Australia & Oceania Audiobooks | Travel

The gripping story of a New Zealand solider who escaped the clutches of a prisoner-of-war camp to join the Yugoslav freedom fighters during the Second World War After a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Yugoslavia, John Denvir reached the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, where he joined a partisan band as a machine-gunner. Believed shot and killed by New Zealand forces and his family in New Zealand, from January 1942 until the end of 1943, Denvir led brave and heroic attacks on German and Italian soldiers from behind enemy lines. He was wounded four times, received the Soviet Medal for Valour and was eventually appointed brigade commander. When 'Corporal Frank' was demobilised he returned to New Zealand and became a taxi driver in the small South Island town of Temuka. Originally published in 1945 and out of print for many years, this is his remarkable true story.

James Caffin (Author), Barnie Duncan (Narrator)

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Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook's 'discovery' of Australia. Captain Cook's Epic Voyage reveals the hardships and adventure of this remarkable quest, and the euphoria of discovering new lands. Drawing from his previous book, Sea of Dangers, in Captain Cook's Epic Voyage Professor Geoffrey Blainey takes readers once again on a vivid journey through history, challenging accepted views and the intersection of myth, science and exploration.

Geoffrey Blainey (Author), John Gregg (Narrator)

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Crump's Campfire Companion - Volume 3: Collected Short Stories 17 -24

Barry Crump (Author), Martin Crump (Narrator)

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Crumpy's Campfire Companion: 32 Classic New Zealand Short Stories

Crumpy's Campfire Companion is the entertaining third part of a trilogy on The Life and Times of a Good Keen Man. In this collection of yarns, the river, the road, the ridge and the rogue all come alive in Crump's unique humorous style. The yarns reveal his understanding and compassion for the characters and life he writes about. Barry Crump has been New Zealand's bestselling author for more than 30 years. Crumpy's Campfire Companion will delight dedicated fans and new generations of readers alike. Short Stories Include 1.The Duggan brothers -- 2. The black boar -- 3. The real thing -- 4. The post -- 5. Hard yakker -- 6. Shiraz -- 7. Never seen anything like it -- 8. A new shotgun -- 9. The mighty Motu -- 10. Close shaves -- 11. Too much of a good thing -- 12. Streak's pub -- 13. Cutie-pie -- 14. Harry -- 15. By the seat of our pants -- 16. Not cut out for it -- 17. Not cricket -- 18. Boots -- 19. State Highway Six -- 20. A lot of bull -- 21. Bush happy -- 22. d lib -- 23. A long haul -- 24. Black man's logic -- 25. On the cutting room floor -- 26. Beyond repair -- 27. Four-wheel drive -- 28. The wrong joke -- 29. The dog bloke -- 30. A soft touch -- 31. No trouble -- 32. On fire.

Barry Crump (Author), Martin Crump (Narrator)

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Crump's Campfire Companion - Volume 4: Collected Short Stories 25 - 32

Barry Crump (Author), Martin Crump (Narrator)

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Australian Code Breakers: Our top-secret war with the Kaiser's Reich

The extraordinary story of a headmaster turned cryptographer, and our top-secret war with the Kaiser's Reich. On 11 August 1914, just days after war had been declared, Australian Captain J.T. Richardson boarded a German merchant vessel fleeing Melbourne's Port Phillip and audaciously seized a top-secret naval codebook. The fledgling Australian Navy had an opportunity to immediately change the course of the war. But what exactly had they found? Enter the Australian code breakers ... Recruited by savvy top brass, maths whizz and German speaker Frederick Wheatley worked night and day to fathom the basic principles of the code and start tracking the German Navy's powerful East Asia Squadron, led by the brilliant Maximilian von Spee. Soon Melbourne was a hub of international Allied intelligence. This is the untold story of how a former Australian headmaster and his mostly female team cracked one of Germany's most complex codes, paving the way for the greatest Allied naval victory of World War I.

James Phelps (Author), James Saunders (Narrator)

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Crump's Campfire Companion - Volume 2: Collected Short Stories 9 - 16

Barry Crump (Author), Martin Crump (Narrator)

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Crumpy's Campfire Companion - Volume 1: Collected Short Stories 1 to 8

Barry Crump (Author), Martin Crump (Narrator)

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Dodo, The: The History and Legacy of the Extinct Flightless Bird

