The Australia & Oceania category has 42 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 35 ratings. The most-rated is Mutiny on the Bounty.
The Voyage of Their Life
Summary
In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. They came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia and stony Aegean islands. There were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled them. Diane Armstrong set sail on the Derna with her parents when she was nine years old. Like a detective searching for clues, she has located over a hundred of the passengers. Through their recollections and memorabilia, as well as archival documents, she has recreated the voyage and traced what became of their hopes and dreams. The result is the unique portrayal of a migrant ship and its passengers.
©2001 Diane Armstrong (P)2004 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Uluru: The History and Legacy of the Australian Landmark Considered Sacred by the Local Aborigines
Summary
The magnificent monolith the locals call “Uluru”, situated in the heart of Australia, hovers over a patchy bed of desert poplars and spinifex grasslands. The pleasant, but otherwise unexceptional, surroundings of the spellbinding sandstone landform only further accentuates its majesty - one that can be appreciated from a variety of angles. To lime-colored budgerigars, mighty brown falcons, passengers in planes and helicopters, and other creatures blessed with the gift of flight, the free-form rock is reminiscent of the fossil of a spiky fish, a misshapen arrowhead, or perhaps a peculiar, ocher-tinged seashell peeking out of the sand. To those gazing upon the natural gem on solid ground, the flat-topped, burnt sienna beauty marked with character-forming dimples, ripples, and ridges looks more like a sleeping, 1000-year-old turtle, particularly through squinted eyes. Its striking appearance aside, Uluru, also known as “Ayers Rock”, is far more than an unmissable landmark. Uluru represents an inimitable symbol of life and culture, and a place of worship sacred to the region's aboriginal inhabitants. Given the long and riveting history attached to this hallowed rock, the aura of mysticality and mystery that clings to Uluru should come as no surprise. Not only does the rock's flaky surface change color throughout the day - going from a deep violet with hints of gray to a light lilac to a fiery orange-red during sunrise and from its usual apricot-gold to a faded orange to a dreamy purplish-pink at dusk - Uluru, they say, is an endless source of inexplicable happenings and paranormal occurrences. Although the natives have spared no effort in underscoring the rock's spiritual and cultural significance to the aborigines, their pleas for visitors to respect the rock have been repeatedly ignored. Indeed, the lack of courtesy displayed toward Uluru has heightened in recent years, and the land's inhabitants have been forced to navigate the so-called age of the “social media influencer”. Thousands of tourists swarm the rock every year, sticking their head through aboriginal spy holes and modeling pretentious yoga poses with captions to match. Perhaps, most notoriously, a 25-year-old French-born exotic dancer named Alizee Sery angered netizens around the globe in 2010 when she hiked up to the top of Uluru and stripped down to nothing but an Akubra cattleman hat, bikini bottoms, and white go-go boots. Sery spoke to various news outlets shortly thereafter and defended the strip tease, filmed for a documentary, which she claimed was meant as an homage to the indigenous peoples. According to Sery’s partially paternalistic explanation, “My project is a tribute to the greatness of the rock. What we need to remember is that, traditionally, the aboriginal people were living naked. So, stripping down was a return to what it was like.” Aboriginal elders, on the other hand, branded the attention-seeking stunt “stupid” and compared it to relieving oneself on the Vatican steps. As Kon Vatskalis, minister of the Northern Territory government, put it, “How would...French people feel if an Australian danced semi-naked on the altar of the Notre Dame?” Uluru: The History and Legacy of the Australian Landmark Considered Sacred by the Local Aborigines examines the geological origins of the famous rock, its most interesting characteristics, and its history. Along with details about important people, places, and events, you will learn about Uluru like never before.
©2019 Charles River Editors (P)2019 Charles River Editors
The Ultimate Guide to the Great Barrier Reef
Summary
The Ultimate Guide to the Great Barrier Reef This travel guide of the magnificent Great Barrier Reef contains detailed tips on how to make the most of one of the most remarkable traveling destinations in the world. This travel guide is comprehensive and includes a stunning description of one of the seven natural wonders of the world and perhaps the most popular tourist spot. Many people conjure up the images of azure waters teeming with colorful corals of every shape and size accompanied by multicolored fish when they think of the Great Barrier Reef. However, this book reveals that this marvelous place has much more to offer. The reef has been built by various natural phenomena taking place during the course of history, and it is a complex and massive ecosystem. The book takes tourists to the famous diving sites in and near the reef and reveals the extraordinary Queensland, which combines with islands and diving sites to form this fabulously stunning water world. The book also introduces the unique flora and fauna that reside in this part of the world, and travelers can learn more about the life on reef as well. This book is, in fact, an ultimate guide to one of the world's most treasured natural assets, and it also provides some tips about how to maximize your pleasure while visiting the reef. If you are planning on visiting the Great Barrier Reef or simply interested in learning more about it, then this is the perfect book for you!
