The Forgotten Corners of the Outback

The outback covers the huge, endless interior of Australia. Some of it is easy to see: red dirt from a plane window, a swollen river in flood during rain. But other secrets are tucked away; where does the kangaroo go after he bounds across the road in front of you? Where does the wedge-tailed eagle take its rest? 

There is so much we don’t know about the outback. Every year, people go missing on its remote roads. Many are never found again. The legends and stories of pioneers who never reached their end goal pockmark the desert. No one can guarantee the exact moods of Central Australia; the extreme weather, the wet and the dry, the hot and the icy cold.

Outback gum trees in Central Australia (Photo credit: Suzanne Visser)

The forgotten corners of the outback yield much. They hold information on how to survive this arid landscape and how the first people who walked on the desert learned to live and thrive. The further you travel into the outback, the further away you get from people and infrastructure. Yet this is often the only way to learn about the most remote destinations in Australia.

We carry much as memories, both in our heads and in our hearts. The out-of-the-way places, the isolated towns and stations, the rocks and ridges that we can only truly understand by visiting, all of them yield life. When we do investigate these sites the forgotten parts of the outback are no longer forgotten; they exist within us, adding experience and beauty to our souls. The forgotten corners of the outback are made known, their beauty and their terror, for all.