Notes from the f ield
OUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, Chrissie Goldrick, fulfilled a long-held dream when she travelled to
Antarctica in March last year on an Australian Geographic Society expedition with a group of AG subscribers. Although already a highly experienced stills photographer, this was Chrissie’s first attempt at shooting video while on assignment.
Her filming efforts caught the attention of a subadult king penguin chick in the massive rookery at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia. “The chick took either an exception or a liking to me and my tripod – I couldn’t really tell – but much of what I filmed there is dominated by the sound of its cawing,” Chrissie says with a laugh. “I moved away several times, knowing the rules about wildlife and hoping to avoid being constantly pecked on the leg, but it followed me everywhere I went for almost an hour.” You can see the results of Chrissie and her feathered assistant’s film work on the website and read her report of the expedition on page 112.
Our contributors are used to heading into the outback with little more than a swag, notebook and camera. But for this issue, writer Phil Jarratt enjoyed a more genteel assignment, as you’ll see in his story on the magical Indian Pacific rail
journey. For Phil, an experienced adventure writer, “The idea of travelling across the arid heart of Australia on a luxury train, sitting in a restaurant car eating excellent meals of regional cuisine, paired with the finest
Australian wines, then enjoying the sleep of the dead in a comfortable compartment was for me at once exciting and just a little weird.” His qualms were soon overcome, though: “Not surprisingly, the Indian Pacific got me at hello. The journey was not without its dramas, though [as you will see on page 50]. But I loved it, and I will be back.”
Our photographer on the same assignment, Andrew Gregory, was in more familiar AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC territory: swags, sand and silent, starry nights. He followed the train across the Nullarbor in a four-wheel-drive, beside the tracks and far from the highway.
“You have to be self-sufficient,” he says. “It’s rough, hot and dusty and there’s nothing out there.” Andrew kept in contact with the train by satellite phone and spent days planning shoots and looking for the perfect locations to get the best shots as the train coursed across the continent.
“Waiting was nerve-racking!” he says. “Wind, clouds or rain can ruin the shot. There are no second chances – missing a shot means waiting another week.” For Andrew it was the assignment’s solitude that sticks in his mind. He felt that particularly when he climbed a sand hill about 50km south of Maralinga and waited in 40oC heat for what seemed like an eternity, because a delay at Cook had the
Indian Pacific running late.
When Andrew finally glimpsed a distant silver flash and saw the carriages moving like a python across the plain, he took off in hot pursuit, taking shots in a flurry and following as far as he could. Then he was alone again on a silent dune in the middle of Australia, with four days before the Indian Pacific headed back his way.
There was no solitude for photographer Don Fuchs while shooting our story on Boodjamulla National
Park, even though it’s very remote. Don’s drone crashed into a creek and as he rushed into the water to try and get it back, a family on holidays stopped to see what was going on.
It turns out they were loyal AG readers, knew Don’s work well and were big fans! Miraculously, the drone recovered from its dunking, and you can see the footage he went on to shoot on our website.