©2004 Xavier ZImms (P)2018 Proxy Publishing
Great South Land
Summary
For many, the colonial story of Australia starts with Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast in 1770, but it was some 164 years before his historic voyage that European mariners began their romance with the immensity of the Australian continent. Between 1606 and 1688, while the British had their hands full with the Gunpowder Plot and the English Civil War, it was highly skilled Dutch seafarers who, by design, chance or shipwreck, discovered and mapped the majority of the vast, unknown waters and land masses in the Indian and Southern Oceans. This is the setting that sees Rob Mundle back on the water with another sweeping and powerful account of Australian maritime history. It is the story of 17th-century European mariners - sailors, adventurers and explorers - who became transfixed by the idea of the existence of a Great South Land: "Terra Australis Incognita". Rob takes you aboard the tiny ship, Duyfken, in 1606 when Dutch navigator and explorer Willem Janszoon and his 20-man crew became the first Europeans to discover Australia on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. In the decades that followed, more Dutch mariners, like Hartog, Tasman, and Janszoon (for a second time), discovered and mapped the majority of the coast of what would become Australia. Yet, incredibly, the Dutch made no effort to lay claim to it or establish any settlements. This process began with British explorer and former pirate William Dampier on the west coast in 1688, and by the time Captain Cook arrived in 1770, all that was to be done was chart the east coast and claim what the Dutch had discovered.
©2015 Rob Mundle (P)2015 Bolinda
The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter
Summary
Just after Christmas 1803, convict William Buckley fled an embryonic settlement in the land of the Kulin nation (now the Port Phillip area), to take his chances in the wilderness. A few months later, the local Aboriginal people found the six-foot-five former soldier near death. Believing he was a lost kinsman returned from the dead, they took him in, and for 32 years Buckley lived as a Wadawurrung man, learning his adopted tribe's language, skills and methods to survive. The outside world finally caught up with Buckley in 1835, after John Batman, a bounty hunter from Van Diemen's Land, arrived in the area, seeking to acquire and control the perfect pastureland around the bay. What happened next saw the Wadawurrung betrayed and Buckley eventually broken. The theft of Kulin country would end in the birth of a city. The frontier wars had begun. By the best-selling author of The Ship That Never Was, The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter is a fascinating and poignant true story from Australian colonial history.
©2020 Adam Courtenay (P)2020 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Art of Free Travel
Summary
Patrick, Meg and their family had built a happy, sustainable life in regional Victoria. But in late 2013, they found themselves craving an adventure: a road trip. But theirs was a road trip with a difference. With Zephyr (10), Woody (1) and Zero, their Jack Russell, they set off on an epic 6,000km yearlong cycling journey along Australia’s east coast, from Daylesford to Cape York and back. Their aim was to live as cheaply as possible - guerrilla camping, hunting, foraging and bartering their permaculture skills, and living on a diet of free food, bush tucker, and the occasional fresh road kill. They spent time in Aboriginal communities, joined an antifracking blockade, documented edible plants, and dodged speeding cars and trucks on the country’s most dangerous highways. The Art of Free Travel is the remarkable story of a rule-breaking year of ethical living.
©2015 Patrick Jones and Meg Ulman (P)2015 Audible, Ltd
TripAdvisor: The Top Travel Destinations in the Oceana Region
Summary
The human body is comprised of over 80 percent water. Therefore, it should be no surprise that we are drawn endlessly to bodies of this life-giving fluid. Oceana calls to us endlessly, drawing us in, enfolding us in its depths. In this guide, you will find the most comprehensive directory available on oceanic regions, from the United States to Australia. Complete with suggested activities and clear cut directions, this guide is a must for all water babies seeking adventure!
