Undiscovered Australia.

Going Down Under Is an Antidote to Crowded Cities and Vanishing Nature

Even the most remote trails in Nepal are littered with bright orange Kodak film boxes and granola bar wrappers. So what's a solitude-loving ecotourist to do? The best bet these days is to buy a ticket to Australia, where the population density is among the lowest in the world and the Outback offers thousands of square miles of untrammeled wilderness.

Australia is almost as big as the United States, but it has less than a 10th of the population (only 17 million people in 1995). While the U.S. has a increasingly uncomfortable population density of 69 per square mile, Australia gives everyone his or her "space" with a mere six. Even these numbers are deceiving, because this former prison colony's population is overwhelmingly urban. It is a country of bustling coastal cities - and an interior of widely scattered ranches and tiny towns.

Like the U.S., Australia offers dramatic contrasts in climate, ecology, plant and animal life. A recent tour sponsored by the Australian Tourist Commission took in some of the more remote corners of the country, which are trying to build their economies through carefully controlled ecotourism. At present, visitors from the U.S. make up only 10 percent of the national tourist base, and the commission obviously wants Americans to make the long trek across the Pacific.

Shark Bay is a pristine corner of Western Australia that is one of 11 World Heritage-listed sites in the country. The bay certainly lives up to its name: Flying over in a small plane, visitors can see not only sharks, but also dolphins, sea turtles and dugongs (similar to American manatees) in the shallow waters.

The region, 400 miles north of Perth, at Australia's westernmost point, is still very sparsely populated. The whole Peron Peninsula, which is about 50 miles long and contains most of the 15,000-square-mile bay's "population centers," has only 700 people (and 550 of them are in the little town of Denham). Shark Bay's chief tourist attraction is the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, which is on international travel maps because of its friendly and accommodating wild bottlenose dolphins, who visit daily for a ration of fish.

The dolphins first started coming to the beach in the early 60s, a rare behavior for the species which, according to visiting biologist Dr. Richard Connor of the University of Michigan, have very complex interpersonal relations. Noting that dolphins form coalitions and frequently make and break alliances, Connor said, "They're constantly re-negotiating their social dynamics. Visiting the beach is probably only a very small part of their lives; their real world is out there. They're extraordinary, very intelligent animals."

Shark Bay has many other attractions. Visitors can see the unique and captivating Shell Beach, where the "sand" is made of trillions of tiny bivalves, or go to the very salty Hamelin Pool nearby and see the stromatolites. They're not much to look at - like mushroom-capped larval rocks - but the microscopic organisms that create them are among the oldest life forms on the planet, dating back 3.5 billion years.

Heading North

Discovery Ecotours takes campers and bushwalkers into the rugged countryside around Kakadu, in Northern Australia, home to Australia's largest aboriginal population. There are well-presented campsites at Gunlom Falls in the southern end of the vast Kakadu National Park, the country's largest. The falls tumble down from a billion-year-old escarpment that was once a sea cliff. A climb to the top reveals clear, deep pools scooped out of the rock. The park also has magnificent aboriginal art, some of it 25,000 years old. The view from the art-festooned Ubirr Rock, taking in all of the aboriginal Arnhemland to the east and the tidal flats of Van Diemen Gulf in the north, is unparalleled. Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan) used the scenery as background for his exploits.

To visit Arnhemland, tourists need permits from the aboriginal councils, and numbers are strictly controlled. But it's worth the red tape to spend time at Max Davidson's Arnhemland Safaris, a charming tented base camp that's a jarring Land Rover ride away from the local dirt airstrip (and 155 miles from the small territory capital, Darwin). Davidson wrestled crocodiles in his youth, but is now content to discover new rock art finds, point out the roving families of wild pigs, and take boaters onto the almost unexplored billabongs (lakes), which are incredible birders' paradises.

Brian Rooke and Phyllis Williams, both of aboriginal descent, run Umorrduk Safaris, the other tourist camp in Arnemland. The tourist operations "don't give the aboriginals much material benefit," says Williams, "but our visitors go away with a much better understanding of the native Australian people, their culture, their art, and the bush itself."

Australia is far too vast and varied to quickly summarize, but it's definitely worth the time, cost and hassle of getting there. Just don't expect to see everything in a week.

CONTACTS: Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, 262 Stirling Highway, P.O. Box 140, Claremont, Western Australia 6010/[phone] (prices range from $6 a night for tent sites to $120 a night for motel-style villas); Outer Edge Expeditions, 45500 Pontiac Trail, Ste. C, Walled Lake, MI 48390/[phone]; Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, P.O. Box 33008, Austin, TX 78764/[phone].