Heather Ewart swaps four wheels for two with mixed results, when she heads to Evandale in Tasmania, Australia’s home of penny farthing races.
Presenter Heather Ewart swaps four wheels for two with mixed results, when she heads to Evandale in Tasmania, Australia’s home of penny farthing races. The annual event brings an eclectic mix to the historic village, ranging from a world record holder to a novice from Hong Kong who has only had a few hours practice.
And then there are the locals who have been riding penny farthings ever since their feet could reach the pedals.
But there’s more to Evandale than the tricky two-wheelers. Heather discovers a community that’s passionate about preserving its rich history in all sorts of ways, anything from turning the town’s heritage verandahs into a music festival to restoring old homes when it was more common to knock them down.
One of Evandale’s most ambitious restoration projects is Clarendon House, where Heather meets farmer Neville McKinnell. He has fond memories of growing up in the mansion, even though when he lived in it, it was falling into disrepair. Seven decades later he’s still farming the land around the grand home.
Evandale is also known for its famous local artist John Glover, who is described as the father of Australian landscape painting. Long after his death he continues to inspire artists, including Evandale newcomer Kataraina Koroheke who shares her own inspiring story with Heather. After being diagnosed with keratoconus, she’s now legally blind but has found a way to pursue her love of painting. Kataraina has also adopted an unusual pet – a sheep named Gerald!
Heather Ewart heads to the South Australian outback to check out two mining towns that are chalk and cheese – Roxby Downs and its unruly cousin, Andamooka.
Heather Ewart heads to the South Australian outback to check out two mining towns that are chalk and cheese – Roxby Downs and its unruly cousin, Andamooka. These towns are just 30 kilometres apart but seem worlds away from each other.
Andamooka is a frontier opal mining town that evolved with barely any rules or regulations, but tons of character. It carries an unmistakable whiff of the Wild West. Heather meets local identity “Cal the Stoner”, who moved from Melbourne to Andamooka to devote himself to his art. Cal’s stone sculpture “The Andamooka Tiger” was years in the making and is now on the tourist trail. Heather’s mind boggles at Cal’s tales of playing heavy rock to birds in his garden and she winds up at an impromptu party in his psychedelic bar.
Nearby Roxby Downs was only built in the 1980s to service BHP’s vast Olympic Dam mine. On the surface, it’s a far neater and more orderly town, but Heather soon finds that the locals here also take pride in being different and making their own fun. Mine worker and artist Monte Clements makes elaborate costumes and invites Heather to model for a photo. The results are otherworldly!
Production credit: Executive Producer: Brigid Donovan. Series Producer: Louise Turley.
Back Roads visits Camperdown in Southwest Victoria, a town nestled between dormant volcanoes and majestic crater lakes. Guest presenter, Kerry Staight discovers a community that embraces its Scottish heritage, whilst also supporting locals going their own way.
The Robert Burns Celtic Festival celebrates Camperdown’s unlikely connection to the famous Scottish poet. Guest Presenter Kerry Staight throws herself into the festival by entering the shortbread competition, where she is outcooked by a class of year eight students. Undeterred Kerry gives haggis, another Scottish delicacy, a go while enjoying the many musical talents on display including some young bagpipers.
Kerry also learns of the local Aboriginal heritage, in particular Wombeetch Puyuun, who was the last of his tribe to live on Country. Dr Vicki Couzens shares the story of this local Elder and the unlikely friendship he forged with Scottish pastoralist James Dawson. It’s a relationship which was instrumental in saving the local indigenous languages from being lost.
Camperdown is home to some unique characters who aren’t afraid to go their own way. Lawrie Voutier owns the local scrapyard, making his living from other people’s rubbish. Surprisingly, behind his rough and ready demeanour, Kerry discovers his true love is antiquities. It’s a passion that has led to one of the biggest private antique collections in Australia including 1000 clocks and 800 Mary Gregory vases.
Another local who is breaking with convention is Tony Dupleix, a farmer who has potentially established the first cemetery in the world where the deceased are buried upright. There are no coffins or headstones. In fact, this environmentally friendly cemetery looks like a typical paddock.
Back Roads guest presenter Anna Daniels heads to the central Queensland town of Theodore for its 100th birthday. She finds a town honouring its past, but also safeguarding its future, proving anything is possible in the bush.
Back Roads guest presenter Anna Daniels heads to Theodore in central Queensland for its 100th birthday party. While the event celebrates the past, Anna finds this small town is also looking ahead and has big ideas on how to attract young people to the bush.
