'We were completely unprepared for the magnificence of the gallery suddenly revealed. A shiver ran up my spine as I saw for the first time the great white Wandjina spirit figures, two and three times larger than human scale.' So begins Tim Bowden's fascination with rarely seen Aboriginal rock art, a major theme in this most recent book detailing the Bowdens' continuing love affair with Australia.

On their latest journey Tim and Ros Bowden explore the Kimberley by land and sea, where dramatic twelve-metre tides guard coastal locations unchanged by time - still as 17th century buccaneer William Dampier first described them. For three months, Tim and Ros and their trusty four-wheel-drive, Penelope, travelled from the improbably sculptured Bungle Bungles to the Pilbara and the wildflower-filled Mid West.

Bowden's enthusiasm for history is infectious and this book is peppered with great stories of present and past, ill-fated settlements and expeditions, tragic tourist deaths and the grandeur of Australia's intriguing, spectacular north-west.