Landline is ABC TV’s national rural issues program. This week’s Landline episode is all about how to survive in the Australian outback. I’ll be watching the show and adding the top tips to improve your safety when travelling in the outback to this review.

I love to travel, especially to remote places off the beaten track where only serious travelers venture (not tourists). View examples of photos I’ve taken on holidays in the Australian Outback in this article to see what I mean.

Almost 25 years ago, two young jackaroos abandoned jobs on the outback stations where they were working and headed, on foot, into the heat of the Gibson Desert – without so much as a water bottle or hat. That is where the pair died.

Teenagers James Annetts, 16, and Simon Amos, 17, had started work at Flora Valley Station, about 100 kilometres east of Halls Creek. After only seven weeks they were sent to be caretakers at properties more than 100 kilometres apart.

Then, for reasons which will never be known, or understood, the two young men – who had no idea about desert survival – left their caretaking posts and walked to their deaths.

So how could this have happened and is it likely this is a tragedy which could happen again, nearly a quarter of a century later? Outback survival expert Bob Cooper knows it can.

The desert is unforgiving and if you don’t know how to react it can, and it will, kill you.

Yet the outback continues to draw people, not just workers but many more tourists, in their thousands, most with very little idea of the risks they are really taking.

In a interview on ABC TV’s 7.30 Report in 2005 Cooper explained how heat stress and dehydration can cause a person stranded in a high temperature environment to make crazy decisions:

BOB COOPER: “We’ve had people walk along the track and throw their hat away. They haven’t put it in their pocket. They’ve discarded it completely. Then they’ve taken their shirt off and thrown it away. You must be out of your mind to do that in 40 degree heat.

The year 2000 we put a guy called Ken Bradshaw, the extreme wave rider of the world, into a heat chamber in the Wollongong University. He was on a slow cycle on an exercise bike in 40 degree temperature. An extremely fit person.

He lost just under two litres of body fluid in 90 minutes. So in an hour and a half he lost two litres of water. That’s enough to impair your ability to think clearly by 30 per cent”.

An ABC Landline crew recently spent a week in the Pilbara bush, working alongside Cooper during a training course designed to equip participants with the minimum skills they need to survive.

Cooper said people who complete the survival course come from all walks of life and were mainly made up of people wanting to step out of their comfort zones.

They might be sunburnt, they might lose weight, they might be dehydrated, But if they take everything in the course on board, remember it and use it, they will be alive.

The survival expert said he hoped people watching this Landline special would be educated in how to survive some of the toughest terrain on the planet – or at least be aware of the dangers involved.

He said some of the most important steps someone needs to take to survive in the outback include:

• to always make a plan
• rational thinking
• prioritising your needs
• stay with your car
• not sipping water but to drink at least a cup at a time

Learn How to Survive in the Australian Outback by watching Landline on ABC1 TV Sunday October 4 12pm. Also repeated on ABC1 Monday October 5th 6pm and ABC2 Monday October 5th 630pm.

For more information on the outback survival course visit Bob Cooper Survival

Keen sports fans Australia-wide who have spent many sleepless nights recently following Mark Webber in F1 Racing, Cadel Evans in the Tour de France and Australia vs England in the Ashes cricket series may be interested in getting their hands on the latest book from Lonely Planet: “A Year Of Sport Travel”

The glossy coffee table style book profiles a series of events every month with a total of 171 different sports including many niche “less travelled” sports like the Alaskan Iditarod as inspiration for your next trip.

On behalf of fellow Sydneysiders I’m dismayed that A Year Of Sport Travel doesn’t include the worlds largest timed fun run, Sydney’s City 2 Surf, instead featuring San Francisco’s annual Bay to Breakers run

However that aside some of the interesting highlights include:

• January: Camel Wrestling Festival in Selçuk, Turkey
• February: Cane Toad Racing in Queensland Pubs
• March: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, USA.
• April: Amputee African Cup of Nations soccer tournament for people who have lost limbs during Africa’s countless civil wars
• May: Buzkashi goat grabbing in Afghanistan
• June: European Tree Climbing Championships
• July: Beer Can Regatta in Darwin, Australia
• August: Cowal Highland Games in Scotland
• September: Yangphel Open Archery Tournament in the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan
• October: World Rock-Paper-Scissors Championship in Toronto, Canada.
• November: Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling)
• December: Thailand’s Grand Pigeon Race

Disclaimer: Thanks to Lonely Planet Melbourne for sending me this book to review. I’ve given it away to one of my blog guest writers Lucy James who wrote a great article recently Inside the Mind of a Marathon Runner

Lonely Planet’s A Year Of Sport Travel will be published in August 2009. Even if you can’t afford to visit these places in person to see the sporting events yourself it’s well worth buying the book so you can visit them vicariously by reading the story behind each event and looking at the related photos.

Articles on the Road Less Travelled website cover several different topics around the idea of Travel Tales, Reviews and Photos from places around the world off the beaten track.

You may have noticed that I display very few ads on this site, just enough to pay for its web hosting fees and the time I spend on it.

This is because I want www.roadlesstravelled.com.au to become a useful resource for the internet community of people who like to take the road less travelled and are travellers not tourists.

To that end I’d like to find out which type of article YOU like best so I can publish more of them here in the future

Trips to Places Around the World Off the Beaten Track

I have a small travel budget for the next year or 2 so my Road Less Travelled articles are likely to be about interesting places that I’ve visited in Australia and New Zealand.

