparkling, to controlling dust mites, washing woollens and freshening pet areas, eucalyptus oil…
can help replace hundreds of commonly used household chemicals - providing a healthier, allergy-friendly and environmentally sound alternative. Eucalyptus Oil - Australia's Natural Wonder is both a must-have household guide and a fascinating insight into the history, production and uses of Australia's most versatile natural resource.Organic vegetable gardening
By Annette McFarlane. 2002
In a world where mass-produced food often lacks taste and freshness, more and more people are growing their own vegetables.…
This new, greatly expanded edition of Annette McFarlane's gardening classic offers gardeners an authoritative and comprehensive guide to growing an extensive range of organic vegetables. As well as outlining the basics - how to plan your garden and prepare soil, make compost, develop a planting guide, propagate, and sow and germinate seeds - Annette offers a mass of new and exciting material.The great boomerang
By Ion L Idriess. 1948
In this book, originally published in 1941, Idriess suggests a scheme for developing the Outback, with particular emphahsis on managing…
and harvesting water resources."The dreams of to-day are the facts of to-morrow. And if even a portion of the Plan outlined here were organized for execution immediately after the war, we would have no need to fear Depression."Understory: a life with trees
By Inga Simpson. 2017
Each chapter of this absorbing memoir explores a particular species of tree, layering description, anecdote, and natural history to tell…
the story of a scrap of forest in the Sunshine Coast hinterland - how the author came to be there and the ways it has shaped her life. In many ways, it's the story of a treechange, of escaping suburban Brisbane for a cottage on ten acres in search of a quiet life. Of establishing a writers retreat shortly before the Global Financial Crisis, and losing just about everything. It is also the story of what the author found there: the literature of nature and her own path as a writer. Some of the nature writing that has been part of this journey is woven through the narrative arc. The Language of Trees is about connection to place as a white settler descendent, and trying to reconcile where the author grew up with where the author is now. It is her story of learning to be at home among trees, and the search for a language appropriate to describe that experience. That journey leads Inga to nature writing, to an environmental consciousness, to regenerating this place and, ultimately, to learning Gubbi Gubbi and Wiradjuri.The artificial horizon: imagining the Blue Mountains
By Martin Edward Thomas. 2004
"The blue curtain admits cliff-top spectacles of deeply worn valleys and sandstone outcrops. They are ancient and affecting, capable of…
prompting the most extreme reactions: they can move you to tears, or love, or even - quite literally - to death." This award winning book explores the myths that form the meanings of the Blue Mountains taking the reader on a compelling journey through culture, landscape and mythology. For both Aboriginal people and their colonisers, the rugged landscape of the Blue Mountains has stood as an intriguing riddle and a stimulus to the imagination. The author evokes this dramatic and bewildering landscape and leads his readers through the cultural history of the locality in order to probe the 'dreamwork of imperialism'.The remarkable story of the killer whales of Eden -- their skills, intelligence and their surprisingly cooperative behaviour and relationship…
with the nineteenth century whalers. For a century, the killer whales of Twofold Bay herded baleen whales towards the harpoons of local whalers, helping them hunt and sharing the rewards. It was a life of industry, adventure and a strange and unique partnership between whale and man. As fewer baleen whales frequented the Australian east coast, the killer whales and the whaling industry they supported slowly disappeared. The body of the last killer whale, Old Tom, was retrieved in 1930 - marking the end of an era in Australian history. Danielle Clode explores how this relationship between whaler and killer whale developed, using modern knowledge of killer whales to untangle fact from myth.A choice of catastrophes: the disasters that threaten our world
By Isaac Asimov. 1979
Asimov considers the disasters that threaten our world: the universe might become inhospitable; something might happen to the sun; earth…
itself might make life on it impossible; something might destroy human life; and civilization might be destroyed.Super-power: Australia's low-carbon opportunity
By Ross Garnaut. 2019
'The fog of Australian politics on climate change has obscured a fateful reality- Australia has the potential to be an…
economic superpower of the future post-carbon world.'- Ross Garnaut. We have unparalleled renewable energy resources. We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen? In this crisp, compelling book, Australia's leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country's future.It's every monkey for themselves: a true story of sex, love and lies in the jungle
By Vanessa Woods. 2007
Aiming to put as much distance as she could between herself and a dysfunctional relationship, Vanessa Woods left Canberra and…
headed for the remote, wild and distinctly unsafe jungles of Costa Rica. She had a research job, a contract with Disney Channel and would spend the year working with a small community of dedicated like-minded scientific souls researching the behaviour of capuchin monkeys while making a documentary about Costa Rican wildlife. Or so she thought. As it turned out, Vanessa's housemates in the monkey house didn't appreciate her Australian sense of humour, she was stung so often by wasps and killer bees she developed a lethal allergy, and the monkeys were evasive, mean and aggressive - with the only difference between them and her housemates being that at least she could tell her housemates apart. Over the course of a wild, bruising and tumultuous year, Vanessa learned that not all monkeys - or people - are alike, that friendship can be more important than sex, and that sometimes it takes a brush with death and an abscess the size of a melon on your head to make you realise that being pretty isn't always enough. This is a story of love, loss, bitter rivalry and vicious battles - and that's just the monkeys...Up a hollow log: animal stories from the bush and beyond
By Rhylle Winn. 2010
Master storyteller Ryle Winn learnt his craft in the backblocks, experimented with it in the public bar and honed it…
