In Review: OUTBACK Magazine

~ Ok, having tried my hand at a couple of book reviews over the past month or so, I’m now going to turn my attention to magazines. Not just any magazines of course, but to those specifically dealing with travel and tourism; colourful locations and off-road adventures; and luxury vacations and backpacker budgets. And believe me, there are plenty of them.

Take a trip to your local newsagent, and you will find titles like Australian Traveller, Get Lost! Travel Magazine, On The Road, Travel + Leisure, Australian Coast & Country, Australian Caravan+RV, Arrivals + Departures, Vacations and Travel, Caravanning Australia, Postcards Magazine, and Way2go, to name just a small selection.

For this first magazine review I have selected the April/May 2009 edition of OUTBACK magazine.

Yes, yes, I know it’s almost July, but I had intended to review the magazine when I bought it a month or so ago. Unfortunately, I’m only just getting around to doing it. However, for the purposes of this review it doesn’t really matter, since I’m looking at the overall quality of the publication, not the timeliness or otherwise of the contents. So can I get back to my review now? Thank you.

OUTBACK – or should it be R.M. Williams OUTBACK, is a bi-monthly magazine owned by R.M. Williams Publishing. R.M. Williams itself is now owned by the Cowley family. However, before R.M. Williams simply became a privately owned company, the name belonged to a real person, Reginald Murray Williams (for more info see Footnote).

OUTBACK was launched in September 1998 to celebrate the Australian outback. In its relatively short history the magazine has caught the attention of people far and wide, and according to the circulation graph published on the OUTBACK website, was increasing its readership with each passing year (the average readership per issue for Jan-Dec 2006, was 232,000).

It’s not hard to see why. The subjects the magazine likes to showcase are as different as the outback itself: station owners, jackaroos, stockmen, travel and hospitality operators, pilots, doctors, miners, fishermen, in fact, anyone who has a close involvement with the outback.

This glossy, large format publication is printed on high quality paper, and is aimed straight at the coffee table demographic. That is, readers who are seen as “…upmarket and middle market, primarily in the 30-55 age group”; and also according to the website, “…people who identify with R.M. Williams, the man and the products, and what this represents to Australia and Australians.”

Having said that, the magazine is a great read, and as you might expect is filled with wonderful photography, illustrating stories in this issue as diverse as water conservation (Water: A New Reality); station life (Home Where The Heart Is), keeping young people on the land (Positive Future’s), and the new ‘sport’ of geocaching (Hide and Seek), which utilises GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to “track down secret caches stashed around the globe”.

The April/May 2009 edition also included a Boys From the Bush At War photo essay; Flocking North which looked at some of Australia’s rarest and most beautiful birds; and numerous other departments.

Feature articles are well written, and each writer is given plenty of space to explore their chosen topic fully and comprehensively. For example, the main feature in this issue, Water: A New Reality is spread over 12 pages.

There is an extensive Letters section, and readers can also contribute to the monthly Poem page. In addition, readers can submit their own photographs for monthly sections headed, Mailboxes, Dogs, Boots, and Bush Kids. Each image and accompanying story published (200 words or less) is rewarded with a $100 R.M. Williams gift voucher. By the way, the writer of the published poem also receives a similar gift voucher, while the writer of the Letter of The Month wins an Akubra hat. And finally, readers can also send in a bush yarn, funny story or joke to the Laugh Lines page where “The entry that makes us laugh the most wins a Waeco Cool-Ice icebox valued at AU$209.”

At a cover price of AU$8.95 and running to 156 pages, “…OUTBACK represents all that is powerful and positive about the outback - the people, places, events and experiences that are making outback Australia one of the most favoured tourism destinations on earth.”

Footnote: Information supplied courtesy of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Reginald Murray Williams AO, CMG, (May 24, 1908-November 4, 2003) was an Australian bushman and entrepreneur who rose from a swagman, to a millionaire widely known as just 'R.M.' He was born at Belalie North near Jamestown, 200 kilometres north of Adelaide, into a pioneering settler family working and training horses. R.M. had many adventures in Australia's rugged outback as a bushman, and became famous for creating a uniquely Australian style of bush wear recognized world wide. He was married twice, had ten children, and left an enduring contribution to the Australian identity.

The Beat Below The Street

~ One of the real pleasures of my two month stay in New York City during 2008, was the wonderful encounters with musicians playing on the subway system.

I was constantly amazed by the quality of many of these muso’s, and often stopped to listen to several songs in succession before catching a train back to my room at the Greenpoint, YMCA (see Greenpoint, YMCA Review, Part 1 and Greenpoint, YMCA Review, Part 2), or before heading above ground to begin another long day exploring New York City.

Some musicians accompanied themselves acoustically; others were able to plug in and perform electrified; while still others sang karaoke style to CDs plugged into portable players. Without exaggeration, all were universally good, some were great, and a few were outstanding.

I had to admire their fortitude and their ability to continue singing in the face of constant noise, fumes, dust, apathy, screeching subway train brakes, public address announcements, and the ebb and flow, and push and shove of thousands of commuters. It takes real determination and staying power to persist with your music and performance while all is in flux around you. Gear has to be humped up and down stairwells; depending on the season, hands and fingers may be numb with cold, or constantly wet with sweat; in addition, hours of singing above the constant noise can damage vocal chords, and lead to major problems if not monitored daily.

