Back Roads (2015)
Heather Ewart swaps reporting from political corridors of power to a new beat around the bush. Along the way she visits remote towns and regions to discover some of this country's most remarkable and inspiring communities.
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Episode 1 - Waterfall Way
Release Date: 2018-06-11Heather Ewart travels to Waterfall Way in NSW, one of the most beautiful drives in Australia. But it's not just the scenery that's spectacular, Heather meets some wonderful locals including celebrated pianist, David Helfgott.
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Episode 2 - Murray River, SA
Release Date: 2018-06-17Heather Ewart travels along the southern Murray River. She meets locals who've weathered drought & flood. She experiences many shades of the river from its bountiful Riverland to the spectacular limestone cliffs of Big Bend.
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Episode 3 - Natimuk
Release Date: 2018-06-24Guest presenter Paul West visits the small, yet spectacular, town of Natimuk in Victoria. Paul discovers that two worlds have collided in Natimuk, where the community is a mix of rock climbers and German-Lutheran farmers.
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Episode 4 - Scottdsdale
Release Date: 2018-07-02Heather visits Scottsdale in Tasmania's north-east. After losing three major industries, the area's unemployment figures doubled. With the only options to move or innovate, locals started creating new jobs.
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Episode 5 - Thallon
Release Date: 2018-07-09ABC News presenter Joe O'Brien visits the tiny Queensland town of Thallon. Joe grew up in regional Queensland, and he gladly leaves the studio behind to head into the outback.
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Episode 6 - Robinvale
Release Date: 2018-07-16Heather Ewart visits Robinvale, in Victoria, which was named after a local soldier, Lieutenant George 'Robin' Cuttle, who was killed at the Somme during the First World War, near the town of Villers-Bretonneux in France.
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Episode 7 - Tiwi Islands
Release Date: 2018-07-23Guest presenter and triple j newsreader Brooke Boney is taking over the Back Roads reins this week, travelling to the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin.
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Episode 8 - Nyngan
Release Date: 2018-07-30In the midseason final, Heather Ewart travels to the surprising little town of Nyngan. The gateway to the outback in NSW, this isolated spot on the Bogan River, Nyngan locals are changing the lives of others.
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Episode 9 - The Greengrocer
Release Date: 2018-12-03Heather Ewart is on a road trip in Queensland with a much-loved travelling greengrocer. For 30 years, Fari Rameshfar has travelled through droughts, cyclones and floods to deliver fresh food to people living in isolation.
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Episode 10 - Lightning Ridge
Release Date: 2018-12-10Heather Ewart heads to the NSW outback town of Lightning Ridge, a place of dreamers and drifters, with most residents lured by the black opals. Heather discovers the many stories of Lightning Ridge's outback grit.
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Episode 11 - Furneaux Islands
Release Date: 2018-12-17Guest presenter Paul West visits the Furneaux Islands, a wild and windswept group of islands in Bass Strait, just off Tasmania. The cold ocean waters are full of treasures like lobsters and abalone, plus rusted shipwrecks.
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Episode 12 - Beaufort
Release Date: 2019-01-14Heather Ewart travels to the historic Victorian town of Beaufort, which is halfway between the two 'rats' - Ararat and Ballarat. 160 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, it's a place where old and new collide.
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Episode 13 - Marble Bar
Release Date: 2019-01-21Back Roads travels to Marble Bar, known as the hottest place in Australia. Singer-songwriter and ABC Radio's Saturday Night Country presenter Felicity Urquhart takes the wheel as we visit red-dirt country in the Pilbara, WA.
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Episode 14 - The Coorong
Release Date: 2019-01-28Heather Ewart visits The Coorong, an area spanning 130kms of South Australian coastline. It's a stunning mosaic of wild ocean beaches, lagoons and wetlands, but in many ways it's become the forgotten end of the Murray River.
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Episode 15 - Finke
Release Date: 2019-02-04ABC's Joe O'Brien visits the remote Northern Territory community of Finke, traditionally known as Aputula and famous for the Finke Desert Race, a 460 kilometre off-road endurance rally, one of the toughest in the world.
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Episode 16 - Windorah
Release Date: 2019-02-11Heather Ewart visits the small town of Windorah in Queensland's Channel country between Longreach and Birdsville. Many people live there because they love the splendid isolation, but it comes with a price.