Yearning to get away from it all to a place where life is simple and straightforward, pretty much unchanged by time and outside influences? The solution may be much closer than you think: the wild lands of Australia’s final frontier, the remote Dampier Peninsula in the country’s far north-west, 200 kilometres north of Broome. This is a totally unspoiled universe of ochre-red cliffs, pristine white-sand beaches, clear turquoise waters, starry starry nights and welcoming Indigenous communities. It’s also home to all manner of wildlife, from giant barramundi to monster mud crabs, from great basks of crocodiles to a breathtaking variety of birds, including the rare Gouldian finch, as well as 130-million-year-old dinosaur tracks.
“It really is an incredible place and most Australians don’t seem to know it at all,” says Brit Nick Stride* who, with his family, fled here and hid out for over three years – undiscovered – after he was targeted by the Kremlin after leaking Russian secrets. “For us, it was a question of survival but for anyone going there properly equipped for a holiday, it would be simply amazing. We saw so many astonishing sights, had so many extraordinary experiences and learnt so much from the local communities, it really changed our lives.
I can’t wait to go back one day, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others.” Stride, who now lives in New Zealand, describes his family’s life on the peninsula in a new book, Run For Your Life , i.