©2017 Proxy Publishing (P)2018 Proxy Publishing
The Bush
Summary
An enthralling journey, showcasing Watson's trademark literary gift and sardonic wit, through the Australian landscape and character. While most Australians live in cities clinging to the coastal fringe, our sense of what an Australian is, or should be, is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us? Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores the bush as it was and as it now is: the triumphs and the ruination, the commonplace and the bizarre, the stories we like to tell about ourselves and the national character, and those we don't. A milestone work of memoir, travel writing and history, The Bush takes us on a profoundly revelatory and entertaining journey through the Australian landscape and character.
©2014 Don Watson (P)2017 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Last True Story of Titanic
Summary
Although many denied it, a giant ocean liner was dying. The superstitious nodded their heads, knowing her fate had already been sealed. The freezing Atlantic crept up to the forecastle head as the massive vessel, with all her lights aglow, slowly, almost imperceptibly, sank at the bow.
©1998, 1999 James G. Clary (P)2015 James G. Clary
James Cook
Summary
The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation. Leading a crew of men into uncharted territories, Cook would face the best and worst of humanity as he took himself and his crew to the edge of the known world - and beyond. With his masterful storytelling talent, Peter FitzSimons brings the real James Cook to life. Focusing on his most iconic expedition, the voyage of the Endeavour, where Cook first set foot on Australian and New Zealand soil, FitzSimons contrasts Cook against another figure who looms large in Australasian history: Joseph Banks, the aristocratic botanist. As they left England, Banks, a rich, famous playboy, was everything that Cook was not. The voyage tested Cook's character and would help define his legacy. Now, 240 years after James Cook's death, FitzSimons reveals what kind of man James was at heart. His strengths, his weaknesses, his passions and pursuits, failures and successes. James Cook reveals the man behind the myth.
©2019 Peter FitzSimons (P)2019 Hachette Australia Audio
Greater Than a Tourist - Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Summary
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. Most travel books tell you how to travel like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this book will give you travel tips from someone who has lived at your next travel destination. In this audiobook, you will discover advice that will help you throughout your stay. This audiobook will not tell you exact addresses or store hours but instead will give you excitement and knowledge from a local that you may not find in other smaller travel books. Travel like a local. Slow down, stay in one place, and get to know the people and the culture. By the time you finish this audiobook, you will be eager and prepared to travel to your destination.
©2018 CZYK Publishing (P)2019 CZYK Publishing
Down South
Summary
In Down South, writer Bruce Ansley goes on a journey back to his beloved South Island. From Curio Bay to Golden Bay, in Down South writer Bruce Ansley sets off on a vast expedition across the South Island, Te Waipounamu, visiting the places and people who hold clues to the South's famous character. Not so very long ago, the South Island had most of New Zealand's people and just about all of the money. Gold miners found fortunes in the hills and rivers, sheep barons straddled mountains, valleys, and plains. Wealthy Southerners ruled the government. Where now lies the South Island's golden fleece? And what is its future?
©2020 Bruce Ansley (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
The Ship That Never Was
Summary
The greatest escape story of Australian colonial history by the son of Australia's best-loved storyteller. In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land. After several escape attempts from the notorious penal colony, Porter, who told authorities he was a 'beer-machine maker', was sent to Sarah Island, known in Van Diemen's Land as hell on earth. Many had tried to escape Sarah Island; few had succeeded. But when Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape. Wresting control of the ship they'd been building to transport them to their fresh hell, the escapees instead sailed all the way to Chile. What happened next is stranger than fiction, a fitting outcome for this true-life picaresque tale. The Ship That Never Was is the entertaining and rollicking story of what is surely the greatest escape in Australian colonial history. James Porter, whose memoirs were the inspiration for Marcus Clarke's For the Term of His Natural Life, is an original Australian larrikin whose ingenuity, gift of the gab and refusal to buckle under authority make him an irresistible antihero who deserves a place in our history.