If you’d like to read stories about other countries please ask your friends/family who go on backpacking/trekking holidays to submit their stories as guest travel writer articles like my new friend and frequent Road Less Travelled guest writer Rob Gower has been doing recently.

Featured Photos & Photography Tips

As a change of pace I sometimes write articles with Digital Photography tips or featuring great photos of landscapes, birds and animals taken by myself and my friends – do you like these kinds of articles?

Also I encourage you to email me links to your travel photo galleries online eg: Flickr, Picasa and if I think one of the photos is good enough it could be the next featured photo.

Travel Gear/Equipment

I haven’t written much about Travel Gear/Equipment, what to take on backpacking, budget or trekking holidays but I have plenty of ideas if that’s the kind of article you like to read and would find useful.

Space: The Final Frontier

As all Star Trek fans know, Space is humanities final frontier. Would you enjoy reading space/astronomy articles exploring our galaxy and beyond eg: NASA missions like Voyager?

“Variable star V838 Monocerotis”
credit: Hubble (NASA/ESA)

Please add a blog comment or email me to indicate which of the 4 types of articles you’d like to read on this website in the future:

1. Trips to Places Around the World Off the Beaten Track
2. Featured Photos & Photography Tips
3. Travel Gear/Equipment
4. Space: The Final Frontier

For most people, comparing rival frequent flyer points programs is as boring as comparing political parties at elections – but the choice you make can make a big difference to the benefits you get so it’s worth taking the time to choose the right one.

Realising this Qantas has engaged ad agency M&C Saatchi to launch a huge campaign to remind people that after 31st March they may not have the option to transfer points from other card reward programs into their Qantas Frequent Flyer accounts.

In the end, just like an election – the choice is yours

You have to consider whether the possible benefits match your needs and transfer the points across by a specific date – 31/03/2009.

I would suggest that you compare the Qantas Frequent Flyer program to its competitors and decide which card reward program is best for you

Better yet go to Australia’s leading independent Frequent Flyer forum and discuss the options with fellow Aussie travelers like yourself

Whenever I book flights within Australia & NZ I always do it on Virgin Blue because I know how to get 5% of my flight cost* rebated as credit on my Virgin Mobile account and besides that Qantas is expensive with poor service and Jetstar is cheap and nasty with less legroom.

Everyone knows that Virgin Blue gives Aussies great prices and good service on flights all around Australia, NZ and the South Pacific.

However few people know that if you’re a Virgin Mobile customer as well you get even more with a 5% bonus mobile phone credit on the cost of tickets paid by yourself for you and up to 3 other people!

How to Get the Rebate

1. Login to your Virgin Mobile account at www.virginmobile.com.au using your Mobile phone number and 6 digit PIN.
2. Click on “Virgin Blue” under the “Virgin Perks” menu on the left hand side
3. Click on the “book now” button
4. Find the flights you want to book and pay for them online

That’s it! When you book and pay for your Virgin Blue flight online you’ll get 5% of the ticketed internet fare credited back to your Virgin Mobile account

*Understandably Some Conditions Apply

• You must enter your Virgin Mobile number in the “contact information” window to get the 5% credit
• Your credit could take up to 2 months to be applied
• The 5% is worked out on the base Internet fare before GST and other airport taxes
• The mobile phone credit is worked out on the base internet fare before GST and all the airport taxes. Bookings allow a max of 4 adult passengers.
• Standard Virgin Blue Terms and Conditions apply. This offer is valid only for Virgin Mobile customers and not available in conjunction with any other offer.

For example a family of 4 (2 parents and 2 adult children) might want to book return flights from Sydney to Darwin for a holiday in the middle of the year in the dry season:

• Total Flights Cost = $2860
• Total Cost – (GST & Tax) = $2032.72
• Mobile Phone Credit Rebated: $2032.72 x .05 = $101.64

The top 10 most popular new Road Less Travelled blog posts for 2008 are listed below. The list is in order of how many times each blog post was viewed

Although I’ve traveled to quite a few places in several countries (considering I’m only in my mid 20’s), I realised that I couldn’t give readers a bigger perspective about the many interesting places to see around the world without asking other people to write about their experiences living, working or traveling abroad.

The big change compared to 2007 is that several of the most popular blog posts were written by guest writers.

1. Worlds Largest Aircraft Graveyard: Tucson Arizona (USA)
2. Saudi Arabia: The Magic Kingdom (Guest Writer)
3. Discover the Wild Lands of Olympic National Park, USA (Guest Writer)
4. Cute Baby Green Frog Sitting on Finger – Free Desktop Wallpaper (Guest Photographer)
5. Camels at Sunset on Cable Beach, Broome, Western Australia – Free Desktop Wallpaper
6. Leadville Colorado USA – High Altitude Winter Wonderland (Guest Writer)
7. Australian Museum: Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Review)
8. World Press Photo Exhibition 2008 – State Library of NSW
9. Dont Waste Money on Tranz scenic TranzAlpine train – New Zealand
10. Tourists Guide/Review of Sydney Observatory and Observatory Hill Park

I also write at my Rambling Thoughts Blog for which I’ve created a list of Top 10 most popular new Rambling Thoughts Blog posts for 2008 & I’ve also listed my best Rambling Thoughts Blog posts for 2008