On This Road

Just outside Derby, there’s an open block of ground and a single screen still standing. It doesn’t look like much. But this was once the town’s Picture Gardens — an open-air theatre where people gathered under the night sky. On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit onthisro...

The pearls gathered off the Kimberley coast didn’t stay here. Men like Edwin Streeter, a jeweller from London, helped carry them into global markets. A brief story of how Broome became part of something much larger. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or g...

In the late 1800s, labour was brought into northern Australia from across the region — often under coercion or false promise. Known as blackbirding, it became part of the early pearling and pastoral industries. This is a short look at what that meant, and the place it holds in the history of the Kimberley. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Austr...

During the Second World War, the north-west of Australia was closer to the war than many realised. Across the Kimberley, station country became part of a quiet defence — stockmen trained, tracks were pushed through remote country, and small outposts watched the northern skies. Most of it happened out of sight. And for the most part… it stayed that way. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad....

In the East Kimberley, the arrival of cattle stations brought significant change. Access to country shifted. Water sources were altered. Movement across the land was no longer the same. What followed, over time, was a period of conflict — not defined by a single event, but by repeated incidents across the region. Much of it was never formally recorded. What remains has been carried forward through...

Most days, the Fitzroy River doesn’t look like much. Wide. Quiet. Slow moving. But this river drains a vast part of the Kimberley — and when the wet season comes, everything feeds into it. What seems calm can become something else entirely. This is a river defined not by how it looks… but by what it can become. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from...

The Ord River looks simple at first. But it isn’t. What begins as a seasonal river becomes something very different — shaped, held, and redirected along the way. This is not just one river, but a system. And to understand it, you have to follow it from the beginning… to what it has become. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a pu...

At King Sound, the tide doesn’t just rise and fall — it moves. Out from Derby, the water can be a long way out at low tide, then return with force as it’s funnelled back in. One of the largest tidal ranges in the world, shaped by the coastline and the rivers that feed into it. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode....

When the pearling luggers returned to Broome, the whole town shifted. Crews moved through the Roebuck, the Continental, the Mangrove, and Chinatown in between — a few days onshore before heading out again. Work, money, and what came back with them didn’t always stay in the open. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episod...

Matso’s takes its name from the Matsumoto family, part of Broome’s Japanese pearling community in the late 1800s. The building itself predates the brewery, with a history tied to the town’s working past. Today it’s known for its ginger beer, still sitting in one of Broome’s older structures. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a...

When Lord McAlpine arrived in Broome, many of the old pearling buildings were in decline. He restored and rebuilt, shaping how parts of the town look today. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit onthisroad.substack.com

The Durack family made one of the great overland journeys in Australian history — driving cattle from western Queensland to the Kimberley across country nobody had mapped. It took years, cost lives, and changed the north forever. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other su...

In 1879, explorer Alexander Forrest named the region during his expedition across the north, honouring John Wodehouse, the Earl of Kimberley. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit onthisroad.substack.com

The Kimberley coast has been seen and described for a long time. Long before it was settled, ships worked their way along this shoreline — charting, observing, and trying to understand what was there. One of those visits left a record that lasted. Not a grand arrival. Just an early account of a place that was still largely unknown to those writing about it. It’s a reminder that some of the first i...

Out in the east Kimberley, the country opens out into long, flat stretches of red earth. And then, without much warning, it changes. A near-perfect circle set into the ground. Wide. Quiet. Contained. It’s something you don’t expect to find out here. Formed long before anything else you can see around it, and sitting in the landscape as if it has always been there. It’s the kind of place that feels...

Johnny Chi was one of the early figures in Broome’s pearling days — a man who arrived from overseas and became part of a harsh, complex industry on the edge of the continent. His story sits within a time of opportunity, tension, and cultural mixing, when Broome was still finding its shape. What remains today isn’t just the history… but the traces of the people who lived it. Explore all episodes on...

Camels have been part of northern Australia for a long time. In places like Broome, they’re still visible today — sometimes in ways that feel familiar. But the role they once played was different. Set against country that was difficult to move through, they became part of how things were carried, supplied, and connected. What remains now isn’t a continuation of that work. Just a reminder. Explore...

Gantheaume Point sits just south of Broome, where the red cliffs meet the Indian Ocean. At low tide, the reef reveals something unexpected — marks in the rock that reach back more than 100 million years, from a time when this coastline looked very different. There are other traces here too. Old stories tied to the pearling days. The remains of a lighthouse that once guided ships along this coast....

Joseph Lyons never looked like power — but in the hardest years Australia had known, he led with steadiness and care. This story traces his journey from a poor Tasmanian childhood to Prime Minister during the Great Depression, and asks what quiet leadership looks like when a nation is afraid. On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this w...

In 1917, a message left the remote town of Halls Creek in the Kimberley. It travelled south across the continent to Perth. It was urgent. This is a story about distance, communication, and an extraordinary attempt to save a life in one of the most isolated parts of Australia. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode....

On 31 May 2000, Whyalla Airlines Flight 904 departed Adelaide on a routine flight to Whyalla. It did not arrive as expected. This story is told from inside the search — from the perspective of someone involved, moving through uncertainty, long hours, and the quiet weight of not knowing. There are no theories here. No reconstruction. Just a remembered account of a night that stays with you. Explore...

Just outside Derby there’s a large hollow boab tree. Not far from it, a long concrete water trough sits in the dirt. Two things, in the same place. This is a story about what happened here —and how the land was used over time. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel stories from Australia This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subsc...

In the far north-west of Australia, Derby sits beside King Sound — a place shaped by distance, tides, and movement. In the early days, getting from the town to the sea was not simple. So a solution was built. This is a story about that line…and the quiet role it played in connecting a remote town to the outside world. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Travel storie...

In the early 1920s, the north-west coast of Western Australia was a very long way from anywhere. Derby sat at the edge of it — a port town shaped by cattle, tides, and distance. Then came an idea. To fly. This is a story about the early days of aviation in the north-west…and a journey that would quietly change how Australia was connected. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This...

Queenie and Rover In the Kimberley, two lives began not far apart, each shaped by the same country in very different ways. Queenie grew up between worlds on a cattle station, while Rover came from deep within his own cultural law and story. Their paths would later cross, in ways that reflected the time and place they lived in. Explore all episodes on the map — onthisroad.com.au On This Road — Trav...