Australia
A vast country, the sixth largest in the world by area in fact, and the only nation state that is at the same time a whole continent. In terms of population, on the other hand, Australia is the third least densely populated sovereign country in the world (after Mongolia and Namibia). So there’s a lot of empty space there. For many that’s a key attraction – especially the remote “Outback”. There are plenty of natural wonders to be found in and around Australia, and its larger cities are also particular attractions – see non-dark travel below.In terms of dark tourism, Australia also offers quite a range. These are the individual places so far covered on this website with separate chapters (NOTE: at the moment it’s a work in progress, some links currently lead to stand-in empty pages but these will be filled/expanded one after the other as I find the time to write them up):
- Sydney, New South Wales
- Melbourne, Victoria
- Canberra
(National War Memorial & Museum, Parliament House,
Museum of Australian Democracy, National Museum of Australia)
- Brisbane, Queensland
(MacArthur Museum, Queensland Holocaust Museum, ANZAC Memorial)
- Adelaide, South Australia
- J Ward, Ararat, Victoria
- Hobart, Tasmania
- Port Arthur, Tasmania
- Woomera village and rocket range, South Australia
- Maralinga former nuclear test site, South Australia
- Montebello Islands former nuclear test site, Western Australia
- Fremantle Prison, Western Australia
- Darwin, Northern Territory
In addition, numerous convict-related sites could be mentioned here. The British colonies in Australia, initially just New South Wales and Tasmania, were of course built using the labour of convicts shipped over from the “motherland”. However, that took place at a time (second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th) that falls outside the usual time frame (key word ‘the modern age’) set for dark tourism on this website (see concept of dark tourism). The convict-related sites in the list above either continued to serve as prisons into the 20th century or have other links to contemporary history. The sites on the Tasmanian “Convict Trail” other than Port Arthur would not really qualify here, nor similar sites on the mainland.
What is probably Australia’s most iconic natural landmark, Uluru (formerly also known by its colonial name “Ayers Rock”, now more regularly referenced by its original Aboriginal name) could perhaps also be seen as a dark-tourism site. That’s mainly because of the Chamberlain case – the worst case of miscarriage of justice in modern Australian history. In short: in 1980 a baby girl named Azaria Chamberlain was snatched by a dingo (wild dog of Australia) from her parents’ tent while they were camping at Uluru (when that was still allowed). The body of the girl was never found. The parents reported the case to the police as such, but suddenly they were suspected of murder. To much media fanfare a court case ensued, and based on very far-fetched circumstantial “evidence”, the mother, Lindy Chamberlain, was convicted of murder and given a sentence of life imprisonment. One bit of “evidence” was the red colouration found in their car that was mistakenly believed to be Azaria’s blood – when in actual fact it was just a fire-resistant coating. Six years after her disappearance, Azaria’s pink matinee jacket was found near Uluru – under macabre circumstances: a British backpacker had fallen to his death from Uluru, at a time when people still regularly climbed the rock. The search for his body also led to the jacket, at a location that was also near some dingo dens. This new evidence led to another inquest and eventually Lindy Chamberlain was released from prison, though it took years of fighting and campaigning for her be finally fully rehabilitated. The original matinee jacket and the Chamberlains’ car are now on display at the National Museum of Australia.
The dead backpacker element in this story also points to the fact that climbing Uluru had always been risky. In fact a total of 37 people died while climbing the rock. The local Aboriginal people had never approved of people climbing Uluru, because to them the rock is sacred and the climbing route disturbed what they call a “dreamline”. Uluru and nearby Kata Tjuta (another rock formation formerly called “the Olgas” by the colonialists) were formally handed back to their traditional owners in 1985, on condition that they lease the land back to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park for 99 years and manage it jointly with the government National Parks authorities. The climbs initially continued (despite the promise to end them). It took many more years until climbing the rock was prohibited for good in 2019 and the hand-chain that had been installed to assist climbers was removed. It wasn’t just for cultural reasons or the fact that it was dangerous, but also for environmental reasons, as the climbers caused erosion on the rock. You can still see the line where the climbing route used to be, a discoloured groove can still be made out there.
