The best way to see the world

Australia is rugged and enormous, but that has never stopped us exploring it by foot.

Starting with Australia's First Peoples, walking is deeply rooted in our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, with ‘tracks’ mapped out using stories of the past and the night sky stars to guide their movements across this vast land. Original tracks and pathways followed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people before Europeans arrived, have shaped many of the major roads we take for granted in our cities today. 

Early European explorers with far less experience of the landscape attempted some perilous walking journeys. Burke and Wills signed up to their fateful walk after the Government of South Australia offered a prize for the first expedition to cross the Australian continent from south to north – 3,250km and 80 pairs of shoes later, the team made it to the Gulf of Carpentaria but died on the return journey. 

Henry Lawson also accepted a walking ‘challenge’, when the editor of the Bulletin gave him a rail ticket to Bourke and a five pound note to experience the real outback of Australia. Lawson walked more than 200km to Hungerford, and the journey would shape him as a poet and writer. 

Today, we’re still exploring our country by foot with famous trails across every state – the Bay of Fires walk in Tasmania, the Larapinta Trek in NT, the Murray River Walk in SA and the Scenic Rim Trail Hike in QLD are just a few. But exploring on foot can be just as rewarding in your own neighbourhood and can be a way to notice changes, talk to new people, feel the weather or appreciate where you live. 

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