The Last Great Australian Adventurer

Author: Gordon Bass
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0143780077
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Book Description
In 1948, Ben Carlin set out from New York City with an audacious, lunatic plan to circumnavigate the world in an army surplus amphibious jeep called Half-Safe. Fuelled by cigarettes and adrenaline, the Australian army major pushed his fragile, claustrophobic vehicle through fierce Atlantic hurricanes, across uncharted North African desert, into dense South-East Asian jungle and over the icy dark swells of the North Pacific. It was a 50,000-mile roll of the dice that by all rights should have killed him. When Ben finally pulled into Times Square a decade later, he found himself alone and forgotten, his legacy little more than a wake of women and empty whiskey bottles. And the worst was yet to come. Was it all a fool’s errand? Or a pure manifestation of spirit? Where does a dream end and an obsession begin? What’s an acceptable cost to pay, and to what lengths will a person go not to be left with the haunting question: what if? The Last Great Australian Adventurer is the compelling account of Ben Carlin’s attempt to make an enduring mark on the world at the twilight of the Golden Age of Adventure.

LAST GREAT AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURER

Author: GORDON. BASS
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781525261367
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Last Explorer

Author: Simon Nasht
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 161608717X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 463

Book Description
In the tradition of The Ice Master and Endurance, here is the incredible story of the first truly modern explorer, whose death-defying adventures and uncommon modesty make this book itself an extraordinary discovery. Hubert Wilkins was the most successful explorer in history--no one saw with his own eyes more undiscovered land and sea. Largely self-taught, Wilkins became a celebrated newsreel cameraman in the early 1900s, as well as a reporter, pilot, spy, war hero, scientist, and adventurer, capturing in his lens war and famine, cheating death repeatedly, meeting world leaders like Lenin and Stalin, and circling the globe on a zeppelin. Apprenticing with the greats of polar exploration, including Shackleton in the Antarctic, Wilkins recognized the importance of new technologies such as the airplane and submarine. He helped map the Canadian Arctic and plumbed the ocean depths from the icecap. A pioneer in the truest sense of the word, he became the first man to fly across the North Pole, which won him a knighthood; the first to fly to the Antarctic and discover land there by airpla≠ and the first to take a submarine under the Arctic ice. Grasping the link between the poles and changing global weather, Wilkins was a visionary in weather forecasting and the study of global warming. A true hero of the earth, he changed the way we look at our world.

The Backyard Adventurer

Author: Beau Miles
Publisher: Brio Books Pty Ltd
ISBN: 1922267317
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
After years of adventuring around the globe – running, kayaking, hitchhiking, exploring – Beau Miles came back to his block in country Victoria. Staying put for the first time in years, Beau developed a new kind of lifestyle as the Backyard Adventurer. Whether it was walking 90km to work with no provisions, building a canoe paddle out of scavenged scrap or running a disused railway line through properties, blackberry thickets and past inquiring police officers, Beau has been finding ways to satisfy his adventurous spirit close to home. This book is about conscious experimentation with adventure, making meaning and inspiration out of tins of beans, bits of rubbish and elbow grease. Beau’s Backyard exploits are funny, authentic, insightful and being copied all over the world by everyday people. YouTuber, new dad, and self-described oddball who needs to shower more, Beau is what happens when you cross Bear Grylls with Bush Tucker Man. With a PhD in Outdoor Education, a string of successful short films under his belt and a boundless passion for discovery, Beau is the real deal.

Once a Fool -- from Tokyo to Alaska by Amphibious Jeep

Author: Boye De Mente
Publisher: Cultural-Insight Books
ISBN: 0914778048
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Book Description
One of the most remarkable adventures on record, ONCE A FOOL -- From Tokyo to Alaska by American journalist Boye Lafayette De Mente recounts his experiences aboard the the jeep Half-Safe, with Australian Ben Carlin--a voyage that took precisely four months and involved encounters with Russians, Japanese fishing nets, huge walruses, a tidal wave, a Yellow Monster, water colder than ice, and each other! One of the most publicized ocean-crossings in the 20th century, the story of the globe-circling amphibious jeep is in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Dog Who Took Me Up a Mountain