“The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for.” – Willy Cuppy, 19th century American humorist and literary critic At one point or another, just about everyone has heard of the dodo bird, which is almost universally described as a cuddly, whimsical creature renowned for its alleged stupidity. This prehistoric avian had been known for hundreds of years before it was made popular around the world in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The character, the Dodo, satirized the author himself - according to pop culture lore, Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, regarded the dodo as his spirit animal due to his alleged stutter, which led to him often presenting himself as “Do-do-dodgson.” Carroll was also a frequent patron of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which served as a fount of inspiration for his memorable anthropomorphic characters. The 1951 Disney animation, Alice in Wonderland, breathed new life into Carroll's Dodo, portrayed as a plump, peach-faced creature with a bulbous pink beak, clad in a purple waistcoat, a powdered wig, and a pipe dangling out of his beak. Like its real-life counterparts, the Dodo was depicted as a flightless bird who crossed paths with Alice, bobbing along inside of a bottle upon the open sea. Owing to its inability to fly, the Dodo uses an upside-down toucan as his boat, and the Dodo is being maneuvered by a green hawk furiously flapping its wings, serving as the boat's propeller. The dimwitted, carefree dodo also made various appearances in film and TV shows over the years, such as Yoyo Dodo in the 1938 black-and-white animation Porky in Wackyland, the short-lived stop-motion animated series Rocky and the Dodos, and the 2002 animated film Ice Age, which depicts the dodos as a silly, clumsy troop of birds who fail to guard three small watermelons.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Hare (Narrator)

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Convict Colony: The remarkable story of the fledgling settlement that survived against the odds

From the bestselling author of 1788. The remarkable story of the fledgling settlement that survived against the odds. Bestselling historian David Hill tells the story of the first three decades of Britain's earliest colony in Australia in a fresh and compelling way. The British plan to settle Australia was a high-risk venture. We now take it for granted that the first colony was the basis of one of the most successful nations in the world today. But in truth, the New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by hostile locals, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions, or brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders, and most of all good luck, Sydney survived and thrived. "David Hill captures Australia's past in a very readable way." THE WEEKLY TIMES

David A. Hill (Author), Conrad Coleby, David A. Hill (Narrator)

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Please Gamble Irresponsibly: The rise, fall and rise of sports gambling in Australia

Australians will gamble on anything, from two flies crawling up a wall to less important things like federal elections. Thanks to the internet, mobile phones and gambling tax loving Federal and State governments, Australians can indulge their love of a punt no matter what they're doing. Aussies can be at the birth of a child, performing open heart surgery or handling heavy machinery and still put a bet on. As a result, Australia sits atop the world when it comes to gambling, losing more money per capita than any other country, leaving the next biggest loser, Singapore, a distant second. But it wasn't always this easy because once you could only gambling on sport in Australia illegally, which it turned out was also pretty easy. Over the last thirty years, gambling on sport has slowly, then quickly become legalised in Australia, to the point were almost every ad on TV seems to be about sport betting. This book traced the history of gambling in Australia from the convict era, the rise of SP bookies and organise crime, the legalisation and commercialisation of the industry and the threat it now poses to the integrity of sport.

Titus O'reily (Author), Titus O'reily (Narrator)

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Mysterious Polynesia: The Myths, Legends, and Mysteries of the Polynesians

By the mid-17th century, the existence of a land in the south referred to as Terra Australis was generally known and understood by the Europeans, and incrementally, its shores were observed and mapped. Van Diemen’s Land, an island off the south coast of Australia now called Tasmania, was identified in 1642 by Dutch mariner Abel Tasman, and a few months later, the intrepid Dutchman would add New Zealand to the map of the known world. Taking into account similarities of appearance, customs and languages spread across a vast region of scattered islands, it was obvious that the Polynesian race emerged from a single origin, and that origin Cook speculated was somewhere in the Malay Peninsula or the “East Indies.” In this regard, he was not too far from the truth. The origins of the Polynesian race have been fiercely debated since then, and it was only relatively recently, through genetic and linguistic research, that it can now be stated with certainty that the Polynesian race originated on the Chinese mainland and the islands of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Oceania was, indeed, the last major region of the Earth to be penetrated and settled by people, and Polynesia was the last region of Oceania to be inhabited. The vehicle of this expansion was the outrigger canoe, and aided by tides and wind patterns, a migration along the Malay Archipelago, and across the wide expanses of the South Pacific, began sometime between 3000 and 1000 BCE, reaching the western Polynesian Islands in about 900 BCE. While the timing of the populations’ movements can be accurately plotted, the motivations and methodology have tended to come to light only through the study of the oral tradition and the folklore associated with many dispersed, but culturally associated peoples. Indeed, when scholars go through the traditions and mythology passed down by people who are dispersed across thousands of miles of water and islands, they are amazed.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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Australia & Oceania Audiobooks in Travel