First up, Anna meets two young outback women who are proving anything is possible out here. Bella Hanson and Toni Lamb, both 22, launched their hit “Cowgirl Channel” podcast from the kitchen table on a local cattle station. The idea was to talk about things that matter to young women in the country and connect with those who want to give rural life a go. The besties tackle everything from the reality of dating in a small town to the drinking culture in the bush. Technology allows them to chat to guests all over Australia and study for their university degrees, without leaving the farm. The Cowgirls are proving if you have a good idea, you can make it happen anywhere.
While it’s tough to get young people to move to the country, Anna meets a local who’s done more than most to turn that around. The town’s much-loved GP, Dr Bruce Chater, has trained more than 500 medical students and interns in Theodore. He tells Anna it’s about showing them the joys of rural practice, in the hope they’ll choose to work in the bush. But after 43 years, Bruce is retiring. Luckily for Theodore, one of his proteges is stepping up and taking over.
Back Roads journeys to Kandos, in New South Wales, a town famous for making cement, where Heather Ewart finds an unlikely arts festival is reshaping the community.
Presenter Heather Ewart heads to the curious town of Kandos, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. It was founded in the early 20th century to supply cement for buildings like the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But when the cement works abruptly closed in 2011, Kandos faced a grim future.
Heather meets American born artist, Alex Wisser, who launched the Cementa Arts Festival in Kandos in 2013. Contemporary artists and visitors flocked to the town, but local “Nanna” Ellen Riley tells Heather many residents initially struggled to understand the eccentric newcomers. When Alex took the advice of former cement worker, Jack Pennell, and connected more with locals, things started to turn around. Now artists and residents work side by side to redefine the town’s identity.
Heather gets swept up in the creative energy of the festival, even posing for an ‘aura’ portrait. She also meets artist and resident Gab Bates, who is collaborating with the local footy team, to combine sport and performance art in her ambitious project “Scrum”. Heather eagerly jumps in and experiences the power of art in bringing people together in unexpected ways.
Heather then heads out of town with Peter Swain, a Dabee Wiradjuri man, whose ancestors survived the Dabee massacre, a devastating chapter in local history. Peter shows Heather incredible rock art created by his ancestors, which tells the story of the land and the people who have lived there for thousands of years. Through Peter’s eyes, Heather gains a profound appreciation of the spiritual and artistic heritage that exists alongside Kandos’s new and evolving identity.
In the first of a two-part special, Back Roads takes a trip on The Outback Way, also known as Australia’s longest shortcut, where Lisa Millar finds remote communities reaching out to the world in surprising ways.
Presenter Lisa Millar goes on a remote road trip like no other, following the 2700 kilometre route known as The Outback Way, which crosses the heart of Australia.
Starting her trip in Western Australia, with Nathaniel Rosenberg from the Warakurna Roadhouse, Lisa discovers how the 22-year-old from the coast survives in the bush by using bad dad jokes to keep tourists amused.
At Warakurna’s Aboriginal community, Lisa heads to a remarkable radio station with the local kids. Here anyone can broadcast their own show on a network that connects 15 isolated communities.
Her next stop is the Giles Weather Station, where she watches the release of a weather balloon and learns about life on one of the only staffed weather stations in Australia.
Further down the road at Kaltukatjara, also known as Docker River, Lisa attends a moving Lutheran church service delivered in native Pitjantjatjara. She then sits down with local artists for her first taste of kangaroo tail and enjoys a live performance by the “Wild Brumbies”, a band that’s been playing together since the 1980s.
Continuing on the Great Central Road, Lisa bathes in the glow of an Uluru sunset, before venturing off the tourist trail with the local rangers in search of the small Mala wallaby, sadly an animal that is now extinct in the wild.
The plan is to bituminise the Outback Way by 2032, but for the moment Lisa is making the most of her adventure on the road less travelled.
Back Roads continues its epic trip on The Outback Way. Lisa Millar soaks up spectacular natural wonders and meets people making a big difference educating kids, before hitching a ride with a couple of “Warrior Princesses”.
Lisa Millar continues her journey on the The Outback Way, a series of roads that cross through the heart of Australia.
She starts at Curtin Springs in the Northern Territory, a cattle station five times the size of Singapore. Lisa sees how native grasses are turned into paper and soaks up the wonders of the station’s stunning salt lakes.