Author: Rick Crandall
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0757322697
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
The uplifting story of two unlikely mountaineers: a man in late middle age and a fearless pint-sized pup who, together, scale Colorado's highest peaks. By the time life had finished hitting Rick Crandall from all sides, he was at the lowest point of his life, both personally and professionally. Depressed to find himself facing a mid-late-life age crisis and watching his finances crumble as the tech industry bubble burst, he hopes his future isn't headed downhill. It was at this critical juncture in their new marriage that his wife Pamela made an astute and life-changing suggestion: "Let's get a dog." So begins the story of Emme, a 200-pound Saint Bernard trapped in the body of 5-pound Australian terrier puppy. Soon, Emme and Rick hit the hiking trails around Aspen, Colorado. While she is groomed to be a show dog, it's soon obvious that her heart is in the hills and with Rick, who decides to add more challenging hikes to the mix. Before long, they are scaling Colorado's "fourteeners," peaks with altitudes of over 14,000 feet. On one magical day, Emme climbs to the top of four "fourteeners," a quarter of the sixteen such peaks she will complete during her life without once being carried on a trail or on the rocks on the way to a summit. In mountaineering Rick realizes he has found—in his late sixties—his life's new passion. This is where Emme has led him—out of the abyss and to the top of the mountain. She was never really walking behind: she was nudging him along until he found his stride. Even after Rick understood the glory of climbing, it was Emme still doing the leading, until Rick learned how to lead himself.

Fearless

Author: Joe Glickman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762783060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
Like the instant classic The Last American Man, Fearless is the story of a remarkable individual who accepts no personal limits—including fear. Freya Hoffmeister, a forty-six-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman, and Miss Germany contestant, left her twelve-year-old son behind to paddle alone and unsupported around Australia—a year-long adventure that virtually every expert guaranteed would get her killed. She planned not only to survive the 9,420-mile trip through huge, shark-infested seas, but to do it faster than the only other paddler who did it. As journalist and expert kayaker Joe Glickman details the voyage of this Teutonic force of nature, he captures interminable days on the water and nights camped out on deserted islands; hair-raising encounters with crocs and great white sharks; and the daring 300-mile open-ocean crossing that shaved three weeks off her trip. For 332 days Glickman followed Freya’s journey on her blog—along with a far-flung audience of awestruck, even lovesick, groupies—as she took on one terrifying ordeal after the next. In the end, he says, “her vanity and pigheadedness paled next to her nearly superhuman ability to master fear and persevere.”

My Adventurous Life

Author: Dick Smith
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761063251
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist ... Australian icon Dick Smith shares his extraordinary life story for the first time. 'Part Bear Grylls, part Bill Gates, but 100% Aussie larrikin. Dick is a great innovator, philanthropist and adventurer, who in my eyes can do no wrong.' - Paul Hogan 'Businessman, adventurer, philanthropist . . . Dick Smith is a true Australian legend.' - Greg Mortimer OAM 'I have been charmed by good fortune to be born in Australia in the 1940s. I have lived through a time of great prosperity and every day I am reminded of my good luck.' Dick Smith is a remarkable and proud Australian. He has been part of our national consciousness for over fifty years as an innovative and astute businessman, a ground-breaking adventurer, a generous philanthropist and a provocateur for the causes he feels deeply about. Yet, despite his great successes and achievements, Dick has remained down to earth and close to his roots. So how did the young boy who was one of the most academically hopeless in class become the national living treasure he is today? And what was it within that kid with a speech impediment that allowed him to create three successful businesses, and take on some of the world's greatest and most dangerous aviation challenges? In My Adventurous Life, Dick shares his inspiring story and the lessons he's learned about staying true to yourself. He has welcomed the freedoms that wealth brings, but has found the simple life more fulfilling. His responsibility is to the world and the people we share it with.

Francis Birtles

Author: Warren Brown
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0733629385
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
This is the colourful story of Francis Birtles, a fascinating individual who led a life of incredible adventure and exploration in Australia and throughout the world. A narrative account of the life and times of one of Australia's most extraordinary adventurers - a man who crossed Australia more than 70 times in the early part of the 20th century - by bicycle and car. In 1927 he acheived the greatest motoring feat of the times, driving a car from London to Melbourne. This story follows his exploits across scorching Arabic deserts, through steamy Indian jungles and mountain snowstorms. In between these journeys he made a collection of documentaries and films of his encounters with the outback. He documented his exploration of Australia in his book, Battlefronts of Outback. He eventually travelled to the Northern Territory in search of gold and retired a wealthy man.

The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins

Author: Peter FitzSimons
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1472131479
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 834

Book Description
Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography. In 1908 he sailed for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He explored the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking ornithological study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins' quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend. With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered - this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.