RANKIN PUBLISHERS   Robert Rankin's Home Page     Email  info@rankin.com.au    Ph.  (07) 3376 9115
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ABOUT ROBERT RANKIN

ROBERT RANKIN produced Australia's first Wilderness of Australia Calendar way back in 1983. Currently he is working on next year's edition as part of a range of related wilderness products which have been available now throughout Australia for more than a quarter of a century.

Robert Rankin's interest in things wild began in the 1970s with trips to remote areas like Hinchinbrook Island, South West Tasmania and even the New Zealand Alps whilst he was studying science at University of Queensland. For some time, rockclimbing became a passion. Then, after a stint as producer of education programs with the ABC, he decided in 1980 it was time to launch his own business dedicated to the production of high quality media products relating exclusively to Australia's wilderness. At the time there was a distinct lack of quality products depicting Australia's wildest regions and in fact few people had even heard of many of the regions like Kakadu, the Bungle Bungles, the Franklin River and Hinchinbrook. For sure there were publications showing the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains or Ayer's Rock in central Australia but few realised this country had many more natural and spectacular scenic icons on offer.

Robert became dedicated to capturing the essential essence of Australia's wilderness on film-but not the usual clichéd depictions of well-known regions. Instead he spent many weeks walking into the most remote corners of this continent in an attempt to produce pictures of places few people had ever seen. His first calendar for 1981 depicted natural landscapes around south-east Queensland where Robert lived and this was snapped up so quickly that, for the next year, it was expanded to encompass all of Queensland. Subsequently, the success of this product led to the creation of the first Wilderness of Australia Calendar for 1983 and the product has enjoyed continuous publication to the present day.

Throughout the 1980s, interest in Australia's wilderness accelerated phenomenally as concerns regarding the safe future of such pristine wildernesses as the Franklin River and the Daintree rainforests became foremost in the nation's collective mind. Robert's Classic Wild Walks of Australia casebound book provided information so that all could go and visit the best remote areas of Australia. It became so popular that now it is into its fourth edition and includes a CD-ROM which provides extensive additional information.

The publication of his latest book Beyond the Horizon was motivated by Robert's other great passion-running. Having participated in runs as long as a marathon, he decided to apply his running skills and fitness to traversing large tracts of wilderness, challenging himself to traverse as much as he could in a single day. As such, he uncovered some superb single day mountain challenges right here in Australia that any fit and motivated individual can complete. This book provides the inspiration for such challenges.

Today, the theme of Australia's wilderness pervades all of Robert's products-DVDs, software, books, prints, music CDs, calendars, diaries and cards. In fact Rankin Publishers is one of very few photographic publishing houses which dedicates itself to a single photographic theme and as such we have become specialists in the field of Australian wilderness landscape photography.