Photography e-Book Review: Brian Rope
Wandering in Australia – the
journey begins | Pele Leung
Publisher: Pele Leung
Photography
Chinese Edition first published
2018
English Edition translated by
DeepSeek AI in 2025
Pele Leung has travelled extensively in Australia chasing images and interesting travel stories. He considers writing to be one of the best ways to complement his photography.
I’m not able to assess how well DeepSeek AI has translated the Chinese words in the book. However, the English looks fine and is very readable. By way of illustration I share the opening words, which are overlaid on the sky area of a double-page landscape:
I greet the dawn with sunlit hands,
Through endless blue my voice expands.
The crescent moon, a silent string,
Stars pluck its notes to hear me sing.
Alone I walk where pathways end,
The wind just hums-‘Press on my friend.’
Yet every mile sings you belong-
The road just grins and leads me on.
This volume runs to 638 pages. I
haven’t counted them, but the vast majority of pages show at least one image. However,
this is not simply a book of wonderful photos. Words also tell numerous stories
about different and interesting experiences whilst wandering and gathering
images. We learn about the author’s philosophical reasons for wandering, his
“driven passion” for photography, and the highs and lows of his travels on five
journeys covering nearly 70,000 Km.
His first wanderings took him around Tasmania in 2003. For Leung, the most unforgettable part was trekking into the remote Walls of Jerusalem National Park. Poor preparation, plummeting temperatures and snow, and his first encounter with “the humbling power of nature” was the beginning of the adventures covered in this book and the second volume. A chance encounter with a family at Cradle Mountain led to a friendship continuing two decades later.
Four years later he took an eight month long 40,000 Km odyssey around Australia. Cradle Mountain was revisited. Then it was back to the mainland to head north along the coast to Sydney and Brisbane, and back to Melbourne via a different route. We read about such things as lessons learned, subterranean wonders, beaches and mountains, waterfalls - and sandflies! Trees, the Great Barrier Reef, gorges, indigenous rock art – everything adds to the visual feast.
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| Cape Conran, VIC |
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| Pambula Beach, NSW |
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| Millaa Millaa Falls, QLD |
Next, he went through the centre of the continent to Darwin, then followed the western and southern coastlines all the way back to Melbourne. We learn about Leung’s “lesson in driving”, visit the Remarkable Rocks, explore rugged terrain in the scorching days and bone-chilling nights of the desert, and observe public morality.
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| Rollercoaster |
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| Katherine Gorge, NT |
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| Bell Gorge, WA |
May 2014 saw the author head off
to Central Australia again, but also to other places not previously visited in
this book. The Grampians are very near to my first Australian home, and I spent
many happy times exploring them, with family and also in a Scout group –
including climbing to the Pinnacle Lookout. These and others of Leung’s images
reminded me of places and events in my own Australian journey.
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| Pinnacle Lookout, Grampians NP, VIC |
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| Stuart Highway, SA |
Three months later it was Melbourne to the Gold Coast and back. In 2018, he started again, retracing previous routes with fresh eyes. Stories of warmth encountered on the road, fearless fools, cheap accommodation, sharing quiet anticipation with a stranger, and countryside discoveries.
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| Cape Woolamai, VIC |
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| Lake Tyrell, VIC |
This e-Book is volume 1 of a two-volume product. The second volume Wandering in Australia – the journey continues will be reviewed separately. It also is available in both Chinese and English language versions. I’ve written about and shown you just a tiny part of this volume. You need to get hold of a copy and read all its words and photos for yourself. Both e-Book volumes can be purchased (for a most modest cost), either separately or as a bundle, on Leung’s website, peleleung.com. He is on Facebook at peleleungphotography and has videos on his YouTube channel @peleleung2688, including one about Wandering in Australia.
This review is also available on the author's blog here.