in between musters and sale yards.In this third collection of true tales, animals rather than people take centre stage - with a tip of the hat to Henry Lawson's much-loved story 'The Loaded Dog'. Meet a ute full of wayward working dogs, a pesky bush turkey determined to outsmart its landlady, a rogue circus elephant staking a claim on the road and an orphan pig with a message for the world. You'll bust a gut laughing, you'll be left incredulous, you might even shed a tear or two. But most of all, you'll be glad you took the time to join Ryle Winn in celebrating man's best friend - and other creatures from the bush and beyond.Carnivorous nights: on the trail of the Tasmanian tiger
By Margaret Mittelbach, Michael Crewsdon. 2005
The Tasmanian Tiger looms large in the national psyche - more compelling than Ned Kelly, more famous than Phar Lap,…
more beautiful than the bunyip. Does this beautiful creature still roam its island wilderness or is it forever lost to us? Three Americans are determined to find the truth about the fabled thylacine and set out into the Tasmanian wilderness. The result is a madcap adventure around the Apple Isle, a bewitching account of this land's beauty, its unique fauna, and a fresh perspective on what Tasmanians, and mainlanders, hold dear.Buried treasure: travels through the jewel box
By Victoria Finlay. 2006
Amber is the tears of prehistoric trees. Peridot falls to earth from space. A man has turned into a diamond.…
When we put on jewels, what are we really wearing? Victoria Finlay travels across the world to tell the true stories of these miraculous oddities of nature. Her search takes her to the Australian opal fields with their underground towns, through a ruby market in Burma under the watchful eye of the military junta, and to the Native American reserve that holds the world's biggest supply of a forgotten gem. Throughout she asks: in an era when we can manufacture synthetics, why do jewels still hold their appeal?Hooked: a true story of pirates, poaching and the perfect fish
By G. Bruce Knecht. 2006
On 7 August 2003, the patrol boat Southern Supporter came upon the Uruguayan long-liner Viarsa in one of the most…
isolated places on earth - the Australian Fishing Zone near Heard Island, 2200 nautical miles southwest of Perth. The patrol suspected Viarsa was carrying an illegal catch of the endangered Patagonian Toothfish.Thus began one of the longest and most dangerous pursuits in maritime history. The chase lasted 21 days and covered 3900 nautical miles through unimaginably rough seas. Hampered by snowstorms, icebergs, and the worst that the Roaring Forties could throw at them, the crews pushed their ships to the limit. Why was this fish so important that it was worth risking disaster? G. Bruce Knecht has brought this great modern sea story to life after extensive interviews with both the pursuers and the pursued. Behind the chase and the subsequent legal battles lies the strange story of the Patagonian Toothfish, only recently brought to the surface from its deep ocean habitats. Popularised in America's most exclusive restaurants, it now faces an uncertain future. Hooked is the extraordinary story of a remarkable fish, the men who prey upon it, and the people who battle to save it from extinction.From snow to ash: solitude, soul-searching and survival on Australia's toughest hiking trail
By Anthony Sharwood. 2020
At the start of the hellish, fiery Australian summer of 2019/20, Walkley Award-winning journalist and suburban dad Anthony Sharwood set…
off on a journey. Abandoning his post on a busy news website to clear his mind, he solo-trekked the Australian Alps Walking Track, Australia's most gruelling and breathtakingly beautiful mainland hiking trail, which traverses the entirety of the legendary High Country from Gippsland in Victoria to the outskirts of Canberra.The journey started in a blizzard and ended in a blaze. Along the way, this lifelong lover of the mountains came to realise that nothing would ever be the same - either for him or for the imperilled Australian Alps, a landscape as fragile and sensitive to the changing climate as the Great Barrier Reef.A highly personal account of a phenomenal, once-in-a-lifetime adventure that saw Bruce and his wife, Lynn, embark on a year…
of travel and birding across the entire continent in a camper van. Their aim was to see Australia, but also to keep a list of the birds that they saw together. That list began with two Gang-gang Cockatoos flying over their son’s yard in Torquay, Victoria and ended a year later watching a lovely little Speckled Warbler on a chilly morning back in Victoria with 638 other species seen in between.Provocateur: a life of ideas in action
By Clive Hamilton. 2022
Clive Hamilton has spent a life asking why. In his unique memoir, Provocateur, he shows us why questioning the status…
quo matters, how powerful arguments can change the country, and how the life of ideas in action actually works. From why climate change matters to how we understand ourselves as Australians and the dangers to us of the new authoritarianism - all this and more has been shaped, for better or worse, by public researchers and writers like Hamilton. His work, and that of the Australia Institute he founded, made him many friends as well as powerful enemies. He's been denounced in federal parliament, black-handed by the Chinese Communist Party and sued by an angry corporation. He's had to call in the police after death threats and take a crash course in counter-surveillance techniques. But he has also influenced the quality of the air Australians breathe, the cost of our education and how we see Australia's place in the world. In Provocateur, we see the passions, the doubts, the strategizing, the fears, the victories, the mistakes and the questioning. Here is a blueprint for changing public debate in our increasingly uncertain times - proof that ideas are powerful and that a different way into the future is possible.Country: future fire, future farming (First Knowledges #3)
By Bruce Pascoe, Bill Gammage. 2021
For millennia, Indigenous Australians harvested this continent in ways that can offer contemporary environmental and economic solutions. Bill Gammage and…
Bruce Pascoe demonstrate how Aboriginal people cultivated the land through manipulation of water flows, vegetation and firestick practice. Not solely hunters and gatherers, the First Australians also farmed and stored food. They employed complex seasonal fire programs that protected Country and animals alike. In doing so, they avoided the killer fires that we fear today. Country: Future Fire, Future Farming highlights the consequences of ignoring this deep history and living in unsustainable ways. It details the remarkable agricultural and land-care techniques of First Nations peoples and shows how such practices are needed now more than ever.The biggest estate on Earth: how Aborigines made Australia
By Bill Gammage. 2012
Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and…
pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised. For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, this book rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.