Stopping at the Aboriginal community of Lilla, Lisa joins a group of school students as they are immersed in Aboriginal culture, and has a private audience with revered Elder Vera Williams who celebrates the stories of Lilla through her art.
The stories and learning continue at Kings Canyon, one of Australia’s most popular natural wonders. Lisa is awestruck as she hikes through the ancient landscape with Aboriginal guides Lewis Cline and Doug Taylor, whose ancestors lived there.
At the Erldunda Roadhouse, Lisa meets the kids who travel for hours just to go to a playgroup. It’s run by teacher, Kylie Jones, who supports remote children early in their education. Lisa hears how her work is making a big difference in Central Australia.
At the Gemtree Roadhouse, Lisa comes across a vastly different get-together – a “Shitbox Rally”, which has raised $50 million since it started 15 years ago. It’s a wild journey to raise money for the Cancer Council, and all 250 cars entered must cost less than $1500 each. Lisa jumps in with brothers Lou and Peter Mimmo, aka the “Warrior Princesses,” who were inspired to join the madcap rally after Peter’s daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia.
An emotional father-daughter reunion at the finish line is also the end of Lisa’s trip on Australia’s own “Route 66” where distance creates life-changing connections.
Back Roads goes in search of all creatures great and small on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia. Guest Presenter Paul West checks in to see how the island is faring after the devastating Black Summer fires of 2020.
Back Roads travels to an ecological Noah’s Ark, Kangaroo Island, just off the coast of South Australia. Presenter, Paul West, sees how the island is recovering from the devastating Black Summer fires, that scorched over half the island in 2019-20.
Paul heads to Pelican Lagoon to meet a woman who knows more about echidnas than most people on the planet. Dr Peggy Rismiller is a renowned scientist, originally from the United States, who moved to the island in the late 1980s to study KI’s short-beaked echidna. Paul discovers that these hardy little critters have been around since the dinosaurs and survived the fires by digging into the earth.
Peggy tells him that attitudes towards nature have changed on the island. Now farmers are more interested in the wildlife on their properties and want to protect it. He gets to see this in action on Ben Davis’s sheep farm. Ben started working with local ecologist Heidi Groffen after the fires. She’s set up a camera next to the burrow of an endangered small marsupial, the KI dunnart,and shows Paul and Ben pictures of all the animals that have been captured.
Paul can see why they call this Australia’s Galapagos Island. The wildlife here is unbelievable: there are playful dolphins, rare goannas and iconic sea lions. The scars from the fires might still be visible but ‘Mother Nature’ is staging a comeback and she’s not alone. The people of KI, from farmers to scientists, are banding together to bring this wild slice of paradise back from the brink.
Back Roads heads to Queensland’s Great Keppel Island. Once a paradise for partygoers, Heather Ewart meets the locals looking for a better way to share their pristine backyard with the rest of the world.
Heather Ewart arrives by ferry to find an idyllic island with a tumultuous past and a community trying to carve out a more sustainable way forward.
In the 1980s Great Keppel Island was famous for its “Get Wrecked” advertising campaign and raunchy party culture. But in 2008 the island’s party resort suddenly shut and as Heather discovers, is now a wreck itself. Big plans to revitalise it with hundreds of villas, a swanky hotel, a marina and a casino all came to nothing.
But what’s been there all along are the people who call Great Keppel home, even if for some that means living on a catamaran. Heather dons the captain’s hat and hits the open water with Denise Weisse and partner Mark who have a passion for saving turtles and living on the water, despite losing their first floating home in a storm.
Heather also goes oyster harvesting with third generation islander Aaron Lorraway and his wife Nycole who have turned the local ‘milky’ mollusc into a delicacy. Heather is in her element and goes back for seconds and thirds.
While the party culture might have disappeared, the stunning coastline still attracts visitors, including swimmers competing in an open water marathon around the whole island. Heather is in awe of Kerry-Lee Gockel who was born without arms. She’s made of tough stuff and thrives in the 20km island swim alongside her husband Paul, a former Paralympian silver-medallist.
As visitors lap the island, the Great Keppel community hopes new moves to take a more eco-friendly approach to tourism will create a better future for their piece of paradise.
Back Roads presenter Lisa Millar heads to the Hilltops Region of New South Wales for the “shear” excitement and chaos of The Running of the Sheep - a unique event that could only happen in rural Australia.
Presenter Lisa Millar heads to the Hilltops region of New South Wales to attend The Running of the Sheep – the headline event at the annual Boorowa Irish Wool Festival.