Uluru continues to draw large numbers of tourists, but the focus is mostly on the scenery and the Aboriginal culture these days. The Chamberlain case was never mentioned in the two tours I went on. And as far as I can tell the location where Azaria’s jacket was found near the dead backpacker isn’t in any way commodified for visitors.
Australia is also known for ghost towns, of which it has quite a few, in particular in the remote Outback, and especially in Western Australia. But I didn’t include any on my summer 2024 trip, so cannot offer any first-hand impressions. Note that the probably most infamous ghost town of them all, Wittenoom, is now a non-site. The former blue asbestos mining town (cf. Asbestos in Canada) was abandoned because of very valid health concerns. Now the remaining buildings have been demolished, it’s been taken off maps and all signs pointing towards it have been removed. There’s nothing to see there any more and since the whole area is regarded as still asbestos contaminated, you should not go there. It’s actually now officially a “prohibited area”.
Speaking of mining, Australia is also known for its open-cast mines (iron, copper, gold, coal, uranium and whatnot), many of which have resulted in massively scarred landscapes. But these mines are normally not open to tourism (a notable exception is the “Super Pit” open-cast gold mine in Kalgoorie in Western Australia where you can go on tours by bus). I saw one mine from the air flying back from Maralinga to Ceduna (see the photo in the gallery below). Furthermore I had intended to go on a tour of the iron ore mine in the fabulously named Iron Knob. Unfortunately, there was some glitch in the email correspondence and when I got to the visitor centre there was no guide. They had conducted a tour the day before. So I could only see the mine from the outside in the distance and otherwise had to make do with the visitor centre’s endearing museum, run by local volunteers, and a few open-air displays.
Another more seriously dark aspect that Australia is often in the media for is natural and human-made disasters, in particular bushfires and floods, the former mostly due to drought, the latter to the opposite, too much rain all at once. It’s not really for tourism, but if you happen to be able to drive through an area recently ravaged by fire, this can be an eerie dystopian experience.
A completely human-made very dark aspect of Australian history has to be brought up here too, namely the fact that the British colonization of the continent from the late 18th century onwards also went hand in hand with the genocidal treatment of the indigenous population, who’re generally referred to as Aborigines/Aboriginals (although these days alternative terms have become more widespread, e.g. ‘First Peoples’).
Not only were they literally massacred in their tens of thousands as the colonialists seized the “new” land (which from the point of view of its original owners was, of course, old land … in fact, Aboriginal culture is regarded as the oldest continuous culture in the world, 30,000 to 50,000 years). The surviving current generations have often been driven to a life on the edge, to poverty and a low life expectancy. And even their official rights are often enough not honoured.
One very unsavoury issue in this context is the policy of “assimilation”, which included the forced removal of Aboriginal/mixed-race children from their parents so they could be brought up by white Westerners in order to “Europeanize” them and in the longer run thus destroy the Aborigines' culture and traditions (which is based on oral transmission through the generations). This policy was brought to the world's attention through the 2002 movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence”. After the film I had been under the impression that this policy (which gave Australia the expression “the stolen generation”) ended in the 1970s, but as I later learned forced removal of Aborigines' children, even babies, and placing them in out-of-home care was still ongoing … Incidentally, the real rabbit-proof fence can be seen at its bottom end not far from the Nullarbor Roadhouse in western South Australia.
In the meantime, Australia has issued an official apology for the ill-treatment of the “First Australians” (another synonym) – this is on display at the Parliament House. And these days you can hardly encounter any Australian tourism website that doesn’t come with a pop-up or prefix paragraph with a statement to the effect that the “traditional owners” of the land in question are “acknowledged” and that “respect” is extended to their “elders, past, present and emerging”. The same line was also spoken by the guide on the bus during my Uluru tours (see above). To me its omnipresence had rather a detrimental effect, one of a hackneyed, auto-repeated formulaic expression that begs the question about how honestly meant it actually is.
