The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush". The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia.
There is no set answer, of where the Outback begins that can nail it down to a particular area, simply because the Aussie outback is so huge.
The outback covers about 6.5 million square kilometres, and it is only inhabited by about 60,000 odd people or thereabouts of approximately 20 million people who live in Australia.
So it is a gigantic area with a very small population.
Owing to the low and erratic rainfall over most of the outback, combined with soils which are usually not very fertile, inland Australia is relatively sparsely settled. More than 90 percent of Australians live in urban areas on the coast.
Aboriginal communities in outback regions, have not been displaced as they have been, in areas of intensive agriculture and the large cities in coastal areas. So a significant proportion of the country's indigenous population lives in the Outback.
The Australian Outback is full of very well-adapted wildlife, although much of it may not be immediately visible to the casual observer. Many animals, such as kangaroos and dingoes, hide in bushes to rest and keep cool during the heat of the day.
Birdlife is prolific, most often seen at waterholes at dawn and dusk. Huge flocks of budgerigars, cockatoos, corellas and galahs are often sighted. On bare ground or roads during the winter, various species of snakes and lizards bask in the sun, but they are rarely seen during the summer months.
Feral animals such as camels thrive in central Australia, brought to Australia by the early Afghan drivers. Feral horses known as 'brumbies' are station horses that have run wild. Feral pigs, foxes, cats and rabbits are also imported animals that degrade the environment, so time and money is spent eradicating them in an attempt to help protect fragile rangelands.
Deaths from tourists and locals becoming stranded on outback trips occasionally occur, sometime because insufficient water and food supplies were taken, or because people have walked away from their vehicle in search of help. Travellers through very remote areas should always inform a reliable person of their route and expected destination arrival time, and remember that a vehicle is much easier to locate in an aerial search, than a person, so in the event of a breakdown, they must not leave their vehicle.
The outback is criss-crossed by historic tracks. Most of the highways have bitumen surfaces and other major roads are usually well-maintained dirt roads. Flash flooding occurs during the wet season and some roads are impassable. Tracks in very sandy or exceedingly rocky areas may require high-clearance four wheel drives and spare fuel, tyres, food and water before attempting to travel them,
A trip to the outback isn’t complete without sharing a few yarns with a local or two in a famous Aussie pub. “Grub” is outback for food - the outback is famous for sizzling steaks and great bush barbeques.
Outback Australia is action packed with festivals, rodeos, musters, country music events, racing, fishing and much more!
