The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 5

I- A magic carpet ride over the poles with Dick Smith MOULDY DIRTY CEILINGS? Our process Bacteria REMOVES. Nicotine Grease Bacteria REMOVES. Dick Smith found everybody friendly on his round-the-world flight -except a penguin, sheila browne reports. NO MESS NO FUSS NO FURNITURE REMOVAL 1 IU h')1Vw 1 IvC 1 f-X 1 iSfeX i iicSm) itf-l I' NO MESS NO FUSS mSlf llT NO FURNITURE REMOVAL Wi 1 A vv Wr 1 I above all WL jfik 1 u4 Is'lV MR EING business is 1 Jf lllf i "Al Clean. LOOKINGUP 5Years JM I I Experience xt- mry.

$1m4 962 9619 I 9 OunfW-. FJMiMI No Obligation Quote 1 fl SVp'y'Ri i I JX; RESURFACING RESTORATION hi: RENOVATION REMODELLING I of Concrete Swimming Pools ,4 klfliUKii' -'rW '5" Over 10 years experience rg Free on site advice -hyM CALL THE PROFESSIONAL TEAM )S -'r; J0HN 997 2734 11 (J IlLU I nt.t i KtUTUnl DtHn UD II Picture by phillip lock 1) Licence Builder 41107 (I Dick Smith the world is a wonderful place. Would you like" a window seat for a joy-flight around the world? A visit to all the places you don't see on the tourist brochures the North and South poles, the Gobi Desert, the great cities and remote settlements of Asia and the Americas? That's what you get in Dick Smith's magnificent new book. Our Fantastic Planet, the personal account of this great adventurer's flight in a Twin Otter aircraft around the globe via the North and South poles. The flight in 1988-89 made history as the first circumnavigation of the world via both poles.

He sometimes calls it his "magic carpet ride" but there were moments of great fear including a near crash on an Antarctic ice floe and a terrifying landing, while running out of fuel, amid the blinding weather condition known as white-out at an Antarctic airstrip near the southern tip of South America. Smith says he reacts to such dangers like anyone else. "I'm frightened, I shake, I'm crying. I think, 'Whenever I get out of this I'll never do it again'. But within a few days you forget about it.

You think, 'It wasn't too bad'." As one would expect from the millionaire publisher of Australian Geographic, his glossy, weighty book is full of rare and spectacular photographs 360 in all taken by Smith during this seven-month journey through 1 6 countries. "People will see from the photographs that the world is a magnificent place, but there's very little wilderness left," he said. "There's a message in this book that we've got to preserve it." Smith is giving a rare interview in his glass-panelled office surrounded by bush at the Australian Geographic headquarters at Terrey Hills. A huge globe sits beside his desk. Wallabies scamper outside.

"Antarctica, to me, was this incredible wilderness and a lot of the photographs I took there were very rare," he said. "The wildlife in Antarctica is extraordinary, because it is so tame." His favourite photograph shows one example of tame wildlife a penguin on an Antarctic runway. He could not shoo it away. "I asked this penguin if it would move off the runway and it's talking to me and saying, 'get It just stood its ground. Normally, if you walked up to any bird like that it would walk away." Our Fantastic Planet is not only photographs Smith has written 40,000 words about his adventure as well.

His flight took him across Antarctica, up the west coast of South America to George Town in the Cayman Islands, through the centre of the US and Canada to. the Inuit communities of northern Canada, then the North Pole, Siberia, Mongolia, Beijing, rPLOBLEEViS? CALL BEAVER SELF STORAGE Hong Kong, over the South China Sea to Brunei, Borneo and Indonesia, then to Darwin, Alice Springs and back to Sydney. He was struck by the air pollution worldwide and said it obliterated the stars everywhere he went, with the exception of Central Australia. "There was tremendous pollution and tremendous poverty and tremendous contrasts. When you go around the world vertically, you see the full range of seasons." The former Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, personally gave Smith permission to fly through Siberia, where he and his crew were treated like heroes by exuberant locals in the heady grip of glasnost and perestroika.

"We thought we would be restricted in photography in the Soviet Union but they said, 'No, take any photos you want'. I'd worked out a route from a Reader's Digest atlas and they said, 'Yeh, that's OK. Do you want to go anywhere It was fantastic." In China, Smith was caught up in equally tumultuous times, landing in Beijing the day martial law was declared in 1989 and shortly before the student killings in Tiananmen Square. A large part of the journey and the book was devoted to Antarctica. The first leg of the trip marked the first direct flight from Australia to the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Smith found people friendly everywhere. "People are always like that if you're friendly to them. You just have a smile on your face." He was never bored. "You're flying and photographing, and you're so busy. The world is not boring, it's magnificent." Smith, 47, was born in Roseville Chase and has lived on the North Shore all his life.

He has always loved the bush, the scouts and radio. He started Dick Smith Electronics with $61 0 at the age of 22. Within 1 2 years he had a turnover of $50 million, 500 employees and 50 stores, whereupon he sold the company and used some of the proceeds to launch Australian Geographic, a successful quarterly now with 200,000 subscribers. In 1983 he was the first to fly a helicopter solo around the world, and in 1987, on his third attempt, the first to reach the North Pole by helicopter. Smith has lived in Terrey Hills for 12 years with his wife Pip, who has played an active role in many of his adventures, and their two daughters.

Why does he love adventure? "I don't like a predictable life. I need to be attempting something where I don't know what the results are going to be. And I do it for purely selfish reasons. I like to extend my own boundaries and see the world." Our Fantastic Planet, by Dick Smith, published by Viking in association with Australian Geographic, $65. i i i i mm V1 a i frjf tutor fam-JT -f jf FECIAL THE ion miw WHITE ENGLISH COFFEEPOTS $7.50 BUY MM FOB BOHEMIA CRYSTAL, WOOD SONS ENGLISH BLUE WILLOW, VISLA POLISH GLASSWARE, GERMAN WALTHER GLASS PH0T0FRAMES, POTPOURRI BOWLS, GIFT BAGS WRAP, C00KWARE, WILTSHIRE CARVING, KITCHEN, UTILITY PARING KNIFE, 24 PCE CUTLERY SETS, BBQ MATE TONGS, WORKS, STEAMERS, 17 PCE CHINESE DINNER SETS, NAPKIN HOLDERS, WINE RACKS, COOKBOOK HOLDERS, XMAS TINS, STAINLESS STEEL SAUCEPANS, ENGLISH MUGS TEAPOTS, FIGURINES, GAMES PUZZLES MUCH MORE.

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