Another modern-day unsavoury aspect regarding the treatment of non-Europeans by Australia is the country’s contemporary refugee policies. Asylum seekers are often shipped to offshore islands for “processing”, meaning they frequently languish there for years without a clear perspective – see in particular Nauru!
The natural world of Australia also has plenty of dark aspects. Nowhere else on earth are there so many lethally poisonous animals, like snakes, spiders and the infamously toxic blue-ringed octopus or the box jellyfish. In addition there are aggressive sharks and the monstrous salt-water crocodiles. In the wild you should obviously stay as far away from any such species as possible, but you may encounter some of them at zoos, e.g. the Australia Zoo near the Gold Coast south of Brisbane. In their reptile house, for instance, they have the Inland Taipan (aka “fierce snake”), which has the most potent venom of any – enough to kill about a hundred people all at once … overkill!!! Crocs are another speciality of this zoo.
Animals are also on the receiving end of danger, not just those millions (even billions) lost in wildfires, Australia’s roads are also fraught with dangerous animal encounters – both ways. Along e.g. the Eyre Highway, the main east-west road through South Australia and into Western Australia, you see plenty of signs warning about the potential presence of kangaroos, wombats and wild camels. Kangaroos are said to be particularly unpredictable. When I drove along this road, however, I only had one near-miss encounter with an emu, but I saw it by the roadside from far enough away that I was able to brake in time. But I saw more dead kangaroos by the roadside than I ever encountered live ones. Many roadkills are the victims of the so-called “road trains”, extra-long and heavy juggernauts that can be over 50m/165 feet long (hence a nightmare to overtake too) and these thunder along the road at 100 km/h (60 mph) at all times, including dusk, when animals are most likely to come out. As the pilot of the scenic flight I went on from the Nullarbor Roadhouse said, it’s only wild camels that a road train would ever bother braking for (that’s because they are so tall and could thus smash through the windscreen).
Having mentioned driving in Australia, this brings us to the next big section:
Travel practicalities:
Getting to Australia for most people means flying in, and unless you’re coming from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea or Micronesia, it means very long flights and these can be costly too. Coming from Europe some people break the journey, e.g. by staying in Singapore en route for a couple of days. But even without that I found coping with jet lag wasn’t as difficult as feared. (Here’s a tip from sleep researchers: on arrival try to sleep four hours when it’s bedtime in your country of departure and then four at destination bedtime – it’s really helped me since I learned about this.) All the major cities have international airports, Sydney’s is the largest and busiest, followed by Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
Note that all visitors to Australia need a visa (except New Zealanders). But for most Western and many Asian countries’ citizens “eVisitor” visas are fairly easy to obtain online and are free of charge for short-stay tourists (that is: up to three months). For other visas it can get more complicated, but most ordinary travellers will hardly need to look into those.
Getting around within Australia can often mean having to go on domestic flights – given the vastness of the country. In the east and south-east, however, trains are a viable alternative to flying, and help somewhat in lowering one’s carbon footprint of an Australia trip (even though compared to the international flights it may not seem much). To this end I took the train from Sydney to Melbourne (ca. 10 hours) and another (“The Overland”) from Melbourne to Adelaide (another 10 hours) and also between Sydney and Canberra and back (ca. 4.5 hours each way). It is also possible to travel by train to Brisbane and other places in Queensland. The long-distance transcontinental trains going all the way to Perth and Darwin are these days luxury rail journeys for well-heeled passengers and have to be booked a year or two in advance. Buses are also an option (but one I never tried when I was on my summer 2024 Australia trip).
Beyond public transport’s reach there’s only self-driving, and hire cars of all calibres are easily available. If your licence is in a language other than English, getting an international driving licence on top may be a good idea, in case you are stopped by the police. Many who want to go into the real wilderness of “the bush” often travel by camper van or “RV”. Note that some hire car companies restrict vehicles to closed roads, so no rough tracks or off-road driving; in some cases this has to be borne in mind (see e.g. Maralinga).