Which brings me to Steve McGookin, and his blog The Beat Below The Street.

Steve is an out of work journalist (and musician), who has decided to keep himself occupied by documenting his experiences busking on the passageways and platforms of the New York subway system. Steve writes:

“I’m planning to play on the platform for a while to get a sense of what the city's buskers face every day and be able to tell their stories a little better. Then, for the price of a Metrocard, I’ll go wherever the music leads me; I’ll talk to the musicians it leads me to and I’ll introduce them to you.”

To this end, Steve has set himself the objective of spending 48 days over summer performing on New York's subways. Why 48? Simply because that’s his current age. As Steve says:

I’m guessing that as it goes on, every day will feel like a year, so I figured I’d do one day for every year I've been around just to remind myself how good it is to be alive and able to do this.

He also writes:

“But playing at the stations is just a starting point; I’m doing this, first and foremost, to be doing something creative and be telling stories again, but also to spread the word about some of the remarkable musicians who - in most cases - make riders’ days a little brighter.”

Steve McGookin is currently several weeks into his project, and is documenting his explorations underground as he goes. If you want to follow Steve’s adventures, visit his blog, The Beat Below The Street and either subscribe to his updates or signup to follow his posts (better still, do both). And if you are in New York reading this, look out for the man, and throw a couple of dollars into his guitar case.

I’m sure he will appreciate it – as will any other street/subway musicians you support in this way.

IMAGE: New York subway mosaic, Jim Lesses

Addendum to 'Road Trip USA' Review

~ Road Trip USA: Route 66, and Road Trip USA: Pacific Coast Highway, Pocket Guides

“These books are perfect for ‘slow travellers’. For those adventurers who are curious to explore the road less travelled; the unusual and the real; the small towns and the back roads that lead to them – and which in turn lead to the heart and soul of America.”

Yesterday I posted a review of Jamie Jensen’s Road Trip USA (In Review: Road Trip USA). This post is an addendum to that review.

The new edition of Road Trip USA is now supplemented with two pocket guides, Road Trip USA Route 66, and Road Trip USA Pacific Coast Highway.

The two pocket guides have been lifted straight out of the main Road Trip USA volume, and apart from a few small but useful additions, contain the same content as that which is included in the Route 66, and Pacific Coast Highway sections of the main text.

Just for the record, my comparison of the pocket guide: Road Trip USA Route 66, with Road Trip USA shows extra pages have been added to the pocket guide providing additional information about Chicago, St Louis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. While comparing Road Trip USA Pacific Coast Highway

with Road Trip USA shows the pocket guide has extra information covering Seattle and Portland.

I expect that before too long, the other nine routes detailed in Road Trip USA will soon find their way onto the shelves of bookshops as pocket guides in their own right. And why not? It makes perfect sense to take each of the eleven major routes in Jensen’s book and create separate guides for them, since the main tome is large, heavy and not entirely practical if you are only planning one major American road trip. I assume the choice of starting with the Pacific Coast Highway and Route 66 has been governed by research showing these are two of the most popular road trips undertaken in the US.

However, one of the benefits of the one volume Road Trip USA is that if you decide to make a side trip that falls outside the boundaries of say, Route 66, to visit Memphis, Tennessee, (which is not listed in the Route 66 pocket guide), you can simply turn to the section on The Great River Road – which follows the Mississippi River, and which does include Memphis – and continue following directions from there.

The same caveats apply to the pocket guides as those already expressed about the main volume. That is, that neither of the guides include internet addresses for any of the main attractions or destinations listed in the books. And neither of them include information that would be useful to travellers embarking on their first major road trip.

Even more surprising is the fact that the few Road Trip Resources pages at the end of Road Trip USA containing useful information about hotels and motels, car hire companies and other details have been dropped completely from both pocket guides – so you will have to do your research well, before you set off on your adventure of a life time.

Again, I should stress that the lack of web links and additional resources does not detract in any way, shape or form from the excellent and detailed information contained in any of the guides. These books are designed to get you off the interstate freeway system and on to America’s two-lane highways, hence the full title of Jamie Jensen’s book, Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America’s Two-Lane Highways.

These books are perfect for ‘slow travellers’. For those adventurers who are curious to explore the road less travelled; the unusual and the real; the small towns and the back roads that lead to them – and which in turn lead to the heart and soul of America.

Highly recommend.

Click on link to purchase your copy of Road Trip USA Route 66
Or click image to purchase direct from Amazon website…



Click on link to purchase your copy of Road Trip USA Pacific Coast Highway
Or click image to purchase direct from Amazon website…

Publication Details…

Road Trip USA Route 66 First Edition, by Jamie Jensen ISBN 13: 978-1-59880-205-4 April 2009 * 114 pages * US$9.95	Road Trip USA Pacific Coast Highway First Edition, by Jamie Jensen ISBN 13: 978-1-59880-204-7 April 2009 * 146 pages * US$9.95
Published by Avalon Travel A Member of the Perseus Books Group