A concise version for young adults of Flannery’s classic anthology, The Explorers, with a revised introduction.

The explorers of Australia were many and varied, beginning with Indigenous Australians. They often forged ahead for the Dutch, the French or the English explorers, looking for food, water and new territory.

Some explorers imagined a green land with a vast interior ocean. ‘The Great South Land’ was considered a place of monsters and miracles. Now that we are trying to imagine a sustainable future for our planet, these explorers tell us what the land was like and how the Indigenous Australians treated the environment.

In these exciting, heartbreaking diaries of the men and women who explored our country, young readers will get a sense of the freedom of travelling into the unknown. These amazing stories will inspire everyone to become passionate modern explorers, alive to our incredible environment.