A stunning three-part ABC TV documentary – Australia’s Wild Odyssey – which went to air this week and for the next two weeks, features Fowlers Gap, some 100km north of Broken Hill as it, “follows the flow of water across the Australian continent to uncover incredible connections that link all creatures on Earth”.
The wildlife series – narrated by Deborah Mailman and presented by naturalists, scientists and First Nations custodians – journeys across the driest inhabited continent on the planet, exploring how the rain, rivers and underground aquifers transform and connect distant ecosystems, with each of the locations featured revealing additional details of Australia’s organisms and ecosystems.
Nick Robinson is behind the upcoming series, with the award-winning director, writer and cinematographer having found a path to documentary filmmaking following a career as a marine biologist. Driven by a passion for the natural world, his recent credits include Kakadu (2012), Life on the Reef (2015) and the Emmy Award-winning Puff: Wonders of the Reef (2021).
“As I started to learn more about the ecosystems and how they function, it just made going for a bushwalk more interesting or going out into any natural environment so much more interesting. For me, it made the world more fun and a better place,” Mr Robinson told the Barrier Truth.
“This series is about how life works, and we set out on these really pretty beautiful journeys around Australia following the flow of water to help tell those stories… the continental water cycles if you like, and through that journey that links all of the ecosystems because they’re all linked by the flow of water. People show how they work, really get into the nitty gritty of how the environment works, but doing that in a really beautiful way.”
The documentary took the better part of two and a half years to come together as a completed three-hour series, with Mr Robinson and his crew setting out in a four-wheel drive with a caravan, hitting the road to film stories and meet people along the way.
“Nature is one of those fabulous things, especially around you guys in Broken Hill, that desert, it completely transforms from dry years to wet years, and somehow all of that life just comes out of the woodwork and starts to thrive again when the water is back.
“For me, those stories are so amazing, and they’re the kind of stories that take years for people to develop an appreciation of. And I’m sure there’s many people out in the desert there that understand it as they see the seasons flow and all that, but it’s not something everyone gets to experience. The show tries to do that, tries to open your eyes to those things.
“It’s really done in a beautiful way and there’s a First Nations message in there as well and a lot of people that are just madly in love with nature so I think their love is infectious hopefully.”
“We visited a lot of regions around Broken Hill and Fowlers Gap was one of them.
“We also filmed around Menindee and in Sturt National Park and just across the border there in Lake Folly and all of that region so a lot of our desert shots have come from around Broken Hill because it’s such a beautiful region. It was beautiful though, all of that area is incredible, this incredible arid country, I love it.”
Australia’s Wild Odyssey began on Tuesday, January 24 on ABC TV and ABC iview.
