Australia, The Time Traveller's Guide

2012 • Australian Broadcasting Corporation

5.0

3 reviews

Rating

Eligible

Season 1 episodes (4)

1 The Early Days

3/24/12

Starting in the west, we head all the way back into the deepest past. This is where the Australian continent comes into its' own. The landscape here holds clues to the mysteries of when the Earth was born, how life first arose, and how it transformed the planet into the pleasant world we now live on. It's in Australia that some of the first complex animals the enigmatic Ediacarans - began to explore the shoreline. We end the episode with the ocean brimming with life and the stage set for conquest of the land. Our journey aboard this amazing walkabout continent has begun.

2 The First Steps

4/1/12

It's in Silurian Australia that our host meets Planet Earth's forgotten pioneers: the Arthropod armies that invaded the shores, and the first green revolutionaries whose race for the sun pushed plant-life onto the face of a barren world. We follow the rise and rise of fish and the emergence of four-legged animals onto the land.

3 The Wild Years

4/8/12

After navigating the perils of the Permian, we arrive in the Mesozoic
in time for the Age of Dinosaurs, Down Under. New discoveries reveal a southern landscape ruled with a reptilian rod: dinosaurs stomped on the west, stampeded in the east and shivered in the south. Some were among the largest dinosaurs to have walked the planet. In the today's desert heart we plunge into an ancient inland sea, full of monsters. But reptiles didn't have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their moment in the sun.

4 The Big Island

4/15/12

The final episode sees us racing down the last 65 million years to the present. In the wake of catastrophe, Australia sets off on a lonely voyage in southern seas. This is a story of calamity and conquest - how a conspiracy of climate, biology and geology shaped the land that human's now call home. Taking the long view back allows us to look more clearly forward as our island home rafts steadily northwards and into the storm clouds of change.

About this show

Of all continents on Earth, none preserve the story of the formation of our planet and the evolution of life quite like Australia. Nowhere else can you simply jump in a car and travel back through the entire history of the world. ‘Australia: The Time Traveller’s Guide’ takes you on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. Buckle up for a rocky ride down the Road of Time with series host Dr Richard Smith. Over four one-hour episodes, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and exploding asteroids. Epic in scope, intimate in nature, this is the untold story of the land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all.

Ratings and reviews

5.0

3 reviews

Joshua James

February 21, 2021

Such a fascinating history - very well done

Great Gaming

November 26, 2015

Absoloutly loved it

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