Travel : Exploration & Discovery

Mauritius, the green and mountainous island in the Indian Ocean, was once the home of the ill-fated dodo, and by the 1970s it still had many unique but endangered species, hanging onto their existence by their fingernails.When Gerald Durrell went to rescue some of these creatures from extinction, he experienced danger and discomfort, but enjoyed the adventures greatly. He spent nights in the jungle looking for bats and pink pigeons, and climbed near-vertical rock faces to find Telfair's skinks and Gunther's geckos, spending his spare time exploring the enchanted worlds of the coral reefs with their many species of multicoloured fish. By the end of his trip, he had an extraordinary collection of animals to take to his Jersey sanctuary from where the progeny could, in time, be restored to Mauritius. more...

Price: $14.99

In this stimulating and authoritative overview, the autor looks from the sea to its shores - the land areas it influences through trade, naval power, travel and scientific exploration. more...

Price: $33.95

The Mississippi River and Mark Twain are practically synonymous in American culture. Known as “America’s river,” the popularity of Twain’s steamboat and steamboat pilots the on the ever-changing Mississippi has endured prominently over the years. Although Mark Twain used his childhood experiences growing up along the Mississippi in numerous works, nowhere is the river and pilot’s life more thoroughly described than in Life on the Mississippi . more...

Price: $4.95

A new and revised revised edition of Afloat On The Ohio , On the Storied Ohio tells the story of an historical pilgrimage of a thousand miles in a skiff, from Redstone to Cairo made in 1894. Present on this pilgrimage were a company of four - the author, his wife, their ten-year-old son and a Doctor. Thwaites, historian extraordinaire, wanted to understand the great waterway in its various phases and to relive the pioneer experience, and thus set off on this 1100-mile trip from Brownsville and down to the Father of Waters. Though taking one of the many steamer ships on the river could have made the trip faster, the group was more interested in seeing the river from a closer perspective. The book is a log of their journey, the curious people they met with various dialects, and surrounding scenery - while at the same time images of the historical aspects of the life along the river including the fur-traders, Iroquois war parties, explorers and frontiersmen can be imagined. It details their charming gypsy life, on shore and river, away from the workaday world. more...

Price: $4.95

Tim Bowden loves to go camping, and he has a great interest in Australian history. So both interests came into play when he and his wife Ros travelled in their newly acquired 4WD to Western Australia retracing the steps of the young explorer Edward John Eyre. This is the engrossing story of that trip told with Tim's wry humour and passion. more...

Price: $17.45