Out there, there’s no such thing as flat land. “I was walking 12 hours a day and sometimes I had nothing other than the flour to keep me going. Instead, she supplemented her diet with a ration of 100 grams of flour each day. But undertaking her mission in a drought meant that Sarah wasn’t able to rely on foraging to the degree she would have liked. On one hand it provides for those who have the knowledge, but one mistake and it will get you.”įor the most part, Sarah employed her expanding knowledge of bush tucker in order to find and prepare roots and grubs, or risking crocodile attack to catch catfish and black bream whenever the chance presented itself. “The more time I spend in the bush, the more I realise how harsh and unforgiving it can be, while still giving so much.

I always wondered about the way they survived off the land for 60,000 years. “After learning so much about this country, I’ve developed this deep respect for the traditional owners. Twenty-three years after her first taste of Australia, Sarah set out on what she describes as her most gruelling expedition yet: a three-month quest to live off the land in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, covering around 800 kilometres in the process. All told, she walked some 14,000 kilometres over the course of that journey, roughly circumnavigating Australia’s harsh interior.

In 2002, she embarked upon a 17-month journey that took her from Alice Springs eastward to the Great Dividing Range, then south to South Australia, across to Western Australia before eventually returning to Alice Springs via the Canning stock route. Since that day, Sarah has returned to Australia many times, learning more and more about the country and its inhabitants with each visit. Without a word of English, she stepped off the plane in Cairns and immediately felt a deep connection with the Australian landscape. Sarah Marquis first visited Australia as a backpacker in her twenties. Catching black bream makes for a nutritious meal, but also requires keeping an eye out for crocodiles.

Wild by nature by sarah marquis