Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0792229762, Hardcover)

Travel Down Under with Ron Fisher and delve into the coastal surprises of Australia:

A trip around Australia's coastal region is a ride on a splendid carousel. You can get off here and there--perhaps at a glittery surfer beach, or on a coast backed by endless miles of desolate bush, or at tropical rivers where the snouts of man-eating crocodiles break the muddy surface.

In first-person, anecdotal style, Fisher introduces the reader to the people of each area, bringing the photos alive with their stories.

From the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef, Tasmania to the Golden West, mile after sandy mile is revealed with Fisher's keen eye and the trademark sensitivity of National Geographic's photographers Sam Abell and David Doubilet. More than 100 photos illustrate the diversity of the shores of this great continent: a foraging wombat, a mangrove forest-planting environmentalist, Tasmanian poppy fields, Aboriginal shell middens, a seaweed-mimicking sea dragon, Perth's skyscrapers, the vertical cliffs marking the abrupt end of the Nullarbor Plain, and the watery shadow of the elusive dugong--one of the only vegetarian marine mammals. And for the purist, the book does not omit that most famous of Australian symbols: the kangaroo. --Kathryn True