©2018 Adam Courtenay (P)2018 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Orca
Summary
Drawing on interviews, official records, private archives, and his own family history, Jason M. Colby tells the exhilarating and often heartbreaking story of how people came to love the ocean's greatest predator. Historically reviled as dangerous pests, killer whales were dying by the hundreds, even thousands, by the 1950s - the victims of whalers, fishermen, and even the US military. In the Pacific Northwest, fishermen shot them, scientists harpooned them, and the Canadian government mounted a machine gun to eliminate them. But that all changed in 1965, when Seattle entrepreneur Ted Griffin became the first person to swim and perform with a captive killer whale. The show proved wildly popular, and he began capturing and selling others, including Sea World's first Shamu. Over the following decade, live display transformed views of Orcinus orca. The public embraced killer whales as charismatic and friendly, while scientists enjoyed their first access to live orcas. Yet even as Northwesterners taught the world to love whales, they came to oppose their captivity and to fight for the freedom of a marine predator that had become a regional icon.
©2018 Oxford University Press (P)2019 HighBridge Company
New Zealand: Cities, Sights and Other Places You Need to Visit
Summary
From the dynamics of Maori culture and tradition to the majestic creation of nature, New Zealand is the sublime destination to which every traveler is looking forward. New Zealand is bigger than UK and has just 4.8 million inhabitants. Thus, the remaining areas are filled with fjords, lakes, beaches, walking trails, reserved area, forests, and much more. Do not get hung up on the idea that it is just a tiny island close to Australia. This place has wonders in its pocket starting from water activities to helicopter rides to volcanoes. Visit the winery or sky dive from the tallest building in the country. Do you want to go to the spot where the Lord of the Rings movie happened? Catch a flight to New Zealand. 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. When you download New Zealand: Cities, Sights and Other Places You Need to Visit, you will be well-prepared to visit the country of your dreams! Buy this audiobook today! Would you like to start today? If you do, just scroll up and hit the "Buy Now" button. Enjoy!
©2018 Writing Souls' Travel Guides (P)2018 Writing Souls' Travel Guides
Convict-Era Port Arthur
Summary
Detailing the development of the prison and its outlying stations, including its dreaded coal mines and providing an account of the changing views to convict rehabilitation, Convict-Era Port Arthur focuses in on a number of individuals, telling the story through their eyes. Charles O'Hara Booth, a significant commandant of Port Arthur; Mark Jeffrey, a convict who became the grave digger on the Island of the Dead; and William Thompson, who arrived just as the new probation system started and who was forced to work in the treacherous coal mines. Convict-Era Port Arthur will for the first time provide a comprehensive history of Port Arthur, its horrors and its changing role over a 50-year period. In gripping detail, using the experiences and words of the convicts, soldiers and administrators who spent time there, David W. Cameron brings to life these deeply miserable days.
©2021 David W. Cameron (P)2021 Penguin Random House Australia
Outer Island
Summary
Lovers of fine travel and adventure relish Scott Smith’s rich tale as a Peace Corps volunteer. Smith’s keen observations never sag in human interest as he confronts living on the edge of Pacific island paradise. It is a must listen for island lovers and anyone considering a journey to change the world or themselves. A heart-warming memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer on the outer edge of Pacific island paradise. Scott D. Smith returned from Micronesia and went onto Medill and a career as a reporter and writer for newspapers and magazines. He taught in a jail in Chicago and works as a public information officer in Minnesota.
©2019 Scott Smith (P)2020 Scott Smith
The Burden Within
Summary
This is a true story. Join me as I recount my torturous years of schooling and early adult life in England. Be inspired by my adventures as a '10 Pound Pom' drifting through Australia during the 1960s and 1970s.
©2017 Christopher Thompson (P)2017 Christopher Thompson
Convict Colony
Summary
Best-selling historian David Hill tells the story of the first three decades of Britain's earliest colony in Australia in a fresh and compelling way. The British plan to settle Australia was a high-risk venture. We now take it for granted that the first colony was the basis of one of the most successful nations in the world today. But in truth, the New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by hostile locals, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions or been brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders and, most of all, good luck, Sydney survived and thrived.
©2019 David Hill (P)2020 W. F. Howes Ltd
Squashed Possums
Summary
2016 Award Finalist - Travel Non-Fiction - Readers' Favorite Awards "Terrific." (Bill Bryson, author of Notes from a Small Island) 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.... "I thoroughly enjoyed it! What an interesting story." (Dr. Jock Phillips, NZ historian and author) “The caravan narrator - yes, a first. May it sell in the millions.” (Giles Milton, author of White Gold and Nathaniel's Nutmeg)
©2015 Jonathan Tindale (P)2018 Jonathan Tindale