Driving is on the left, as in Britain, but I don’t find that a problem personally (helped by the fact that I used to live in the UK for several years). Driving in cities could be stressful, but once out in the country, it’s usually calm. On more remote roads you may not encounter another vehicle for a long time. On the main transport arteries through the countryside you have to be careful with the so-called “road trains” (see above). Take care when overtaking them and should one want to overtake you, make sure to give it plenty of space on the tarmac (if need be pull in), as you don’t want them to shower you with roadside gravel (that could easily smash your windscreen). Make sure to keep your fuel tank filled up, as there may be long distances without any chance to top it up (can be hundreds of miles). Electric vehicles are not yet a real option on long-distance road trips in remote parts. This will improve but will require careful pre-planning and for some routes it won’t be possible too soon at all.
Accommodation options are usually very wide in cities but it thins out significantly in more remote parts. Short of camping or using an RV (both quite popular in Australia) motel accommodation may be your only option. The most remote one I used was the legendary Nullarbor Roadhouse – where the remoteness significantly adds to the attraction of the place. It really feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere (except for the constant flow of road trains).
In terms of food and drink, Australia has come a long way. Only 40 or 50 years ago it was a culinary wasteland where bland English cuisine dominated (and I mean English as in England in the 1970s, it has changed for the better in the UK too), these days you can get a very wide range of choices and often experimental incorporation of genuinely Australian ingredients. For my 2024 summer trip to Australia I did a lot of research ahead of time and thus managed to have some of the best culinary experiences ever, from “bush tucker” (with indigenous ingredients and spices) to outstanding seafood and lots of Asian influences (especially Chinese and Japanese, but also Indian). In terms of seafood, the Morton Bay Bug (something a bit like between a large crayfish and a small lobster) was the seafood discovery of the trip for me. It’s a shame I will never see them again unless I return to Australia. It was also interesting to get fish similarly unknown in Europe (the barramundi being my favourite one). Australians still eat a lot of meat (especially at their beloved BBQs) but these days you can also eat well as a vegetarian. In Sydney I went to a restaurant offering a vegan tasting menu which turned out to be one of the best dinners I had in the country! Good restaurants can be pretty expensive, though. Yet I also had fairly decent meals at much more affordable prices in motels, e.g. in Ceduna. At the lower end of the scale there’s of course fast food and pub grub, but in cities there will always be better alternatives. Planning ahead pays off.
On the drinks front, Australia is of course internationally known as a vinicultural country of the highest order, and indeed its wines are ubiquitous and can be very good to outstanding. I was a bit surprised, though, at how expensive they often are – even Australian wines you can get as imports in Europe, usually cost significantly more in their country of origin. It must have to do with taxation.
The formerly dominant bland lager beers are still about but their market share has fortunately been challenged by the wave of craft brewing that has rolled over Australia in recent years. This is flourishing the most in the big cities, naturally, but these day you may even find a halfway decent pale ale in more rural parts. The global gin craze hasn’t bypassed Australia either and I also found that whisky distilling has become really serious in Australia too, especially in Tasmania, but also e.g. in Melbourne. The ones that I tried could well compete with their (mostly) Scotch role models. Rum is also very popular in Australia, but I made no effort to explore that line.
Soft drinks and juices are naturally widespread too (and some juices can be from unusual fruits), but the ultimate soft drink, water, can be a problem. In the big cities tap water may be potable, but not everybody would approve of the taste. Outside cities, bottled water is often the only option anyway. Make sure to keep well hydrated, especially in warmer parts/times. It can get pretty hot in Australia (I went in winter, but still in Brisbane it went up to well over 30 degrees Celsius). I’m not a coffee connoisseur but I often had trouble finding just a plain black coffee. Fancier ones seem to be more common, but I can’t vouch for the quality as I generally try to keep away from those.