Lisa joins thousands of excited spectators for the unique event. It’s hard to describe, but imagine The Running of the Bulls performed by sheep and crossed with a lottery and you’re getting close.
Lisa meets Ashley Corkhill and his muster dogs, who keep the 150 sheep on course. With a one-year-old pup fresh off the farm, a screaming crowd and a roundabout to negotiate, chaos is guaranteed.
At the festival parade, Lisa spots a little kid with a big mullet expertly hand-clipping a sheep. At just 11, Buster Hall is already a veteran of shearing competitions and is a bit of a local legend. Buster and his dad Scottie attempt to teach Lisa how to shear.
In amongst all the festivities, Lisa finds a community where the next generation is playing a big role in preserving not only the region’s heritage and culture, but also its wildlife.
She visits Ingrid Corcoran’s farm, to help the local teacher and students plant a habitat refuge for the Superb Parrot. The bird is an emblem of Boorowa and is at risk of extinction. Lisa is rewarded with the breathtaking sight of a large flock of these beautiful and rare parrots.
Back Roads follows the Wheelbarrow Way from Mareeba to Chillagoe in Far North Queensland, where home town boy and ABC News presenter, Joe O’Brien, meets teams competing in the Great Wheelbarrow Race.
Presenter Joe O’Brien heads to the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland for the Great Wheelbarrow Race. This 140km race follows the Wheelbarrow Way from Mareeba to Chillagoe. The event is inspired by the miners who came to this region in the late eighteen hundreds. When one area was mined out, they moved to the next, pushing their worldly possessions along in the humble wheelbarrow.
Joe meets the “Dads’ Army” team, who are competing in the over 55’s category. The team’s average age is 74, and their oldest member is Frank “The Fossil”, a sprightly 86. They’re competing to stay fit, support each other and raise money for the Mareeba Hospital. This race is gruelling but they have all the beer and water pistols they need to have a lot of fun and get to the finish line.
Three young men, Kobi, Flynn and Dan, are running as the “Missy’s Donors” team.This trio are racing to raise awareness of the importance of donating blood and to honour the memory of their beloved friend, Missy Clarkson. Missy’s Mum, Anj Mittlestadt, is their team manager and biggest fan. The boys want to win their category and break the record, running in their barely there uniform of tiny red budgie smugglers.
Lindie Boonzaaier organises the Great Wheelbarrow Race. She and her husband Janus migrated to Australia from South Africa in 2018,and now own a farm in Dimbulah. Lindie invites Joe to run with her team, “The Council Cruisers”, giving Joe a taste of the questionable tactics employed by some teams in the race, all in the name of fun.
Back Roads explores Western Australia’s beloved Bibbulmun Track – a 1000 kilometre walk through mighty forests and a rugged coastline, starting on the outskirts of Perth. Guest Presenter Rae Johnston meets people transformed by the experience.
Keen hiker Rae Johnston sets off with her tent and camping stove to explore a region that’s home to half of Australia’s plant and animal species.
The 1000 kilometre Bibbulmun Track runs from the outskirts of Perth to Albany on the south coast, weaving its way through mighty forests and along a rugged coastline. It’s not a daunting walk, apart from its length, attracting both beginners and seasoned hikers from around the world. Many tell Rae how they’ve been transformed by their time on the track.
Among them is Steve Sertis, the passionate lead guide at the Bibbulmun Track Foundation, which manages the trail. He tells Rae how he had no interest in hiking before stumbling on a sign 27 years ago that pointed to Perth in one direction and Walpole, 650 km away, in the other. He now loves nothing more than introducing newbies to the ‘Bibb’ Track
Rae also meets Zara White, who as a 17-year-old became the youngest person to walk the whole track in 2023. Undeterred by losing all her toenails early on, Zara walked up to 38 km a day for 54 days. She tells Rae her toughness came from forced camping trips on the track with her Dad growing up.
And then there’s Bellamore Ndayikeze, who moved to Perth from a refugee camp in Tanzania after fleeing a civil war in Burundi. She was introduced to the Bibbulmun Track as a 16-year-old, by the First Hike Project, which introduces young migrants to the bush. She tells Rae how it’s helped her deal with childhood traumas and find a sense of peace.
Leaving the ABC tonight after almost 50 years. What a journey. Still 3 more of my #Backroads episodes to air in winter season starting in July. Keep watching! @ABCTV pic.twitter.com/7oywaLr2DT
