In 1981 John Blay was awarded the Parks Writers Award. It started a life-long investigation of south-eastern Australia's forests. Accompanied only by a fickle Zachary B. de Mule he set out on foot through the crazy escarpment country of Deua and Wadbilliga National Parks, walking all the way from Araluen to Bemboka. His researches and travels in the region have continued over the years, resulting in Back Country Trek through the Deua and Wadbilliga, a much-revised and updated exploration of the most extremely rugged parts of the south-eastern ranges.By the author of On Track: searching out the Bundian Way, Back Country is the first part of a south east forests trilogy that brings to light the deeper, timeless back country values. His ongoing pilgrimage through the mysteries of the region's natural history has stood the test of time."The wilder-ness, not areas designed to deny the old Aboriginal Country, but rather those where it is most evident, without the intrusion of roads and houses and highways and fences. Places owned by nobody, by everybody. The old lands. The wild country, where you experience that sense of the ancient Australia. I needed to open myself to it again. I was being called back..."