A little geography:
Australia, lying between New Zealand to the north-east, Antarctica to the south and Indonesia and Papua to the north is indeed a vast country, a continent even. Administratively the country is a federation of six states and two self-governing territories. The six states are: New South Wales (capital Sydney), Victoria (capital Melbourne), the separate island of Tasmania (capital Hobart), South Australia (capital Adelaide), Western Australia (capital Perth) and Queensland (capital Brisbane). The two self-governing territories are the national capital Canberra with the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) around it, the smallest of the country’s constituent parts, as well as the Northern Territory (capital Darwin).
Climate:
Much of Australia is very arid indeed, desert even – almost the entire inland west of the eastern mountain ranges, and reaching right up to the coastline in the south and the extreme west. Not quite so extreme zones around this core are still classed as dry. Moderate climate supporting verdant forests and farming as well as viticulture) is found only in the (south-)east, south, Tasmania and around Perth in the west. In the north (e.g. Darwin) the climate is decidedly tropical. Winters are generally fairly mild, frost is rare, except in the mountains, though night frost in the desert is not uncommon. When I was in Melbourne as July turned into August it was quite chilly, with temperatures down to a mere 3 degrees Celsius. A few weeks later in Brisbane temperatures already topped 30 degrees. Summers can be blazingly hot, especially in the inland “outback”, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius. At that time it’s better to stay away from the Outback – and some activities such as the Maralinga tours don’t run at all from November to March.
In the dry summer heat, bushfires are unfortunately common and increasingly regular and more severe due to climate change. Such massive fires can cut off large swaths of land while they are being ravaged by flames (that often also take a tragically massive toll on wildlife). Another aspect of climate change is floods at other times after torrential downpours. Flooding can also interfere with tourism.
Non-dark travel:
In this regard I basically just scratched the surface. I visited the big cities in the east and south and took in their usual sights, but only did very little exploring of the countryside. I took a road trip from Adelaide to Woomera and on to Ceduna (see Maralinga) and the Nullarbor. And I did a fly-in visit to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, and on the tour to Port Arthur I got a glimpse of the Tasmanian coast, plus distant views of landscapes from the air (e.g. Lake Eyre en route to Uluru). But that was it. No Great Barrier Reef, no Fraser Island, no Blue Mountains, or other famous natural wonders, and nothing at all from the tropical north or anything in Western Australia. The continent is just too big. But I did get an impression of the Nullarbor Plain – so called because there are indeed no trees (that’s what ‘null arbor’ means in Latin), as well as the Bunda Cliffs, the longest stretch of uninterrupted sea cliffs in the world. It was also there, at the Great Australian Bight, that I indulged in whale-watching (see Maralinga >non-dark combinations). Encounters with other wildlife were limited – I only saw a few kangaroos, a live wombat only from far away, a single wild camel and a single emu, yet plenty of lizards and of course birds. But no koalas, no saltwater crocodiles, or other well-known Aussie species. Fortunately I also never encountered any of those dreaded poisonous animals. The only snakes I saw were displayed pickled in jars by the Nullarbor Roadhouse.
The most frequently encountered bird for me was actually in the cities: the Australian white ibis – commonly referred to by locals as “bin chickens”. That’s because they’ve adapted to feeding on rubbish discarded by humans, whether actually scavenged from rubbish bins or from elsewhere. They are also referred to as “sandwich snatchers” or “picnic pickers” or “tip turkeys” or “dumpster divers”, for instance … And they are indeed quite fearless. Many Australians despise them (similar to many people’s attitude towards urban pigeons). But one has to remember that it’s natural habitat loss and increased droughts that have driven these birds into the cities – well at least some cities. I saw plenty of them in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, but never encountered any in Melbourne or Hobart.
Speaking of cities – I found several of them very impressive indeed, not just Sydney and Melbourne (the old traditional rivals); I was also very fond of Brisbane, more than I had anticipated. Hobart and Adelaide fell a little bit behind those for me, but they still had their own charm and attractions.
