Back Roads on ABC and ABC iview S11E5 – Presenter Lisa Millar goes on a remote road trip like no other, following the 2700 kilometre route known as The Outback Way, which crosses the heart of Australia.
Starting her trip in Western Australia, with Nathaniel Rosenberg from the Warakurna Roadhouse, Lisa discovers how the 22-year-old from the coast survives in the bush by using bad dad jokes to keep tourists amused.
At Warakurna’s Aboriginal community, Lisa heads to a remarkable radio station with the local kids. Here anyone can broadcast their own show on a network that connects 15 isolated communities.
Her next stop is the Giles Weather Station, where she watches the release of a weather balloon and learns about life on one of the only staffed weather stations in Australia.
Further down the road at Kaltukatjara, also known as Docker River, Lisa attends a moving Lutheran church service delivered in native Pitjantjatjara. She then sits down with local artists for her first taste of kangaroo tail and enjoys a live performance by the “Wild Brumbies”, a band that’s been playing together since the 1980s.
Continuing on the Great Central Road, Lisa bathes in the glow of an Uluru sunset, before venturing off the tourist trail with the local rangers in search of the small Mala wallaby, sadly an animal that is now extinct in the wild.
The plan is to bituminise the Outback Way by 2032, but for the moment Lisa is making the most of her adventure on the road less travelled.
Production credit:
Executive Producer: Brigid Donovan. Series Producer: Louise Turley.
Back Roads on ABC and ABC iview – Thursday 6 February at 8.00pm
TV Central ABC content HERE
Back Roads on ABC and ABC iview S11E5
