"Wings of the Kite-Hawk" by Nicholas Rothwell. [review - radio script]

Abstract

"Wings of the Kite-Hawk", subtitled "A Journey into the Heart of Australia", is journalist and novelist Nicolas Rothwell’s personal account of getting to know the interior of Australia: the tracks of the European explorers, the ancient sites and modern inhabitants, the landscapes; and the art, old and new, into which the landscape has been transformed by human hands. Rothwell’s interest is first aroused by the journals of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, and the book begins in Cape York, where he discovers traces of Leichhardt’s expedition. He is led from Leichhardt on to other inland explorers: Charles Sturt, Ted Strehlow and Ernest Giles. The book is loosely structured around his investigations of the trails of these men. But his interest is not in heroics or achievements. He sees them as writers and approaches them through their journals.