From the Australian Geographic websites About Us page:

“In 1986, Australian adventurer and world-record setting pilot, entrepreneur Dick Smith, established the quarterly journal AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC as a way of showing Australia in a positive light as an unmistakable, unique place in the world, with its amazing plants and animals not found anywhere else on earth.”

Since 1986, Australian Geographic has gone from strength-to-strength and is without a doubt the best resource of its kind in Australia. Originally it was all about joining the society, buying the magazine and visiting the store’s…in the last few years a number of other services have been offered, such as; DVD’s and travel info, event listings, lectures, expeditions & workshops and project sponsorship.

All in all its pretty good value, as $100 gets you a two year magazine subscription and also two years of society membership as well…so I guess I should really get around to re-subscribing instead of buying the magazine when it comes out…what are you waiting for? ;)

After a fair bit of searching on the web, the closest club that meets my needs that i have been able to find is the Victorian Mountain Tramping Club which has been around since 1948 and was involved in the setting up of the police search and rescue squad back in 1955. They have weekly meetings in East Melbourne every Thursday night so i thought i should pop down and check them out face-to-face.

There were only four people at the meeting last night as a lot of  members were away doing walks, but i got a good feel for the group and their activities and they certainly do fit my requirements . I’ll keep an eye out over the next month for their new walk schedule and try and lock a few in, as you need to do four walks in the space of  six months to become a full member.