My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to fly to Melbourne alone, pick up a rental car, drive north out of the city for an hour-and-a-half, then find several places off the beaten track where I would be buffed and pampered to my heart's content.

Jill Worrall goes behind locked doors to tour an Aussie prison.

Tibooburra is about as remote as Australia gets, says Sally Hammond.

The Birdsville Races are one of those quintessential, quirky, outback events involving horses in which the actual races are kind of incidental to the rest of the fun.