THE YORKSHIRE DALES was as restful and refreshing as the summer rains that announced our arrival at the imposing stone mansion in Malhamdale. No response from a knock at the heavy front door on the pillared portico at Newfield Hall. We entered anyway …

“You are now entering the rarest rainforest on planet earth: the remnant of a 65-million-year- old Gondwanaland Antarctic cool temperate rainforest.” Trevor Beltz pauses for effect. “If you were to walk 20 metres off this track in any particular direction, you would more than likely be the first person, Indigenous or otherwise, to stand on that spot.”

Humans are meant to leave only footprints in the remote wilderness of south-west Tasmania but they are not alone.

The wildlife expert leading our boat-based expedition around pristine Bathurst Harbour stops abruptly when he spots three huge raptor claws carved into the buttery sand along spectacular Stephens Bay.

There was a full moon when John Whelan joined his friend for a little backcountry night skiing in the snow-capped Canadian Rocky Mountains.

“It would be rare for the coyote pack to take down a couple of adult men,” recalls Whelan, “but you don’t tempt fate out there.”

THE purplish hues of Uluru blackened into shadow and the majestic mound was swallowed by night.

Not far away, we dined on white tablecloths, a bush tucker buffet under a coldly crisp and cloudless central desert sky….