Share
Clip description
The Carnarvon Gorge has a very special appeal to contemporary visitors like John Marr, who is leading this expedition of mostly amateurs through the gorge. There’s a sense that the place meant something special for the Aborigines who had a burial site there before they were dispersed, soon after white settlers began to take over the land.
Curator’s notes
This clip is a good example of why Weekend Magazine was important. It is a beautifully-shot piece about a then relatively unknown part of Australia. The technique of using John Marr speaking to an engrossed group of visitors in the middle of the Gorge personalises it extremely effectively.
Weekend Magazine put ecology on the map in Australia. Any trawl through its archive reveals story after story about preserving the fragile landscape of Australia, with its unique flora and fauna. Each of the stories was produced by one of the ABC’s band of journalists across the country and the world. They all relished the opportunity to produce in the documentary form as a change from the daily grind of short news stories.
The program was broadcast every Sunday night for 29 years, beginning with the very first year of television in Australia 1956. Some of those connected with the series over the years were long-serving producers Ivan Chapman, Rex Clayton and Jim Revitt. When the program was axed in 1985, Rex Clayton, who’d worked with the program since the 1960s, resigned from the ABC.
