Refugees

Australia’s First Explorers

By: Steve Challis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A desperate journey

66,000 years ago, the tiny Dolphin Clan is forced off the island that they had discovered and settled by their "friends", the much bigger Shark Clan. After a long and dangerous sea crossing, they reach the island they had seen in the distance, only to discover that it was tiny and had no fresh water.

From the top of a coconut palm, the eleven-year-old Maka sees what he thinks is a larger island in the misty distance. He is unaware that he is the first person in the history of the world to see the continent of Australia. Is it paradise, or the most dangerous place on Earth, or could it be both?

The tiny band, with only two hunters, four women and their children try to survive in Australia with its mega fauna intact.

Amidst beauty and bounty lurk dangers unknown, like the Giant Roamer, the biggest land reptile since the dinosaurs. Every tree could contain a Thylacoleo, one of the most dangerous mammalian predators to have ever existed.

The people kill animals for food, not for sport and kill without rancor, respecting their prey as living things like themselves. They also know that every time they venture out from the cave could be their last. These people were humans like ourselves, with the same sort of hopes, loves and fears as us. They have the same propensity to appreciate beauty and each other as we do.